Perhaps we are using the word “politics” with a different meaning here. In your original message you said:
You may have meant “because you disagree with their political opinion”, rather than “for political reasons”, when you said “because of politics”.
For me “because of politics” covers a pretty wide range of reasons for a boycott. As I said, the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1950s was “because of politics” – the boycotters wanted to achieve political goals: a narrow one, of integrating the bus services in Montgomery, and a broad one, of achieving racial equality in Alabama and in the US. So this was an example of a “refusal to do business with firms because of politics”. Do you diagree with that, or do you still think that because all boycotts are morally bad, this boycott was bad?
Actually, your debate is flawed, because it follows this line:
Premise A.
Premise A implies Premise B.
Premise B implies Premise C.
Premise C implies Premise X.
At which point I and others object, saying Premise X is not implied by C or anything leading up to C, and X ends up covering a lot more territory than just C. Premise X, in this case, is the blanket statement that it is immoral to boycott individuals because of politics. Your Premise C is that is would be immoral for your boss to fire you because of your politics, but we can readily supply Premise D which says it is not immoral to boycott buying products from retailers because of politics. We distinguish Premise C and Premise D because we see a difference between buying a product and hiring the person who makes that product. It’s your attempt to equate Premise C and Premise D that is creating the problem.
I do not feel that I have “hired” Wal-Mart every time I shop there, and if I chose to stop shopping at Wal-Mart, I do not feel I have “fired” them.
Interestingly, the New York Times Magazine Ethicist confronts this very quesiton in the latest issue. In discussing the ethics of belonging to a gym (Curves) whose owner (Gary Heavin) contributes heavily to a cause that the questioner doesn’t believe in (making abortion illegal), he writes:
Emphasis added.
I totally agree. Boycotting someone because they’re Christian is icky; boycotting them because they’re actively working to establish a Christian theocracy is perfectly reasonable.
js_africanus, I’m glad you posted this. You and I argued over this some months ago and I never felt we reached a satisfactory conclusion; we just gave up. (in a large part because I’m a crappy debater) It has actually bothered me for some time. Anyway, my view mirrored that of many of the posters who have expressed their arguments far more skillfully than I ever did…
It’s not so clear cut. Some people think the Catholic church subjugates women due to its stance on birth control, abortion, and female clergy. If so, it would be reasonable to boycott a Catholic sponsored function, for no other reason than it’s Catholic, if one holds the views that the practices I described are oppressive.
js_africanus, that is a very clever argument. It is true that “firing for political reasons” and “ceasing to patronize for political reasons” both fall under the umbrella of “terminating a business relationship for political reasons”.
However, I think that you can resolve the issue by adopting the premise that “it is wrong to punish people for their beliefs” instead of that “it is wrong to fire people for political reasons”. This has the advantage of implying that it is usually immoral to fire someone for her political beliefs, but not that it is immoral to boycott a business.
This is because boycotts are usually not about punishing beliefs. When people boycott a business, it is usually not merely because the business disagrees with them on an issue they consider important. Rather, a boycott is called because the business actively threatens something considered important. For example, when people boycotted Shell for their activities in the Niger Delta, they did this because (they believed) Shell was actively destroying the livelihoods of people in that region. In other words, boycotts are invoked to change how a company behaves, not simply to punish beliefs.
The situation is not analogous when a firm fires an employee. Even if an individual employee disagrees with the firm on some issue, she is almost never powerful enough to put her beliefs into practice in a way that significantly threatens the firm’s values. When that business fired the Kerry supporter, they could not claim that she was doing anything significant to improve Kerry’s reelection prospects. (Ironically, the publicity generated by her being fired probably did more to help Kerry than she otherwise could have done.) Therefore, firing her for political reasons can only be interpreted as punishing her for her beliefs.
So, the relevant difference between the employer<–>employee relationship and the costumer<–>producer relationship is that an employee is usually a relatively powerless individual, while a producer is a relatively powerful entity with the ability to do serious harm.
Um…it isn’t actually that hypothetical. A guy I knew in grad school who used to laugh about a fellow who liked a particular composer’s music but wouldn’t listen because of his politics.
