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by hackinthebochs 1849 days ago
If firing for speech is made illegal, then a boycott will be ineffectual and thus not happen. You don't have to outlaw the speech of the mob, just the ability for a company to fire someone over someone's past statements.
1 comments

The effectiveness of the boycott is a function of relative power levels, not whether the corporation can take action to adjust the issue.

If it's made illegal to fire people for speech, I doubt people would have any qualms (assuming they have the purchasing power and scale) with driving the corporation to bankruptcy. Another corporation will take its place.

It's very hard to boycott a company into bankruptcy this way, and it never worked. Maybe a tiny startup, by scaring off backers. It's much easier to scare their PR HR to fire a person or do superficial changes. Companies have more power than a random employee, unless we're talking CEO level.
The point isn't the power over the corporation, the point is the power over the individual. But if the law makes it so they have no power over the individual, the motive to boycott won't exist.