Is "Be the part of the change you want to see in the world!" bullshit?

[Belacqua]

How do you know that boycotting sweatshops is counter-productive? Do you have specific cases in mind?

Boycotts have sometimes been effective in pushing companies to change.

Yeah, sometimes. But mostly not. If someone offered you a bag of your favorite lollipops, but you had to punch yourself in the face for every lollipop that was in the bag, would you do it? No intelligent person would. It's just not worth it. In the same way, boycotts aren't worth it, because you're doing something very stupid in exchange for a reward that's not really worth it. So even if the boycott works, it still wasn't worth what you put into it.

Maybe we're talking about different kinds of boycotts here...

If enough people decided to stop buying Zara and H&M because of the social costs of fast fashion, that might push the companies to do better. Or at the least, if people talked about the boycott enough on social media it might make more people aware of what those costs are. 

But giving up Zara clothes isn't like punching yourself in the face. You're just shopping at a better store, or choosing to wear last year's fashion for another year or two. Not exactly a hardship.

And being an asshole, while truly knowing what to do, is absolutely better than being a more considerate person who doesn't know what to do.

I suspect that a person who actually knows how to be effective wouldn't have to be an asshole. 

But I find that I'm in the minority on this point. I've learned that lots of people think they are justified in being assholes a lot of the time.