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Boycott Capitalism…!?
There is not much that can hold in favour of the Coca Cola Company. In fact there is awfully little. It is a powerful global enterprise which engages in widely reported human rights abuses, aggressive advertising, disrespects workers’ and consumer rights, causes irreparable environmental damage wherever it’s produced, and its flagship sugar drinks taste rank anyway.
Surely then, we’d like to see some damage done to this bit of ‘unethical business’. However, when it comes to the proposed boycott and Coke’s subsequent ban from the Student Union shop, we’re not so sure.
What’s an ‘(un)ethical business’ anyway? Pepsi? Afri-Cola? The preferred alternative that has been championed in the boycott motion is Virgin Cola, part of the Virgin Group and owned by celebrity business tycoon Sir Richard Branson. The Virgin Group, also operates train lines, short haul airlines, luxury holiday resorts, music stores and provides mobile and internet access amongst many other ventures. Is the Virgin Empire really worth our explicit support?
While we think that the condemnation of all – Coke, Pepsi and Virgin Colas – is legitimate on moral grounds, we do not believe that an ‘ethical rank order of brands’ has anything to contribute to a critical, let alone radical, political effort. Instead of a constant preoccupation with the ‘worst offenders’, we’d like to see a serious engagement with the everyday logic of capitalist society.
This logic is determined by the common principles that all modern commercial ventures share: the bosses of big business too are subjected to the functioning of capital; their drive to make profit is not a result of greed, but rather is their greed a result of the capitalist imperative to compete with others.
Yes, even the CEO of Coca Cola is no James Bond villain with a malevolent plan for environmental disaster and world domination.
Thus linking boycotts with an anti-capitalist message is problematic. Boycotts demanding ‘ethical’ or ‘fair’ commercial practices are limited in their critical capability.
We don’t debate that Coke and others engage in criminal, unethical and immoral practices – accepting the murder of trade unionists in Columbia for example. However, if we limit ourselves to a critique of ‘corporate irresponsibility’, we fail to transcend the liberal system-apologetic consensus and, at best, reproduce the agenda of the Crown Prosecution Service on a global scale.
Do boycotts work?
Considering the effects of boycotts seems secondary in the light of a more radical anti-capitalist analysis. Yet, even from a more moderate tactical perspective their benefits are all but ambiguous.
For example, ‘sweat shop’ allegations against Nike and GAP in the USA led to the sales of Reebok being boosted. The two companies were demonised to a degree, but given the get-out clause of being able to ‘clean up their act’ and debates tended towards levels of ‘corporate responsibility’.
Further, an attempt to hit a company where it hurts, by causing financial damage, is not necessarily an attack on the market. Shifts of consumer preferences are expected, as one company rises, another falls, the balance is not upset, leading businesses adapt by engaging in mergers and acquisitions etc.
On the other hand, we recognise the possibility that boycott campaigns could encouraged people to question more seriously the way society is organised.
We also recognise that boycotts do have the potential to decrease some horrific human rights violations etc, on a short-term and individual level, which may be a good enough reason to partake. But again this argument is one that focuses on the symptoms, not the causes, of suffering and injustice. System-immanent criticisms might even help to reproduce capitalism by making it more acceptable.
So what’s the answer?
Is there an accessible, ethical drink that we can replace Coca Cola with? (It appears not, considering acid rainfall!)
And still, we do not accept that to oppose the constant reproduction of the logic of capital it is necessary to boycott everything and live a life of guilt-complexes.
Some political movements have indeed taken the view that capitalism can be challenged through asceticism and renunciation. Boycotts are 'in': no logos, no branded wear, no fast food chains. Yet, Coca Cola is only another, if more successful and profitable, variant of the organic, fair trade range. The most successful boycott will still be trapped in the system of profit making and capital valorisation.
We want to counter these limits of ‘ethical consumerism’ with more accessible (and radical) critiques of the capitalist logic. To begin with, this does not change anything concrete, yet it might allow us to act from an analytical basis which recognises the need to abolish capitalism, not just its shortcomings.
For us, anti-capitalism means the fight against the current system of production and distribution, not the non-acceptance of its products.
Post-capitalism, whatever it is, must mean something better, more enjoyable for all.
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text to be published in the Spring 2007 OpenMedia
edition