Now boycotts that appeal to me are all over the place. Levis, Nike, Target, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, American Girl.
I like boycotts. Even in the days when I disagreed with, or lacked sympathy for, the boycott causes, I thought they were a good idea.
The free market is as American as GM. People sell what they want and buy what they want. If we don’t like someone’s policies, we avoid them and encourage others to do so. No one’s freedom is pinched and we use the Great American Deity — the dollar — to bring pressure.
The companies, after all, don’t need to support the troublesome charities. There are plenty of organizations that limit their activities to helping the poor and sick. Companies with a charitable bent don’t need to donate to politically-stained charities.
And when they do, they risk a boycott.
It’s fair on all counts.
But that doesn’t mean the boycotts aren’t getting tiresome. “It's getting so that if you're going to boycott based on principles, you practically have to show up for work wearing a barrel and eat nothing but grass,” said Peter LaBarbera, a man who generally sympathizes with these boycotts.
There’s also the problem about a boycott’s effectiveness. According to a Los Angeles Times piece last week, boycotts aren’t terribly effective. Yes, they hurt the companies’ bottom lines a little and the companies don’t like them, but overall, the effect is marginal.
I’m not terribly concerned about a boycott’s effectiveness. I have virtually no control over that. I’m more concerned about the effects my actions have on me.
And that’s the thing every Catholic ought to consider: Does my support of this company cause me to support abortion, the gay culture, or anything else morally opprobrious? If it does, I have an obligation to buy from someone else.
Yet that obligation must be tempered with prudence.
We aren’t, for instance, obligated to memorize product lists in hopes that we don’t buy something from a bad company. Sin presupposes knowledge, and if we don’t have the knowledge, we aren’t sinning (barring, of course, willful ignorance).
I would also argue that we’re not obliged to avoid companies that donate marginal sums. If a NYSE corporation, for instance, donates $5,000 to Planned Parenthood but $100,000 to Boys Town, I’d suggest that the former donation might be more of a salve for its secularist shopping base than a sign of significant support.
I also don’t think a Catholic is obligated to boycott a product at great expense or inconvenience. Should I pay $2.00 for a competitor’s product when the boycotted company’s product cost only $1.60? Especially if my purchase would result in less than one cent ending up in the 2006 Gay Games coffers? That strikes me as a stretch.
So what’s my approach?
I use a soft boycott: If I can boycott an item without excess expense or inconvenience, I will.
By “excess expense,” I mean ten percent. That’s just my arbitrary standard. If a boycotted product costs $2.00 and a competitor’s cost $2.15, I’ll buy the competitor’s. By “inconvenience,” I mean leaving the store. If I have to drive down the road to buy a competitor’s product, I won’t. It’s a low threshold, I guess, but when you’re carting around three preschoolers, merely going to the next aisle is hard.
I encourage all Catholics to join these boycotts. They make an impact. Even if the corporation’s bottom line isn’t devastated, it is affected at least a little and the corporation notices.
And more important, you’re standing up for what’s right. Your approach doesn’t need to be “all or nothing.” If all faithful Catholics employed a soft boycott, I suspect the results would be harsh for the Johnson & Johnsons of the world.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Daily Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
