Think of the Children

This is not, actually, about the children, although they are involved, in the end. This is about boycotts and ruining businesses and all that sort of things.

Because I was heading to work and thinking about how X company does Y terrible thing and the world gets angry (whether rightfully or not) and boycotts X. Stocks tanks, and the company wobbles. People feel victorious, because the company has felt the wrath of the consumer and will learn not to be awful!

But will they? Oh sure, the company might change Y thing, and that’s good, but their reputation is irrevocably tarnished, if not ruined. And you know who suffers?

I’ll give you a hint. It’s not the stockholders. It’s not the owners. Oh sure, they might feel a pinch as stocks drop and business crumbles, but generally it’s the everyman. Business is down, but the company can’t cut back on stockholder profits (of course not), so they do a round of layoffs. People who then have to find a new job in an economy that’s not great for it. They have to support their families still (that’s where the kids come in), but without the job. A job they might have been good at, might have loved doing. It might even be the best/only job like it in the area, so they’ll either have to do a job they might not love as much or move.

And the people who didn’t lose their job at X likely now have even more work thrown on their plates, and they become overworked as they’re understaffed. And because “profits are down,” those workers might not get pay raises or bonuses or anything of the sort.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t hold companies accountable for their actions, although in many cases I worry we act too quickly on emotion without thinking things through and hearing the facts, but I’m not sure we should feel righteous when we make a company fail that has “done wrong.” Because most likely, the ones who suffer aren’t the ones who did the wrong in the first place.