WEBVTT NOTE 18. The Boycott 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Chapter 18 The Boycott 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:16.000 A boycott is an attempt to persuade other people to have nothing to do with some particular person or firm, either socially or in agreeing not to purchase the firm's product. 3 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:23.000 Morally, a boycott may be used for absurd, reprehensible, laudatory or neutral goals. 4 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:31.000 It may be used, for example, to attempt to persuade people not to buy non-union grapes, or not to buy union grapes. 5 00:00:31.000 --> 00:00:40.000 From our point of view, the important thing about the boycott is that it is purely voluntary, an act of attempted persuasion, 6 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:45.000 and therefore that it is a perfectly legal and licit instrument of action. 7 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.160 Again, as in the case of libel, a boycott may well diminish a firm's customers, and 8 00:00:51.160 --> 00:00:54.120 therefore cut into its property values. 9 00:00:54.120 --> 00:01:00.760 But such an act is still a perfectly legitimate exercise of free speech and property rights. 10 00:01:00.760 --> 00:01:06.840 Whether we wish any particular boycott, well or ill, depends on our moral values and on 11 00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:11.280 our attitudes toward the concrete goal or activity. 12 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:15.120 that a boycott is legitimate per se. 13 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:20.760 If we feel a given boycott to be morally reprehensible, then it is within the rights of those who 14 00:01:20.760 --> 00:01:27.060 feel this way to organize a counter-boycott, to persuade the consumers otherwise, or to 15 00:01:27.060 --> 00:01:29.680 boycott the boycotters. 16 00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:35.200 All this is part of the process of dissemination of information and opinion within the framework 17 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:38.000 of the rights of private property. 18 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:46.000 Furthermore, secondary boycotts are also legitimate, despite their outlawry under our current labor laws. 19 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:57.000 In a secondary boycott, labor unions try to persuade consumers not to buy from firms who deal with non-union, primary boycotted firms. 20 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:03.000 Again, in a free society, it should be their right to try such persuasion, 21 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:08.280 just as it is the right of their opponents to counter with an opposing boycott. 22 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:13.200 In the same way, it is the right of the League of Decency to try to organize a boycott of 23 00:02:13.200 --> 00:02:18.760 pornographic motion pictures, just as it would be the right of opposing forces to organize 24 00:02:18.760 --> 00:02:23.720 a boycott of those who give in to the League's boycott. 25 00:02:23.720 --> 00:02:29.260 Of particular interest here is that the boycott is a device which can be used by people who 26 00:02:29.260 --> 00:02:35.180 who wish to take action against those who engage in activities which we consider licit, 27 00:02:35.180 --> 00:02:37.420 but which they consider immoral. 28 00:02:37.420 --> 00:02:45.300 Thus, while non-union firms, pornography, libel, or whatever, would be legal in a free 29 00:02:45.300 --> 00:02:50.580 society, so would it be the right of those who find such activities morally repugnant 30 00:02:50.580 --> 00:02:55.940 to organize boycotts against those who perform such activities. 31 00:02:55.940 --> 00:03:01.260 Any action would be legal in the libertarian society, provided that it does not invade 32 00:03:01.260 --> 00:03:07.460 property rights, whether of self-ownership or of material objects, and this would include 33 00:03:07.460 --> 00:03:14.060 boycotts against such activities, or counter-boycotts against the boycotters. 34 00:03:14.060 --> 00:03:19.860 The point is that coercion is not the only action that can be taken against what some 35 00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:24.160 consider to be immoral persons or activities. 36 00:03:24.160 --> 00:03:30.440 There are also such voluntary and persuasive actions as the boycott. 37 00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:35.760 Whether picketing as a form of advertising a boycott would be legitimate in a free society 38 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:38.680 is a far more complex question. 39 00:03:38.680 --> 00:03:44.640 Obviously mass picketing that blocked entrance or egress from a building would be criminal 40 00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:50.520 and invasive of the rights of property, as would be sit-ins and sit-down strikes that 41 00:03:50.520 --> 00:03:54.200 forcibly occupied the property of others. 42 00:03:54.200 --> 00:03:58.680 Also invasive would be the type of picketing in which demonstrators threatened people who 43 00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:04.920 crossed the picket line, a clear case of intimidation by threat of violence. 44 00:04:04.920 --> 00:04:11.580 But even peaceful picketing is a complex question, for once again the use of government streets 45 00:04:11.580 --> 00:04:13.340 is involved. 46 00:04:13.340 --> 00:04:20.340 And as in the case of assembly or street demonstrations generally, the government cannot make a non-arbitrary 47 00:04:20.340 --> 00:04:32.140 and the right of the building owner and of traffic to use the streets as well. 48 00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:38.180 Again, it is impossible for government to decide in such a way as to eliminate conflict 49 00:04:38.180 --> 00:04:42.140 and to uphold rights in a clear-cut manner. 50 00:04:42.140 --> 00:04:46.460 If on the other hand the street in front of the picketed building were owned by private 51 00:04:46.460 --> 00:04:52.060 Owners, then these owners would have the absolute right to decide on whether picketers could 52 00:04:52.060 --> 00:04:56.500 use their street in any way that the owners saw fit. 53 00:04:56.500 --> 00:05:03.540 Similarly, such employer devices as the blacklist, a form of boycott, would be legal in the free 54 00:05:03.540 --> 00:05:05.540 society. 55 00:05:05.540 --> 00:05:12.300 Before the Norris LaGuardia Act of 1931, it was legal for employers to fire union organizers 56 00:05:12.300 --> 00:05:19.540 is among their employees, and to circulate blacklists of such persons to other employers. 57 00:05:19.540 --> 00:05:25.460 Also legal would be the Yellow Dog Contract, another device before the Norris LaGuardia 58 00:05:25.460 --> 00:05:26.460 Act. 59 00:05:26.460 --> 00:05:32.740 In such a contract, the employee and the employer agree that should the former join a union, 60 00:05:32.740 --> 00:05:34.980 The employer can fire him forthwith.