So in my engineering ethics class yesterday we had a presentation about
globalization or, more correctly about
anti-globalization. It is an interesting subject, full of all those subtleties and intricacies and things...
Mostly I just want to comment on the thought process behind boycotting a company or corporation etc.
the problem: Some corporations are abusing the lack of laws in developing countries and running sweat shops and lots of other shady dealings that infringe on human rights. This is bad...
So usually the solution, proposed by those of us who aren't overcome with apathy, is "boycott these companies". "don't buy from them, and they will have to change". I don't really think this reasoning is wrong, but often they skip a step when they come up with "boycott" and that really bugs me.
I think the whole thought process looks something like this: corporations are behaving poorly, we need to put some kind of pressure on them to change, the most available form of pressure to your average people not in decision making positions is the choice not to buy from them, so we'll boycott.
The thing is, these corporations are still providing that $1.75 a day to Joe sweats-a-lot in the production line, and that is still $1.75 more than he had before. He has a job, admittedly a terrible one. The conditions are abysmal, but he is not still slightly better off now than when he didn't have that $1.75?
I'm not trying to say "see... corporations aren't all bad". Because the truth is a lot of the shit they do is 100% unacceptable. What I am saying is I want to see people acknowledge that we are boycotting to put pressure on the corporation to change, and if we found a better way to pressure these companies into improving the working conditions we would.
I mean, say your boycott works 100%. nobody shops at their stores anymore. The company goes out of business, and now, on top of all the people in North America who can't work for them anymore, the poor guy in the developing country now has even less than he had before.
All I'm saying is I think it's important to think about the rational behind boycotting. On the other hand, you should probably take my advice with a grain of salt. It's the gung-ho ideologues who like to boycott things. I'm way to apathetic.
