This sounds like a misunderstanding.
‘Consumer activism’ is, in so many words, not activism. It describes the effort of working towards greater change through purchasing decisions. It’s a liberal rationalization common in capitalist societies that fails to account for the systemic limitations of the consumer voice. The issues with it are many, but I’ll list a few:
- It’s dependent on a person’s spending power, which is dependent on their capital wealth, which is dependent on their endorsement of the system as a whole.
- It shames those in poverty who cannot afford to participate and generates greater class divide.
- It relies on the transparency of the business entities to definite itself. If Google doesn’t tell us how evil it is, we cannot know the importance of avoiding their services.
- It relies on the media to expose misgivings, but the media relies on the misgivers to pay their bills. You get the point.
- It places a burden on the well-meaning by insisting they deny opportunities available to their competitors.
- It pits individuals against one another, undermining the solidarity needed for lasting change.