Boycott

History

In the beginning, the boycott is the choice not to buy products whose conditions of production are not considered to be right. The origin of the term comes from the name of Charles Cunningham Boycott (1832 - 1897), rich landowner of the Ireland of the west (Comté of Mayo) during the 19th century which treated its farmers badly and undergoes a blockade of their share. The word boycotting made its entry in France in 1881, then became boycott recently, as in the French-speaking rest of the world, because of the redundancy of the suffix.

Very many boycotts were applied in the history and had sometimes very important consequences. The calls to the boycotts is not only reductions in sale, it is the attack of what is most important for the companies, their brand image.

Interest and disadvantages

The weakness and the force of the boycott rest on the communication, field where the companies excel (in the majority of the cases, boycotted are companies). It is sometimes reproached the boycott for reinforcing the capacity of the Consommateur compared to the capacity the Citoyen and thus for being a tool with final of economic domination; this vision, others answer that these capacities are not opposed but are complementary.

The phenomenon of the boycott increases because of evolution of the consciences and the new facilities of communication. Up to now, one reassured oneself by thinking that it was only about one Anglo-Saxon reflex. But the Consom' action - the fact of wanting to consume way citizen and either only of manner consumerist - does not know any more borders since the economy and the access to information were mondialisés. Thanks to Internet, sensitized consumers with certain causes can from now on connect and share the same watchword vis-a-vis the same mark and this, from one end to another of the sphere. That is checked in the United States, where the boycott belongs to the economic culture but also in Asia, where this phenomenon knows much success and even in France, where 70% of the consumers are said ready to take part in boycott campaigns.

The boycott is a mode of protest which corresponds perfectly to the basic tendencies of our current society: interdependent individualist but. The face-to-face discussion Trade union/Patronat makes place with a face-to-face discussion Consom' actor S/Multinationales. The “Consom' actor S” are citizens who use their purchasing power as the ultimate weapon citizen to compensate for their impotence as voters. The multinationals are expanding. However they are, by definition, less obligations with the countervailing power of the policy and the elected officials of a country, therefore also with that their voters. In the absence of effective vote, the citizens then use their only another means of exerting a countervailing power: the boycott or blackmail with the not-purchase.

Essentially, the trade unions always logically scorned the boycott like mode of action. Accustomed to negotiate by the means of an internal arm wrestling, they compare the boycott to a “demagogic” weapon which puts in danger the sales and thus weakens still more their position. From this point of view, they are actually exceeded by a new generation of activists, recipient of the movement Altermondialiste, for which the boycott is on the contrary an average ideal to make pressure on the multinationals. This going beyond of a militant culture by another was particularly obvious at the time of the Danone business.

The boycott is a phenomenon which the companies cannot be unaware of, under penalty of being penalized about it. It is the law of supply and. How to be unaware of a collective of citizens which challenges you by the means of the request? A call to the boycott has much more impact than it is believed. It can be the water drop which definitively will destabilize a market if it is already in difficulty.

The boycott can on the occasion function in the other direction: companies refusing to intervene at a private individual, following a conflict enters the known as private individual and one of the companies; it is a question of punishing the private individual that one to have badly acted ac CUSE; with the powerful assistance of Internet, one can alert all the professionals in all the fields and launch a kind of fatwah against the person concerned, that with the contempt of the law which prohibits discriminations and which says that one cannot have justice oneself

Historical or famous boycotts

the first boycott indexed of 1879 to the call of Charles Parnell, directing agrarian league, which launched it against Charles Cunningham Boycott, rich landowner who treated his farmers badly;
in India in 1930, the Mahatma Gandhi lance a boycott on the tax S related to salt, against the British Empire;
the boycott of the buses of Montgomery in 1955 with the call of Martin Luther King to obtain the end of the racial Discrimination ;
the boycott of the the United States (involving other nations) in 1980 with the Olympic Games of Moscow, to protest against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Successful operation since 80 countries will be represented only there; but the Soviet Union (with 13 others Nation S) will boycott the Olympic Games of Los Angeles in 1984.

Reasons of call to the boycott (nonexhaustive list)

the War or of the territorial conflicts, e.g. : boycott of the Israeli products
the non-observance of the Human rights
delocalizations or closings of industrial plants, e.g. : boycott of the products Danone
environmental pollution, e.g. : at the time of the Shipwreck of Amoco Cadiz, boycott of Shell
health hazards, e.g. : boycott of GMO and the firms which develop them or boycott of the 4x4, vehicles énergivores
social rights, e.g. : boycott of the products Nike, which obliged the company to amend
the excessive prices, as in the call of the UFC-That To choose with the boycott of SMS
of the unjust rules, e.g. : boycott of the “majors” of the disc to fight against the Law on the digital economy
boycott of the election S faked or run in advance. (Foot-note: this boycott is also a way for those which invite there to adapt the abstention)
political reasons, e.g. : boycott of the Olympic Games of 1980 and 1984.
of the philosophical or religious convictions, e.g. : boycott of the film Da Vinci Code, simple fiction set up in crashing to pieces truth.
the refusal of sectarian propaganda, e.g. : boycott of films of Tom Cruise.

See too

External bonds

Definition and point of view of
a site which evaluates the practices of the large companies in socio-economic or environmental fields
Anonymous call with the Revolution of the Silencers
Consommer: an act citizen
Boycott, the law of weakest, an article of Steve Proulx
the boycott as political
Andrew Lang arms, the primitive Boycotting, Études traditionnists , vol. VI, translated by Henry Carnoy, Édition J. Maisonneuve, Paris, 1890, p. 21-32.

Simple: Boycott

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