[WS:] I agree, but it also begs the question "why?" Credo is just a business with a charitable arm, just as any other business. Verizon and other telecom have charitable arms as well. This is fundamentally a neo-liberal model of philanthropy instead of state action.
What would make difference, though, is political action groups aimed to influence government operating for-profit businesses to finance their political activity. For example, Credo using all their profits to fund a PAC advocating, say, progressive taxation.
The bottom line is that consumer choice politics makes no sense because it is based on a fundamentally faulty neo-liberal behavioral model, falsely claiming that institutions reflect people's preferences and market place choices based on these preferences. In fact, the reverse is true, consumer preferences and choices reflect the priorities set by institutions, so it makes sense to change the latter not the former.
Wojtek
On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 12:17 AM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
> On May 8, 2011, at 11:32 PM, Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> At 07:20 PM 5/8/2011, // ravi wrote:
>>> I do not see all consumer politics as a shallow gesture (nor do I see it as moral lecturing, as Carrol does),
>>
>> I don't think Carrol does either. I think he's consistently said there's a difference between a boycott and an individual choice to choose one product over another.
>>
>> A broad and extended boycott, like the UFW with grapes and like a bunch of groups with Coors is politics. Choosing Credo over Verizon is not.
>>
>
> Intuitively and emotionally I tend to agree with you on the Credo vs Verizon thing, but to be honest I don't see the larger difference.
>
> A boycott is a collection of individual choices of one product (where indispensable) over another... Or so it seems to me. Which if correct leaves us with the parameters of breadth and extension (which are tactical considerations aren't they?). I do see the importance of being organized (how else to achieve breadth and stamina?) but this only raises second order questions on the breadth of the organizations (to me).
>
> Carrol I agree is almost unfailingly consistent so I apologize if I got his position wrong.
>
> -- ravi
>
>
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