Economic Blackout--Just Use It!
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker
In Memory…
Protest comes in many forms. Rest In Power, Aaron Bushnell!
February 25, 2024
Economic Blackout—Just Use It!
by C.A. Matthews
There’s something everyone can do this week to make the world a better place that’s as simple as doing absolutely nothing.
I’m not kidding. It’s that easy. Everyone can stop spending money all at the same time. Withholding our money even for twenty-four hours can send a strong message to the powers that be.
How do we coordinate such an action? Here’s how: There’s a planned “economic blackout” scheduled for this Friday, February 28, that you can join. (See memes for details.)
“But...but…” I hear some of the whiners objecting to the sheer simplicity of everyone not supporting Amazon, Walmart, Target and the like for a day. “Surely we must do something big and difficult to catch the oligarchs/billionaires’ attention, to let them know that we don’t care for what Mr. Musk is doing, that we want them to stop spending our tax dollars on wars and genocide. How can depriving mega-corporations of a few sales for one day get our message across?”
You’d be surprised how sales being cut back by even a few percentage points can catch a capitalist’s eye and make them worry. If there’s one thing capitalists hate is a trend—a downward trend. It could spell the end of their business. If all of us—Americans and others—who regularly buy online at billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Amazon web sites would refrain from doing so for just one day, he would be shitting himself.
Jeff would be thinking, “What if these idiots figure out that they don’t need to waste money buying most of the junk I peddle? What if these peons figure out it’s cheaper and easier to purchase their favorite products from a local source? And—heaven forbid!—what if these piss-ant pro-Palestine consumers decide to never shop Amazon ever again because they’ve discovered I’m a lousy, zy-0-nist-supporting asshole?”
You can see that one bad day of sales is worrisome by itself, but a series of poor returns on a spreadsheet could spell trouble. So, let’s make Jeff and his equally wealthy buddies sweat, shall we? On February 28, stay home, stay away from spending online, and stop supporting the billionaires.
Now that we’re agreed that everyone doing nothing (that is, not spending) all at once can make a significant impact on a corporation’s bottom line, how do we keep this massive “blow” to the billionaires’ bank accounts from hurting our fellow workers’? This is where those of you who can’t go a day without buying something can be of great help in keeping food on the tables of your fellow workers.
Shopping locally keeps small businesses viable and their employees employed. By shopping small businesses, you’re helping them compete against the mega-corporations. Mega-corporations like Walmart that have wiped out more local and regional businesses in the last forty years than the US government has “regime-changed” countries whose fossil fuel and natural resources we covet. (Watch this documentary to see what I mean: Walmart The High Cost Of Low Price)
About every small town in the US has a Walmart disaster story to tell. I can tell you the very moment the “Walmart Super Center” was born because it happened in the small West Texas city I was living in at the time. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, had a good hunting buddy (another rich guy like him—probably an oilman) who lived in our area. When the idea for the Super Centers came about Sam wanted to test out the concept in a small town, and his hunting buddy must have suggested ours.
Thus, the first ever Walmart Super Center came to our town of 25,000 souls in the middle of nowhere, West Texas. Within months several local grocery stores closed because they couldn’t compete with the “low prices.” (Walmart is known for its underselling certain stock items at a loss so they can put local stores out of business. Then they raise prices.) Before long my local hairdresser closed her shop and then my eye-doctor closed his business of many years and was forced to take a job working as a optician in the Walmart boutique, and then the local tire store closed down…
Sam Walton saw that his experiment was a success, and Super Centers soon popped up all over the country, even in regions that had never heard of Walmart before. You can imagine how sad and angry I was when I discovered that a Walmart Super Center had popped up in my mother’s town in Ohio. All too soon her favorite local stores were gone as well.
An economic blackout can let these billionaires know how we feel about them putting our local stores out of business.
I know the whiners are saying, “This is just another boycott. We don’t like them because we can’t remember who we’re not supposed to buy from or what.” All I can do is pat their hands and remind them, “It’s not that hard. Just don’t buy anything on February 28. You can do that, can’t you?”
The BDS Movement has done some terrific things. They’ve gotten big name sports gear brands to divest their sponsorship from the Israeli Football Association (soccer). By denying the zy-0-nists money from big brand name sports companies, the message is getting across to the public: Sports fans shouldn’t condone genocide.
