A third post mentioning Tyler Cowen in less than a week; this time for his “post”:http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/03/when_to_boycott.html on the rationality of boycotting. I was thinking of this already today, after reading “Steve Bainbridge”:http://www.professorbainbridge.com/2007/03/nyt_select_open.html on the change in the _New York Times_ paywall policy. As of today, anyone with a .edu email address should be able to “access Times Select for free”:http://www.nytimes.com/gst/ts_university_email_verify.html. I never subscribed to Times Select, mostly because it was a bundled package. I would happily have paid $40 a year to read Paul Krugman’s column on its own – but didn’t, because I would have been paying for Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman and Brooks too (the last of whom I used to find the most infuriating of the lot when I was able to read him, because I felt that he was smart enough to write, think and argue so much better than he did).
Tyler suggests that in general it’s better just to send money to the people that you want to help, but that boycotting may make sense if you want to hurt the individual being boycotted, and know that your boycotting is likely to hurt him/her. I don’t think that the latter this is my motivation here – I’ve no particular desire to hurt any of ’em (although I’d probably pull on Friedman’s mustache of understanding if I was in the lift with him, just because). It’s more that I’d feel uncomfortably intimate if I paid for the service; I’d feel as though I was specifically choosing to support a crowd of people whom I have no desire to support. Which is to say that decisions to buy can sometimes be less market-rational than they are expressive. I suspect that the same is true of many boycotters (though certainly not all) – they aren’t necessarily seeking to achieve concrete results so much as they’re expressing their identity through market choices.
{ 29 comments }
c.l. ball 03.14.07 at 6:43 am
I’m not sure how irrational the decision not to subscribe to Times Select is (it certainly is not expressive in any meaningful sense unless you were tagging your emails — “I don’t subscribe to Times Select in order not to contribute to Dowd, et al”). It depends on what else you did with the $40. If you subscribed to TAP instead you might have made a rational decision to support liberal opinion over mixed opinion. It would be irrational if you had paid $40 to read Krugman and later he packaged his column with Dowd, et al at the same price and you then canceled. (Of course, it would be silly to pay $40 for Krugman’s NYT column since it is not very good. His pre-NYT writings were much more informative and erudite).
Since I get home delivery, I got Times Select ‘free.’
There are plenty of books that I refuse to purchase because I don’t want to contribute to the author’s income, although I do read them at libraries.
Barry 03.14.07 at 7:26 am
“(Of course, it would be silly to pay $40 for Krugman’s NYT column since it is not very good. His pre-NYT writings were much more informative and erudite)”
Yes, it’s strange to look back on his fevered imaginations during 1999-2000, and compare them to the present sweet reign of honesty and competancy that the Bush administration has brought us.
Harald K 03.14.07 at 7:27 am
Consider the case of John Woolman, who did a reverse boycott: When he stayed with quakers who owned slaves, he insisted on paying – and only then.
Z 03.14.07 at 8:16 am
I suspect that the same is true of many boycotters (though certainly not all) – they aren’t necessarily seeking to achieve concrete results so much as they’re expressing their identity through market choices.
And I suspect this is a good reason to put scarequotes around the word market when talking about commodities that impact identities. Buying may be less about the concrete act of acquiring material objects than about expressing identity through choices.
worse Jim 03.14.07 at 8:23 am
I’ve foregone Krugman’s brilliance since they started charging for the package, because, good as he is, he isn’t worth the aggravation of reading the rest. I’d rate Dowd as slightly negative (time reading better spent sorting socks) Friedman worse and Brooks as mind-damaging as watching lawn bowlers in bondage dress-up.
I’ve gotcher data right here. I could afford it but I won’t pay for it.
Bruce Baugh 03.14.07 at 9:39 am
I think of boycotting in terms of the Hippocratic Oath: first, do no harm. It’s not that I expect to change the world, nor necessarily to make any grand statement to the world, by buying this and not buying that. I want to start by supporting the good, as much as I can, and not supporting the bad, any more than it seems I must given other constraints. How far I’m willing to inconvenience myself depends on the commodity at hand – sometimes a whole lot, sometimes just a little. But the principle remains the same throughout.
