When we talk about influencing policy by targeting corporate power, it should be understood that this does not exclusively refer to the tactic of consumer boycotts. In many cases, consumer boycotts are unrealistic and ineffective. Rather, we have to mobilize in a multi-layered action campaign in successively intensifying stages of pressure. There should be increasingly strong pressure tactics including direct appeal to the corporate leadership, to shareholders, demonstrations, protests, direct action and disruption of operations and so on.
The basic underlying objective is to negatively impact a company’s profitability, efficiency, and the value of its share price. There are many ways to do this, and it has been proven strategically effective time and time again.
We have to map the governing system of power in our society, particularly the economic and political control wielded by corporations and financial institutions. We then have to understand the organizational structure of these institutions, and how we can potentially impose accountability on them for the policies they use their influence to see implemented.
For example, we can see in Gaza that there are basically three multinational corporations which are driving the war machine of the Zionists (This does not include the US defense and aerospace industries which are a constant factor in Israeli militarism).
Noble Energy, BG Group, and Union Fenosa Gas are the key players behind the scenes motivating, subsidizing and profiting from the massacre in Gaza. The agenda here is both economic and political, with a clear objective of turning Israel into a vital regional energy exporter. Israel can’t do this without these companies; their cooperation is crucial and decisive. Their influence could easily and instantly bring the war to an end.
It is time that corporations are held accountable for the destructive policies they enable, it is time to recognize that war profiteers are not simply mercenary opportunists, but are in fact major instigators of war and strife, and they have to be regarded as aggressors, and dealt with as aggressors.