Boycotting Black Friday vs. Creating an Alternative Economy

As we move into the holiday season, there seems to be a tension, at least among progressives, between people's desire to buy a bunch of cheap crap and the recognition that all of that cheap crap comes at a cost to workers. For the last few years, this issue has been highlighted around stores that now start "Black Friday" on Thursday and require their employees to work on Thanksgiving. A number of my friends have posted articles and petitions, such as this one, urging people to boycott these stores.

For me, this boycott is easy. Since 2004 (read more about that here), I have slowly extricated myself from the mainstream economy. It long ago ceased to be a boycott and became an opportunity to seek out businesses that have social justice and environmentally friendly missions and otherwise share my values, as well as to think about how much stuff I actually need. As a result, I haven't shopped at most of these stores in a decade or more.

It is good to think about how our rampant consumerism impacts workers. But the oppression and exploitation that these major corporations engage in does not start and end with the holidays. Does anyone believe that a store that tells employees they will be fired if they don't show up on Thanksgiving treats their employees well the rest of the year? And it does not start and end with the American employees that work in these stores. The products that these stores sell are produced, primarily in the Global South, at considerable environmental, human, and nonhuman cost. The exploitation continues day in and day out so that we can have our smartphones, big screen tvs, designer clothing, chocolate bars, etc. There is no holiday from the exploitation that is occurring worldwide.

There are alternatives. There are businesses that do not exist solely to make money and that care about how their products are produced. A couple of years ago, I got this email from one of my favorite companies, Fair Indigo, a sweatshop free clothing company explaining their refusal to recognize Black Friday and posing other suggestions:

While my first choice is always to buy preowned items, these are types of companies I will support, not just at this time of the year, but all throughout the year.