It’s always nice, of course, when my action plus that of others does put enough pressure on our target that we get some of the change we want. I welcome it. It’s just that I’m not heartbroken or surprised when it doesn’t happen, and I don’t feel that failing to change the practice that triggered a boycott therefore means that all my particular effort was wasted.
I suspect that most people who support boycotts with any regularity would say something similar about their motives, even if they’d couch it in different terms.
Randolph Fritz 03.14.07 at 9:49 am
Ugh, Dowd. She so loves to be the queen bee and over time she’s been quite destructive. I get to read Krugman in my local paper, and that’s enough.
Tom T. 03.14.07 at 11:03 am
Not buying something constitutes a boycott? All my life I’ve been boycotting Norman Mailer, Phantom of the Opera, and pickup trucks, and I didn’t even realize it! This is as exciting as when I learned that I’ve been speaking in prose!
Seriously, though, isn’t the motive to hurt the target central to the notion of boycotting? Generally a boycott involves concerted action for the purpose of causing the target to rectify highly publicized abuses. A personal decision not to subscribe to a publication because you don’t like enough of its content to justify the cost isn’t really analogous. There are a million magazines on the market (probably including something like “Boycotter’s Monthly”); are you really boycotting each one to which you don’t subscribe?
harry b 03.14.07 at 1:07 pm
following up on tom t’s point, I now feel extremely virtuous for my lifelong boycott of McDonalds, Coke, and all other foods that taste disguting to me.
I like Brooks. He is a deeply lazy thinker. I admire that.
Count Cant 03.14.07 at 1:09 pm
tom t. sez what I was gonna say.
I’m gonna boycott his ass.
Andrew John 03.14.07 at 2:30 pm
[tom t] I think you are missing Henry’s point. You write that he is making a “personal decision not to subscribe to a publication because [he doesn’t] like enough of its content to justify the cost”. But he says that he would be willing to pay the cost if he were just getting Krugman. Nobody would make Henry read Dowd et al if he bought Times Select, and yet he doesn’t want to purchase the bundled package — because that means he would be buying Dowd et al, and that mere act of purchase would make him unhappy. So I think it is an act of boycott, albeit an unusual one.
More generally, research does suppport the view (full disclosure: I’ve done some of this work) that decisions to take part in boycotts are often motivated (at least in part) by the desire to feel good about oneself, to avoid feelings of guilt, and so on, as well as more familiar instrumental and expressive motivations.
"As You Know" Bob 03.14.07 at 3:58 pm
I think I would pay extra to not be subjected to Brooks.
Henry 03.14.07 at 4:40 pm
As andrew john says, I think this can be legitimately described as a sort of boycott (my motivation isn’t that I don’t like enough of the content to justify the cost; it’s that I like enough of the content, i.e. Krugman, to justify the cost, but feel that paying the cost would be supporting people I don’t want to support). I’m not buying something that I would otherwise buy because of this. And I think that the lines between boycotting and expression-through-markets is somewhat fuzzier than tom t. or Harry seem to be contending, if I understand them rightly. Quite frequently, even highly organized boycotts seem to me to be aimed not so much at getting someone to change their ways, as at changing people’s perceptions over what tastes are legitimate, and what are illegitimate. The PETA campaign against furs springs to mind here. Or is there something I’m not getting here?
andrew – is any of your research online?
Henry (not the famous one) 03.14.07 at 4:47 pm
Most boycotts, even well-organized ones, are ineffective, although they can be useful as a vehicle for publicizing your cause. But too many boycotts are, to use (the famous) Henry’s polite phrase, all about “expressing identity through choices,” i.e., easy gratification with a little self-delusion mixed in.
I don’t want to sound as if I am passing judgment on the rest of humanity. I am currently engaged in any number of (probably pointless) boycotts, mostly involving anti-union retailers, some organized, some more or less personal. They are the equivalent of keeping kosher or halal: something done to make life slightly more inconvenient as a way of reminding myself why I do that.
