this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Consumer activism, by itself, has rarely, if ever, accomplished anything.
The best recent examble was Tesla, but that wasn't a mere non-buying action. Tesla action involved vandalism and a massive word of mouth campaign.
Basically if we want to fight for a future we believe in, we must stop playing patty cakes and fight like it's a life and death struggle.
Symbolic resistance is not enough.
Don't get me wrong, I still avoid buying Nestle products, and have for years, but I know this is not the way to real change.
I want us to stop suggesting consumer activism as a valid pathway to change.
Consumer activism kills businesses and products regularly. We call it 'trends'.
But manufacturing a boycott for long enough to work is almost certainly going to fail. But like you say, it has a role to play, just not by itself. It must be an action used with precision as part of a larger strategy. We have plenty of tools, but nobody puts them together. It's always an isolated boycott that flairs up and inevitably fades away. The company just waits it out. We also can't boycott necessities, and that's where they really get us. Consumer activism doesn't work all in those cases.