How do you quantify success of a boycott?

Question

A few questions about boycotts.1: What is success? 2: Why do they often fail 3: Do we really want the end result or even know what that should be?Some food for thought.Maybe instead of outright failure of a given company we want it to act with moral integrity.Given that boycotts typically fail as a result of convenience how do we start to take back a democracy in a capitalistic society? It would seem to me that voting with your $ is the only way, but getting the mob to agree with the moral choice is the challenge.I'm thinking more then ever given the state of things we really should show that the public can influence choices of the elite.What am I missing?

JohnFen · Accepted Answer

Boycotts typically have stated goals to them. They want the boycotted businesses to change some specific behavior. You measure the success of the boycott based on whether there was a resulting shift toward the change the boycott was seeking.
History is filled with examples of both successful and unsuccessful boycotts.
> Maybe instead of outright failure of a given company we want it to act with moral integrity.
That is the goal of almost all boycotts.
> It would seem to me that voting with your $ is the only way
It is the only way ordinary people can have any influence at all, yes.
Personally, I don't do or advocate for boycotts -- instead, what I do is recognize that every dollar I spend is a vote telling the company I spent it with that "I love what you're doing and want you to keep doing it." So I don't spend my money on companies that are doing things I find objectionable (as far as possible -- there are so many defacto monopolies around that it's literally impossible to live without funding some awful company or another), and advocate for others to do the same.
It's not really a "boycott", which is a specific form of activism aimed at changing specific behavior of particular companies. Instead, it's a mindset the guides my spending across the board. It doesn't matter of "the mob" joins me or not. It's a personal ethical stance that is independent of whether or not others behave similarly.