The problem is that these boycotts (and their twin, campaigns to get people to buy green or blue) let us off the hook too easily—while it is pleasant to think that we are accomplishing something by being earnest, conscientious well-meaning consumers, we probably aren’t. And the delusion makes it that much easier to believe that we have done our part by doing something.
None of this is particularly original, of course. And this has not that much, as it turns out, to do with the subject of this article, i.e., the choices we make for reasons of health or taste—not going to McDonald’s, not reading David Brooks, buying local produce, etc. Those don’t deserve the name boycott.
Ed 03.14.07 at 5:09 pm
Didn’t the original boycott, in Ireland, having something to do with not paying rent?
I think that boycotts that interupt a flow of revenue that big institutions depend on, such as rent or taxes, and that could land the boycotters in jail or worse, are very effective.
An organized attempt to convince people not to buy something, not so effective. Though I think the negative publicity that accompanies the boycott probably does cause some harm to the companies. I wonder how much McDonald’s sales have been effective by the publicity about just how bad their products are for people’s health?
Andrew John 03.14.07 at 5:26 pm
[henry(ntfo)] I agree with a lot of your post, but there is more going on here than Henry’s good taste leading to his not reading David Brooks. Henry has said that he is willing to pay $40 for good {A}. But he is unwilling to pay $40 for the bundle of goods {A and B}, even though he can throw away good {B} at no cost. In other words, the act of buying (not owning, but buying) {B} would generate disutility for him, and so he avoids that purchase.
Dan Miller 03.14.07 at 5:57 pm
“I wonder how much McDonald’s sales have been effective by the publicity about just how bad their products are for people’s health?”
Probably a good deal, or else they wouldn’t bother selling apple salads and yogurt cups (and I know they’re not very healthy anyway, but perception is key here).
Ian Milliss 03.14.07 at 8:59 pm
All in all a perfect illustration of Baudrillard’s (who?) contention that consumption involves symbolic and sign value as well as use and exchange value.
If boycotts are really so pointless why is the Australian Treasurer pushing for civil and criminal sanctions against anyone trying to organise them? Deep down inside he must fear that a symbolic rejection can be as damaging to an overweening ideology as any real financial threat.
It would be easy, given the technology, for contemporary media to arrange a menu system where you could select and pay for only the bits you want, but that would involve giving the consumer control as well as choice and would disrupt the media’s ability to deliver a complete propoaganda package.
Slocum 03.14.07 at 9:05 pm
With respect to Times select, it’d probably advance your goals more to subscribe and read only Krugman. Unless the web software is extraordinarily stupid, the Times gathers stats concerning how many of their subscribers read each columnist. If you boycott the whole thing, they have no way of knowing you’re voting for Krugman and against Brooks, et al. But if you subscribe and read only Krugman, your vote will be counted.
Leonard 03.14.07 at 9:15 pm
I’ll happily “boycott” anyone on the Internet trying to charge for anything as easy as writing opinions. Everyone’s got one! It’s a democratic medium in the best sense of the word. Cutting yourself off from it is to make yourself irrelevant. Much of the value of reading famous opinion writers is social: to have things to talk about with other people. When you attempt to charge for that, and cut off 2/3 of your audience, you no longer offer the ubiquity so that I can be sure that others I want to discuss things with have read what I’ve read.
I don’t care what any of the Times Select people thinks, for my own edification. I do care to be able to read it at times when others are talking about it.
If Krugman, Brooks, or (by some miracle) Dowd manage to write something truly worth knowing about behind their wall, then there’s an army of bloggers to leak it out into the world. (Losing Friedman is an unalloyed good.)
Tom T. 03.15.07 at 1:29 am
Can one person boycott all by himself? Isn’t a boycott, like a posse, something you have to organize?
trialsanderrors 03.15.07 at 7:18 am
Re andrew john — But Tyler’s argument is a different one: He’s asking the question whether you would not buy a good that gives you positive net (pleasure) utility because it contains a moral disutility. So the underlying assumption here is a lexicographic ordering of utilities: Tyler assumes that by forgoing pleasure for moral reasons we would be hurting ourselves and thus not act reationally. Of course the simple counterargument is that you can perfectly well derive pleasure utility from acting morally. A lot of it comes in the form Tyler touches on in his last paragraph, but ultimately misses: Publicly boycotting morally objectionable products allows you to send a social signal that might get you in touch with like-minded people. If it also hurts the intended target, the better for that.
