Post AyE2bK0BFal97AtFCK by fabio@manganiello.social
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 (DIR) Post #AyE2bK0BFal97AtFCK by fabio@manganiello.social
       2025-09-14T13:07:16.372638Z
       
       0 likes, 2 repeats
       
       You cannot vote with your wallet.Or rather, you can, but you will lose that vote. Wallet-votes always go to the people with the thickest wallets, and statistically, that is not you.Margaret Thatcher tried to get us to believe that "there is no such thing as society." She wanted everyday people to abandon the idea of having a shared destiny, to throw away any notion of solidarity as an answer to social problems. Despite the fact that Thatcher's own backers happily formed cartels and cabals, from the Mount Pellerin Society to the Heritage Foundation, Thatcher insisted that everyday people should fight their battles alone.If you want higher wages, don't join a union – just go demand a higher wage from your boss. If you want lower rents, don't demand rent controls, just petition your landlord for a discount. If none of this stuff works (this stuff rarely works), then you are out of luck. "The market" exists to do "price discovery" and you've just discovered the price of your labor (less than you need to survive) and the cost of your home (more than you can afford). You voted with your wallet, and you lost. As Thatcher was fond of saying, "there is no alternative."Change happens when solidaristic groups of everyday people – unions, political movements – directly confront politicians and power-brokers and demand change. Your boss won't equitably share the fruits of your labor unless they fear that all the workers on the jobsite will shut down the shop. Your politicians won't do the bidding of everyday people – who can't shower them in cash – unless they fear that they will have their offices blockaded, their homes picketed, and their seats primaried.Individual actions do not provoke systemic change. For that, we need collective action.Make individual choices that make your life better. Take collective action to make society better. Your individual hand-wringing about whether to buy organic produce or get a Frappuccino just makes you less effective. It's not a boycott. A boycott is planned, social and solidaristic. It's something lots of people do together. Boycotts work (which is why génocidaires hate the BDS movement). Scabbing isn't buying something from someone unethical. Scabbing is crossing a picket line or breaking a boycott.We won't cure enshittification by zealously pursuing an approved list of correct merchants and products – we'll do so by changing the policy landscape so that enshittifiers sink and disenshittifiers rise@pluralistichttps://pluralistic.net/2025/09/13/consumption-choices/