The reason I’m having trouble is because I can’t see a line that separates economic transactions into different classes along this dimension. I take it as given that it is immoral to not hire or fire someone because of political beliefs and activities. To me, the idea that an accountant, housekeeper, or CAD designer should not be considered for employment because she participated in a peace march is repugnant. From there it just extends out via different, but similar economic relationships until we have a very inclusive sphere. Not buying groceries because the store owner participated in a peace march becomes immoral because I see no line separating one economic transaction from another.
We tend to see the economy almost in terms of business vs. the consumer; but, that’s not really the way it is. Businesses depend on inputs and inputs ultimately come from people—it goes in a circle, so to speak. I don’t see where we would put an arbitrary (in my eyes at this stage of the game) marker to say that one type of transaction is priveledged in terms of discrimination on political beliefs.
The law puts in arbitrary markers. For example, if a business is acting as a coercive monopoly, then the law may step in and do something about it; but if labor is acting as a coercive monopoly, then the law will do nothing. If a business is acting as a coercive monopoly, the law can act if the behavior is hurting other businesses, but not if it is only hurting consumers (that’s how it’s been explained to me). These breaks in distinction make no sense to me at all. Monopolies are inefficient for society and regardless what the law has to say about it, it doesn’t matter whether it is labor or business who is the monopolist.
If I can’t find a watershed in economic transactions to demarcate when turning away because of politics is okay vs. when it is not, then I am left with applying the rule across the board. So if not hiring a house painter because she supports Israeli settlements in Palestine is immoral, then not purchasing a painting because the artist supports Israeli settlements in Palestine is immoral as well.
I can’t be swayed because the law says this or that simply because the law is not the arbiter of morals or economic reality. I can’t be swayed because I don’t like the results because I have my premise and if my reasoning is good, I’m stuck with the result regardless of whether I find the end product counter-intuitive.
I’m not. I’m treating economic transactions as the same. If someone is looking for a job, it would be immoral for me to ask her about her political opinions and to what extent she donates or engages in advocacy do determine whether I’ll offer her a job. It all extends from there by not making commerce distinct. I may not like that a person is a holocaust denier or a supporter of Israeli expansion; but those beliefs aren’t grounds for kicking the person out of the book club (if I were a book club member). Nor would I refuse to, say, date someone simply because she voted for Bush this upcoming November.
I am indeed constrained by laws. Those laws neither supercede nor replace my moral obligations. I’m sure there are times when following the law per se is the morally right thing to do. For the rest of the time, I just have to hope that the law and my morals don’t conflict. I’m not relieved of my moral obligations simply because the law has inserted itself into some particular arena.
But I hope it’s clear how I’m using it. I can’t have a discussion derailed simply because my vocabulary isn’t as good as I would like it to be.
The bus boycott happened because of politics in one sense of the word. But in another sense, it didn’t, since it was actually riding the bus and not being kicked to the rear or forced to give up a seat that mattered rather than the political beliefs and affiliations of the drivers, managers, or owners. If the sense in which I’m using it isn’t clear by now, then there’s not much I can do to better express what I’m thinking.
You can supply the alternate premise; but you need to either reject my premise or show why the two situations are meaningfully different along the relevant dimension. Our township has an assessor. She was hired as an employee, now she’s contracted as a business. Everything is the same except that one abstraction. I see no reason to conclude that though it was immoral to hire let her political beliefs affect her employment in the past, it is now moral—indeed, according to some, a moral obligation—to have her politics affect her relationship with the township. The only thing that has changed is who writes the check for taxes and what taxes are to be paid. That’s not sufficient change to justify sacking her for marching in pro-life or pro-choice rallys. But that’s what the competiting premises demand. Unless there is a reason why her change from employee to business makes a relevant difference, I am obliged to reject the second premise because it contradicts my original premise because I feel it is more fundamentally acceptable. I can’t see how it would be acceptable to embrace private oppression of political activity & beliefs simply because the State doesn’t happen to be invovled. To me freedom isn’t about having it my way; it’s about people being free and I bear some burden of their freedom: If I open an ice-cream shop, I’ll be obliged to sell cones to Illinois Nazis no matter how much I hate them.
