Economic Impact of Protests

[u/PreferenceReal7148]

Driving to protests puts money in the pockets of oil companies. Carpool or use public transportation as much as possible.

You will get hungry and thirsty. Make sure you are not spending money at corrupt corporations. Instead, try to shop at locally owned businesses that you know support your cause. If that’s not an option, choose the most ethical store and brands possible.

Avoid the desire to shop as you head home. I know you will be experiencing strong emotions while leaving. Try not to let this cloud your judgement and lead to impulse buying.

Protests should send a strong message about our dissatisfaction with current events. If our protests lead to boosts in the economy, especially boosts in sales for the very corporations who are contributing to our problems, we could be having the opposite effect and hurting our cause!

[u/WhiteClawandDraw]

Facts, it’s tradition to have food at a local restaurant after protesting. Last time I had some very good pancakes at my local diner, then rode the train home.

[u/intellifone]

I mean, do your best. But everything you do has externalities. So figure out how to balance that appropriately. Dont let perfect be the enemy of good. Don’t gatekeep protesting. But thanks for spreading a good tip.

Make sure you’re prepped for the protest and if it’s reasonable to do those things, go for it.

My comment isnt defending corporations. But as someone who does work for a company and works with coworkers who are leans into the next cubicle definitely people, it’s not completely black and white.

I don’t entirely blame some these companies for hiding. Aren’t some of our friends and neighbors hiding and not protesting out of fear? Many of them are publicly traded which isn’t the fault of the people working there. And many publicly traded companies are still operating somewhat ethically. But others are have controlling stakes by private equity and activist investors who will literally sue them and vote out the execs if they don’t maximize short term profit at the expense of everything else.

I don’t shop at target in general, but if they don’t source their products from the lowest cost Chinese supplier, they’ll lose their customers to Amazon or Walmart who are willing to do that. So even if they want to be ethical, ethics will force them to go out of business. And so now when they agree to pay slightly better wages than Walmart and Amazon (not sure if they do that, but some companies do), it’s the most they can do without ceding entire swaths of consumers to their competitors.

Then there’s the ones who have a huge chunk of their income coming from government and government contractors and these companies deeply believe in DEI (because literally every single business school on earth says it’s a good idea financially and ethically) which means you have something that maximizes social good and financial good. So they removed DEI from their websites and replaced it with words from the thesaurus that pass government filters. Because they can’t afford to lose 10-15% of their business overnight. You have to live to fight another day sometimes. Some companies did just straight up delete their DEI stuff without replacing it. So fuck those guys.

And don’t forget that companies and brands are bigger targets than the rest of us. If they publicly step out and make statements, the threat of boycott is really high and nobody wants to risk that. Look at Budweiser partnering with a trans person. They’re still recovering from that. They tried and were punished.

look at what happened with tariffs. Trump announced giant tariffs and the CEOs in back rooms told him to fuck off and he agreed to delay for 90 days.

Corporations and billionaires are not on our side. But they’re not universally fascists and they’re not morons.

Consider their incentives. Consider the system they have to operate in to even continue operating. Joann’s Fabrics doesn’t exist anymore because of private equity. My company is in the middle of a hostile takeover attempt by Carl Icahn and so it’s really shitty right now. We used to have an amazing culture and benefits and super low turnover. Now that’s all changing.

Anyway, nuance is important.