Barry 03.15.07 at 12:40 pm
Slocum:
“With respect to Times select, it’d probably advance your goals more to subscribe and read only Krugman. Unless the web software is extraordinarily stupid, the Times gathers stats concerning how many of their subscribers read each columnist. If you boycott the whole thing, they have no way of knowing you’re voting for Krugman and against Brooks, et al. But if you subscribe and read only Krugman, your vote will be counted.”
Please remember that we’re talking about the NY Times here; their web software probably chalks up multiple clicks for each columnist, in order of management favor.
C. L. Ball 03.15.07 at 3:28 pm
Slocum raises a good point that relates back to Cowen’s original assertion — boycotting to hurt Z rather than to help Y, if ‘hurt’ and ‘not-help’ are synonymous. Andrew John is correct that Henry’s choice to pay $40 for {A} and but not {A and B} even though he can discard {B} is rational if {B} generates disutility. If some portion of that $40 goes to support Dowd, et al than Henry might have reason to boycott.
If the NYT announced that columnist’s salaries would be based exclusively on readership, such that if Henry purchased a license to read Krugman and only Krugman for $40 per month and the $40 went to Krugman’s salary and none to Dowd, et al, would he still boycott and refuse to pay the $40 because the NYT also offers Dowd, et al? Here Henry would be hurting/not-helping Dowd et al and would be helping Krugman if he subscribed. But if he would boycott than his reason is purely expressive because he is hurting/not-helping Krugman and Dowd, et al. And this would be irrational.
C. L. Ball 03.15.07 at 3:51 pm
Re Barry’s “Yes, it’s strange to look back on [Krugman’s] fevered imaginations during 1999-2000, and compare them to the present sweet reign of honesty and competancy that the Bush administration has brought us.”
In 1999-2000, I liked Krugman’s columns because he was still explaining economics, and was paticularly adept at skewering the Bush campaign’s economic illogic. After the USSC expropriated the election for Bush, Krugman’s columns went downhill — away from economic insights (and not as well-explained anymore when discussed) and into ordinary partisan whinging (albeit justified). His July 2004 health care columns were the exception rather than the rule.
I wish Krugman would leave the Times and start his own blog but bring in charts and other graphics to explain key points, the way DeLong does at times.
Barry 03.15.07 at 6:46 pm
Posted by C. L. Ball: “After the USSC expropriated the election for Bush, Krugman’s columns went downhill—away from economic insights (and not as well-explained anymore when discussed) and into ordinary partisan whinging (albeit justified). His July 2004 health care columns were the exception rather than the rule.”
I see now; I was judging his columns on things like their relationship to the truth, and suchlike; you seem to base it on things more like ‘balance’, that pagan idol.
“I wish Krugman would leave the Times and start his own blog but bring in charts and other graphics to explain key points, the way DeLong does at times.”
He shouldn’t leave the Times; perhaps he should publish his rough drafts on a blog (assuming that his rough drafts are much longer and more detailed).
SamChevre 03.15.07 at 7:59 pm
Didn’t the original boycott, in Ireland, having something to do with not paying rent?
No–it had to do with punishing rent collectors.
It’s a little hard to wrap your mind around in a modern city, but social shunning is a VERY effective sanction in rural and pre-modern societies. That’s what the original boycott was: an agreement that no one would acknowledge a rent collector as a person; no one would sell to him or buy from him, eat with him or speak to him.
Barry 03.16.07 at 12:51 am
Thanks. I had also thought that it was a rent strike.
Henry (not the famous one) 03.16.07 at 5:15 am
#27–which is still occasionally called “sending [someone] to Coventry” over here in the US; maybe someone who knows English history can explain its origins. The Major League Baseball umpires employed the tactic (before their Jonestown experience of a few years ago) on scabs. Effective in that small community too, I believe.
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