I haven’t read the article because I can never remember my name or password and I’m sick of registering for them. Hence, I don’t know what argument he builds to come to that conclusion. The idea that the owner is the primary beneficiary from his company to such an extent that company and owner are the same entity is stretching it. Myriad people engage in business with a big company and to say that hurting the company isn’t affecting them has no face validity.
Additionally, it still comes back to the inseparatibility of classes of economic transactions. It is not obvious, and indeed it is against the reasoning I’ve put into this question, that “she’s an employee, he’s a business” impacts on whether it’s okay to treat them differently if the go out and prosletyze for something I don’t like. I’m not sure, but you may be deriving a ought from an is; i.e. it is true that a business and an employee are different in some respects, yet that doesn’t imply that they ought to be treated differently in terms of when discrimination is or is not acceptable.
(If I were debating myself, I’d accuse myself of using a weak analogy, but I don’t think I’d be correct because I think the case of the assessor shows that the situations are indeed similar along the relevant dimension.)
I am very bad about getting into a discussion before I realize that I am not really going to keep involved for more than a post or two. Additionally, I sometimes let it sit to think about and then it gets so far gone that I’ve lost track of where I’m at and I’ve deleted the notifications to keep my inbox from getting cluttered. (Things on the second page of the inbox can be forgotten for months.)
I think what I’m getting at is fairly easy to digest: In spite of surface differences, when it comes to politics-based discrimination, there is no meaningful distinction between economic relationships. To put another way, if it’s wrong to discriminate on politics in the factor goods market, then it is wrong to discriminate on politics in the consumer good market because factor good vs. consumer good has no discernable impact on the question of discrimination.
What you need to do is either show why my premise is wrong, show why factor good vs. consumer good is relevant to politics-based discrimination, or give a more compelling premise that contradicts my premise. Your method of attack, then, should key in on one or more of those elements. Once you’ve identified the key elements, you can prepare a response. For example, you could argue that the moral obligation to boycott is more important than the moral obligation to not discriminate. I haven’t been swayed on that, but it is possible inasmuch as I will change my opinion given compelling argumentation.
I don’t think that works because I can’t distinguish between different types of relationships. Going back to the assessor example, the rule you offer would allow her to be discriminated against even though her relationship with the township is essentially the same. In fact, “it’s wrong to fire people for political reasons” is the premise I worked from to get the result that is so vexing.
The way you draw a distinction by whether the discrimination is actively threatening is interesting. The thing is that by that rule, I could be discriminated against for writing a letter to the editor opposing farmland preservation or joining a coalition to restrict the use of pesticides in agriculture. There would be myriad possiblities where that rule leads to a contradiction because politics isn’t just national and many firms are small enough or interrelated enough for small numbers of people to have meaningful effects. Additionally, the rule would allow the blanket firing of all UAW workers by GM if GM feels that the UAW’s political activities harm its interests. So I don’t think that rule will work for me.
jsa:But you’re relying on law to make that distinction, which is conflating morality with legality
Nope, 'cause I said “The individual (employee or customer) is legally allowed more latitude to discriminate against the business than vice versa. If we believe that that legal distinction represents a valid moral principle—i.e., individuals are more personally and substantially affected by these issues than businesses are, so it’s only fair to interfere less with their choices—then we probably have to extend that principle to discrimination on political grounds too.”
Emphasis added. In other words, you’re right that legality doesn’t automatically imply morality, but in this case I think it’s a moral principle that the law is trying to enforce. As John put it (very well, too):
JM: *[…] if you think employment discrimination is immoral, then the exact same reasoning can be used to claim that boycotts for political purposes are also immoral. Implicit in the claim that boycotts are not immoral is an assumption that the business is in an unfair or unnatural position of power while the potential employee isn’t. But in a non-coercive environment, neither is a position of power. *
Exactly. Non-libertarians like me tend to accord individuals (whether as employees or consumers) more rights than businesses, precisely because we think that businesses frequently are in an “unfair [or at least unequal] position of power” vis-a-vis the employee or customer.
