Playing into their hands

Since I last wrote about my objection to a boycott of a certain well-known web retailer, the situation has changed. The British government is proposing a change in the law to prevent some 'tax efficiencies' from being used. It remains to be seen whether that will help, or whether a new loophole will be discovered.

This, of course, leaves the other objection about treatment and pay for their staff.

Don't get me wrong

I am no apologist for companies trying to get away with paying staff as little as possible while reducing their tax liability as far as possible. But I fail to see why anyone would expect them to act any differently.

Yes, I'd like people to be paid an decent wage for a day's work.

No, I don't think that ludicrously low wages should be propped up by tax credits from the state - because that's effectively the state subsidising the profits of large multinational companies by making it possible for their employees to work for starvation wages.

If a human being needs to earn a minimum salary in order to buy food, clothes, and shelter then why on earth would the 'minimum wage' be any less than that?

If a company can't operate by paying proper wages then its business model is fundamentally flawed and it should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than relying on state handouts.

But it's not that, is it? They just want to make more profit and they can. So the minimum wage needs to go up. The profits can either come down - or they can charge more for their goods or services.

Anything else is market distortion. And we wouldn't want that, would we?

Market distortion is a good thing

Of course it is. And this is why a boycott is wrong.

If we, the great unwashed, the plebs, the salt of the earth, decide that we can change the behaviour of a large company by boycott then it means we have accepted that the free market has all the answers.

It means that we accept that change can only come about because of where the money goes. If it stops going to one company, that company will work out why people don't like it any more and try to change.

Which means that governments can wash their hands of any responsibility for looking out for the interests of its citizens. Don't like the actions of company A? Don't buy anything from them and the free market will do the rest.

No.

The role of a government is to look out for the interests of its citizens. And if something is being done which is against the interests of the citizens of a country (e.g. paying starvation wages, propping up your business model with state handouts, reducing your tax bill to near zero) - it is for the government to step in and fix laws and regulations so they work in the interest of the majority.

In other words, the government must distort the market. Because the alternative is unthinkable.

The boycott wouldn't work anyway

Sure, you might deprive a company of a million or two. But that's hardly going to be an incentive for them to start paying hundreds of millions more in tax and salary. Sorry.

Silly analogy - or a clumsy attempt to show why laws are better than market forces

Company D decides that they'll make a television programme in which random people are punched in the street - and their reactions captured in slow-motion high-definition.

Should we wait to see if anyone watches it? If so, the revenue from advertising will prove that the market approves - and a small amount of the profit could deal with the lawsuits and medical bills.

Or should the government stop them, perhaps by enacting a law forbidding that sort of violence, coupled with a law enforcement mechanism, perhaps including a police force, a judiciary and some prisons?