Boycotts: Good and Bad

I recently voiced (via facebook) my skepticism about boycotts, due to the fact that the victim of them is often the poor innocent worker. From what I gather, this could especially be true in the case of the Arizona boycott that seems to be so hot right now. The boycott will hardly affect the politicians who passed the law, but rather will hurt poor Hispanic workers, for example, in the food and hotel businesses. Aren't these precisely the people that boycotters presumably care about?

In response, I was called out for an apparent inconsistency. Shortly before this, in a discussion about the right of private business owners to discriminate (see my previous post for some of my thoughts), I had mentioned that boycotts are a wonderful way for the voluntary (i.e. private) sector to combat discrimination. So, it seemed that in voicing my skepticism about boycotts in the case of Arizona, I was taking back what I said about them in the case of discrimination. This perhaps even suggests that minorities ought not to boycott a discriminating business for fear of hurting the little guy who works there.

This was a good point. I was wrong to voice simple skepticism about boycotts, and probably should have said something more to the effect that I have mixed feelings. More specifically, it would really depend on the specifics of the case. My different stance on boycotts in the two different cases is probably a bit worth explaining a bit further.

In the Arizona case, the boycott is very indiscriminate. It seems to be saying: boycott the whole state. Now, this could have the undesirable unintended consequences I mentioned above. If sufficient economic damage is done to, say, the hotel industry, it's probably not the guys on top who are going to lose their jobs. it is the poor Hispanics that boycotters presumably care about who will be hurt. And even to the extent that it does hurt those guys on top, they probably don't deserve it either. They didn't pass the law, did they?

One response to this is that the message may still get to those who are responsible for the law. Suffering businesses will lobby the government, and those in government will see how their constituents are being hurt. They will then repeal the law. Representative government in action baby!

Call me a skeptic about government, but I don't find this very likely to happen. And, even if it were, hurting innocents in order to achieve this end is morally questionable.

How about pro-stance on boycotting racist/discriminating businesses? When we're talking about, say, a single identifiable restaurant with racist policies, I would say that those victimized (and even those not victimized) by the racist policy should boycott the restaurant. Unlike some random innocent hotel in Arizona, it is clear that the world would be a better place if this restaurant did not exist. And, again, unlike the Arizona boycott (as it has been proposed), in the case of the restaurant we are isolating and attacking only the responsible business. There don't seem to be innocents victimized in order to launch this attack.

Someone might point out to the contrary that poor people working in the restaurant will be hurt. But are they truly innocent? It's not far-fetched to think that when you take a job working for a racist restaurant, you are now taking a part in the racist practices, and deserve to suffer the consequences of doing so.

Even further, in such a case, the response to the restaurant probably will not even completely take the form of a boycott. Rather, it will look more like an instance of the market punishing bad practices. Most people don't like racism, and they don't wanna give their money to a racist business, and so will go to another better non-racist business. It's not necessarily a conscious and widespread decision to boycott that will punish the restaurant. Rather, it will be many individual decisions made, on the margin, to patronize another restaurant. And these marginal decisions will be possible, so long as there are no barriers to entry for a non-racist alternative to open up shop. (The market in action baby!)

The moral of the story: Boycotts are non-coercive solutions, and thus legitimate alternatives to coercive government solutions. However, since they're sometimes more effective than others, and since they sometimes hurt the wrong people, it's best to judge them on more of a case-by-case basis.