In other words, the moral principle involved here is called “leveling the playing field”. Businesses generally have much more power over individual employees and customers than vice versa. Therefore, employees and customers should have greater latitude to discriminate than businesses do. Therefore, boycotts and protest resignations by customers/employees against businesses are not necessarily immoral even if discrimination by businesses against customers/employees is immoral. It’s only fair that the more powerful entity should have more restrictions placed on its power.
Note that I’m not attempting to claim that all boycotts are by definition moral. (As in jshore’s example, I’d consider it immoral for customers to boycott a business because the owner is black or Muslim or Jewish etc., and I’d consider it immoral for an employee to resign from a business for a similar reason. IMO it’s also immoral to participate in a political boycott in an uninformed or misinformed way. If you are claiming that a certain business doesn’t deserve your patronage because of its political positions, you are damn well obligated to get your facts straight.)
I’m just arguing that because of this fundamental imbalance of power, employment discrimination on political grounds per se* is more immoral than boycotts per se.
I don’t follow why a difference in power relationship implies a differential in moral latitude in discrimination. I’m not going to try to complicate the issue with examples where employers really aren’t the more powerful party; I don’t think that will make much progress toward a non-vexing conclusion. So, certainly employees need some protection. For example, my sister is an HR professional and, if she chose to, could probably utilize the law, both honestly and in poor faith, to harm the employees of her firm. Clearly a high-school grad going against an experienced professonal with extensive education in the field of HR is fighting an uphill battle should the HR director be an unsavory character. So let’s assume the power differential for now.
Why is this aspect of the employer-employee relationship vs. the business-customer relationship one where customers need the playing field levelled. For example, you don’t know what’s in a Big Mac; the State forces McDonald’s to meet certain standards and publish certain information because of the asymmetry in information. Here the State is creating rules that match what seems to be the right thing to do: Be honest and upfront about the quality of ingredients.
What I don’t follow is the step from there to allowing politics-based discrimination as being an appropriate way to level the field. If there is a bias in terms of ability to throw money around, for example, there is also a bias in term information avaibility—so if I donate money to cause X, should I notify some central clearing house so that firms that oppose cause X can refuse to do business with me?
I don’t follow the link that finds a market failure, let’s say, that implies it’s okay to discriminate against entity A for donating money to Greenpeace while it’s not okay do discriminate against endity B for the same reason.
Let me try a (probably bad) analogy. I’m looking at a rainbow. On one side it’s red, on the other it’s violet. In between, it passes through orange, yellow, green, blue and indigo. Now, if I apply a version of your “I can’t find a watershed”, then I have to call the entire rainbow red, because I can’t find an exact moment that orange turns to yellow, or green turns to blue. Just because there is a continuum does not mean that there are not differences. Sometimes life just requires judgement calls and we have to draw our own lines. To me, an accountant who supports Israeli settlements and a self-proclaimed neo-nazi daycare supplier would fall on opposite sides of that line.
jsa:so if I donate money to cause X, should I notify some central clearing house so that firms that oppose cause X can refuse to do business with me?
IMO it’s not necessary, because the power asymmetry is more important. (I’m also not quite sure where you’re getting the idea that the information asymmetry is in favor of the consumer. Given things like shell companies and consumer activity tracking and so forth, a company is probably in at least as good a position to find out the political activities of a consumer as the consumer is to find out such things about the company.)
We should also bear in mind that, strictly speaking, businesses themselves can’t discriminate on ethical grounds because businesses don’t have ethical principles, or consciences or moral consciousness or any of the other abstractions that lead real live people to join boycotts. Companies are amoral artificial entities for making money (and I mean that in a nice way).
Therefore, companies cannot really discriminate against individuals on moral grounds, because by definition they’ve got no morals. When a business owner uses his company to discriminate against consumers or employees on the basis of his own political principles, I think it’s fair to say that he’s abusing his position of greater power.
That, I suppose, leads to the question of whether it’s immoral for one company to boycott another company, and damned if I know.