In the wake of ICE violence, enthusiasm for a general strike is soaring. But does the United States working class have the infrastructure to support a protracted and meaningful strike?
You brought up some of the success of strikes in the past, and those impact the supply-side of the economic equation. To my mind (and I haven't thought about this nearly as much), a boycott could create the same disruption but on the demand side of the equation. It also feels far more tractable to boycott than strike, because in the short term employees retain their benefits and pay while companies (potentially/hopefully) struggle to sell. Even something like a one-week boycott of social media (could be targeted at a specific company e.g. all meta products and/or tiktok) would I think help to show these larger companies that they are in-fact reliant still reliant on the consumer and might remind a e.g. Zuck that its' not just daddy Trump he has to appease but also the populace.
A boycott also feels a bit more 21st century in that the US is not the manufacturing titan it once was, but our consumption is higher than ever. Maybe I am missing something significant in the dynamics of how a strike or boycott impact a company or public perception, but I just wanted to share my response to the article and get your thoughts.
I think you certainly raise some great points, and the idea that a boycott better fits our more consumer-oriented economy certainly tracks. In the 90s, consumer boycotts were integral in pressuring the US government to adopt a policy oppositional to the practice of apartheid in South Africa, and of course, extensive boycott campaigns exist in the context of the Palestinian issue. One of the biggest challenges one could foresee on that front is that the companies aiding and abetting DHS tend to either be pervasive digital monopolies, or they exist exclusively in the domain of offering services to the government (like Palantir). But an organized boycott campaign is certainly something to consider.
You brought up some of the success of strikes in the past, and those impact the supply-side of the economic equation. To my mind (and I haven't thought about this nearly as much), a boycott could create the same disruption but on the demand side of the equation. It also feels far more tractable to boycott than strike, because in the short term employees retain their benefits and pay while companies (potentially/hopefully) struggle to sell. Even something like a one-week boycott of social media (could be targeted at a specific company e.g. all meta products and/or tiktok) would I think help to show these larger companies that they are in-fact reliant still reliant on the consumer and might remind a e.g. Zuck that its' not just daddy Trump he has to appease but also the populace.
A boycott also feels a bit more 21st century in that the US is not the manufacturing titan it once was, but our consumption is higher than ever. Maybe I am missing something significant in the dynamics of how a strike or boycott impact a company or public perception, but I just wanted to share my response to the article and get your thoughts.
I think you certainly raise some great points, and the idea that a boycott better fits our more consumer-oriented economy certainly tracks. In the 90s, consumer boycotts were integral in pressuring the US government to adopt a policy oppositional to the practice of apartheid in South Africa, and of course, extensive boycott campaigns exist in the context of the Palestinian issue. One of the biggest challenges one could foresee on that front is that the companies aiding and abetting DHS tend to either be pervasive digital monopolies, or they exist exclusively in the domain of offering services to the government (like Palantir). But an organized boycott campaign is certainly something to consider.