Boycotts make good sense. Here’s another true story to show you the power of the boycott or economic blackout.
This boycott involved a local business—a delicatessen—situated next door to an established local coffeehouse where local labor organizers and other lefty groups like to meet up. Located in an older part of the city that is partially gentrified, the coffeehouse attracts people from all socioeconomic backgrounds.
When the deli opened about six years ago, it seemed like a great place to grab a bite before or after attending a meet up at the coffeehouse next door. It seemed like a great place, that is, until the owner started posting Trump sayings and pictures in his store’s front window. Folks let him know right away that they didn’t appreciate the signage in his window, and they didn’t feel welcome in his store.
The owner must not have been very bright because he just laughed in their faces and continued posting more Trump sayings in the window to aggravate the lefty crowd next door. A boycott of the delicatessen began and the effects were immediate—the deli’s business slumped. The Trump-supporting owner would not take down the offensive signage in his window, however, so the boycott continued.
Finally sales were so bad that the deli closed down. The rich Trump supporters from the suburbs that the deli owner had thought would come to his rescue never materialized. And why would they? They didn’t want to drive their expensive cars into the “inner city” and park in an area they probably felt was riddled with crime. By taunting his former walk-in customers because of their differing political viewpoints, the deli owner destroyed his own business.
This example shows how an economic blackout (or boycott) can work. Billionaires are arrogant types who think they know it all (sort of like the deli owner). They don’t have to take others’ feelings into consideration. When a sufficient number of us organize and stop the flow of money into a business/corporation for one day or for one week or for one month or for one year, we are telling these oligarchs that we don’t appreciate what they’re doing to us, our country, or the planet.
By holding back our consumerism, we are wielding a very strong weapon. Think of it as a sledge hammer. By swinging our economic blackout sledge hammer, we are letting oligarchs/billionaires know that We the People are in charge, not them. And if they don’t get the message, we just keep on swinging the sledge hammer until they do.
The February 28 economic blackout is the first planned of several actions, so we will be “hammering” our point home repeatedly within a short span of time. This should yield results. Perhaps we’ll see these corporations take their workers’ demands more seriously. Perhaps we’ll see real wages rise to keep up with inflation. By boycotting corporations and supporting the workers’ right to unionize simultaneously, I’d be surprised if Jeff and Elon didn’t sit up and negotiate before their corporations have to file bankruptcy.
But whether the billionaires respond in a kind or a cruel fashion, at least We the People will be doing something positive toward making the world a better place for us and our children. We won’t be just sitting around and whining about how to end the oligarchy. We will be doing something that we can do over and over again until we get things the way we want them. Please tell all your friends and family to join us.
Whatever the results, it’s worth the try just to see how powerful we really are. Never underestimate your power. It’s there, waiting to be used. Use it.
Power to the people!
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Great idea , a non violent resistance , that unites people and hurts those in power.
I have just one quibble: since we understand that the abusive, gargantuan business interests of the oligarchs are what give them their power, we should not boycott them for a day to "send a message"--they don't give a frack what we think. We should instead boycott the way I do it--when I see that a company does something particularly evil, I stop buying from them--PERMANENTLY. I don't go back as soon as they (pretend to) change their practices in the way we demand. The tech boys' social media platforms are destructive in many ways--close your accounts, stop using them, stop shopping in fast-food chains (cook your food, it's cheaper and healthier), don't shop at Walmart--ever, if you can help it. My small town got a superWalmart a couple decades ago with almost no local pushback, and most people shop there. But there is still one cutrate grocery store I mostly shop at (there are a few items it doesn't carry), there are two hardware stores (one of which is the only one of its kind, has been going for generations, has a wooden floor, the kind of place where the clerk ringing up your purchase asks if your mother is feeling any better. There is one local place to buy car parts that has a wooden floor and a sort of bar with stools where customers can chat with each other or the staff while they're figuring out what you need. There are online booksellers that don't drink blood. There is a tiny farmers market here--it's a bit more trouble to shop there and you can only get some items--but it's also more satisfying and you get good local produce.
In other words, a one-day strike seems to me useful only in introducing people to the idea of moving their purchasing to ethical, local sources--it will not have the oligarchs shitting themselves, not if they assume everybody will be back the next day. And what do we want to push them to do? They are not going to become ethical--they're all sociopaths. What we want is to disempower them, by removing the source of their power, which is money, the source of which is us.