Boycott

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott

A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict some economic loss on the target, or to indicate a moral outrage, to try to compel the target to alter an objectionable behavior.

The word is named after Captain Charles Boycott, agent of an absentee landlord in Ireland, against whom the tactic was successfully employed after a suggestion by Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell and his Irish Land League in 1880.

Sometimes, a boycott can be a form of consumer activism, sometimes called moral purchasing. When a similar practice is legislated by a national government, it is known as a sanction. Frequently, however, the threat of boycotting a business is an empty threat, with no significant effect on sales.

Etymology

Vanity Fair caricature of Charles C. Boycott

 

Protesters advocating boycott of KFC due to animal welfare concerns

The word boycott entered the English language during the Irish "Land War" and derives from Captain Charles Boycott, the land agent of an absentee landlord, Lord Erne, who lived in County Mayo, Ireland. Captain Boycott was the target of social ostracism organized by the Irish Land League in 1880. As harvests had been poor that year, Lord Erne offered his tenants a ten percent reduction in their rents. In September of that year, protesting tenants demanded a twenty-five percent reduction, which Lord Erne refused. Boycott then attempted to evict eleven tenants from the land. Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish leader, proposed that when dealing with tenants who take farms where another tenant was evicted, rather than resorting to violence, everyone in the locality should shun them. While Parnell's speech did not refer to land agents or landlords, the tactic was first applied to Boycott when the alarm was raised about the evictions. Despite the short-term economic hardship to those undertaking this action, Boycott soon found himself isolated – his workers stopped work in the fields and stables, as well as in his house. Local businessmen stopped trading with him, and the local postman refused to deliver mail.

The concerted action taken against him meant that Boycott was unable to hire anyone to harvest his crops in his charge. After the harvest, the "boycott" was successfully continued and soon the new word was everywhere. The New-York Tribune reporter, James Redpath, first wrote of the boycott in the international press. The Irish author, George Moore, reported: 'Like a comet the verb 'boycott' appeared.' It was used by The Times in November 1880 as a term for organized isolation. According to an account in the book The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland by Michael Davitt, the term was promoted by Fr. John O'Malley of County Mayo to "signify ostracism applied to a landlord or agent like Boycott". The Times first reported on November 20, 1880: "The people of New Pallas have resolved to 'boycott' them and refused to supply them with food or drink." The Daily News wrote on December 13, 1880: "Already the stoutest-hearted are yielding on every side to the dread of being 'Boycotted'." By January of the following year, the word was being used figuratively: "Dame Nature arose.... She 'Boycotted' London from Kew to Mile End."

Girlcott

Girlcott, a pun on "boycott", is a boycott intended to focus on the rights or actions of women. The term was coined in 1968 by American Lacey O'Neal during the 1968 Summer Olympics in the context of protests by male African American athletes. The term was later used by retired tennis player Billie Jean King in 1999 in reference to Wimbledon, while discussing equal pay for women players. The term "girlcott" was revived in 2005 by the Women and Girls Foundation in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania against Abercrombie & Fitch.

Notable boycotts

Main article: List of boycotts

 

The 1976 Montreal, 1980 Moscow, and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic boycotts

 

Nameplate of Dr. Werner Liebenthal, Notary & Advocate. The plate was hung outside his office on Martin Luther Str, Schöneberg, Berlin. In 1933, following the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service the plate was painted black by the Nazis, who boycotted Jewish owned offices.

Although the term itself was not coined until 1880, the practice dates back to at least the 1790s, when supporters of the British abolitionists led and supported the free produce movement. Other instances include:

• the Iranian Tobacco Boycott in 1891
• Civil rights movement boycotts to protest segregation (e.g., Montgomery & Tallahassee Bus Boycotts)
• the United Farm Workers union grape and lettuce boycotts
• the American boycott of British goods during the American Revolution, such as the Boston Tea Party
• the 1905 Chinese boycott of American products to protest the extension of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1902.
• the Indian boycott of British goods organized by Mahatma Gandhi
• the successful Jewish boycott organized against Henry Ford in the United States, in the 1920s
• the boycott of Japanese products in China after the May Fourth Movement
• the antisemitic boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in Nazi Germany during the 1930s
• the Jewish anti-Nazi boycott of German goods in Lithuania, the US, Britain, Poland and Mandatory Palestine during 1933
• the Arab League boycott of Israel and companies trading with Israel.
• the worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign led by Palestinian civil society against the State of Israel.
• The global fossil fuel divestment movement, described by Desmond Tutu as an "apartheid-style boycott to save the planet", and considered to be the biggest boycott-style campaign in history.

During the 1973 oil crisis, the Arab countries enacted a crude oil embargo against the West. Other examples include the US-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, the Soviet-led boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and the movement that advocated "disinvestment" in South Africa during the 1980s in opposition to that country's apartheid regime. The first Olympic boycott was in the 1956 Summer Olympics with several countries boycotting the games for different reasons. Iran also has an informal Olympic boycott against participating against Israel, and Iranian athletes typically bow out or claim injuries when pitted against Israelis (see Arash Miresmaeili).

Academic boycotts have been organized against countries—for example, the mid- and late 20th-century academic boycotts of South Africa in protest of apartheid practices and the academic boycotts of Israel in the early 2000s.

Application and uses

Protesters advocating boycott of BP due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Boycotts are now much easier to successfully initiate due to the Internet. Examples include the gay and lesbian boycott of advertisers of the Dr. Laura talk show, gun owners' similar boycott of advertisers of Rosie O'Donnell's talk show and (later) magazine, and gun owners' boycott of Smith & Wesson following that company's March 2000 settlement with the Clinton administration. They may be initiated very easily using either websites (the Dr. Laura boycott), newsgroups (the Rosie O'Donnell boycotts), or even mailing lists. Internet-initiated boycotts "snowball" very quickly compared to other forms of organization. Viral Labeling is a new boycott method using the new digital technology proposed by the Multitude Project and applied for the first time against Walt Disney around Christmas time in 2009.

African-Americans in Dallas boycotting a Korean owned Kwik Stop in a mostly black community.

Some boycotts center on particular businesses, such as recent protests regarding Costco, Walmart, Ford Motor Company, or the diverse products of Philip Morris. Another form of boycott identifies a number of different companies involved in a particular issue, such as the Sudan Divestment campaign, the "Boycott Bush" campaign. The Boycott Bush website was set up by Ethical Consumer after U.S. President George W. Bush failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – the website identified Bush's corporate funders and the brands and products they produce. Historically boycotts have also targeted individual businesses. During the early decades of the twentieth century hotels in Australia were regularly targeted over the cost of alcohol, accommodation and food, as well as mistreatment of employees.

As a response to consumer boycotts of large-scale and multinational businesses, some companies have marketed brands that do not bear the company's name on the packaging or in advertising. Activists such as Ethical Consumer produce information that reveals which companies own which brands and products so consumers can practice boycotts or moral purchasing more effectively. Another organization, Buycott.com, provides an Internet-based smart-phone application that scans Universal Product Codes and displays corporate relationships to the user.

"Boycotts" may be formally organized by governments as well. In reality, government "boycotts" are just a type of embargo. Notably, the first formal, nationwide act of the Nazi government against German Jews was a national embargo of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933.

Where the target of a boycott derives all or part of its revenues from other businesses, as a newspaper does, boycott organizers may address the target's commercial customers.

Collective behavior

The sociology of collective behavior is concerned with causes and conditions pertaining to behavior carried out by a collective, as opposed to an individual (e.g., riots, panics, fads/crazes, boycotts). Boycotts have been characterized by some as different from traditional forms of collective behavior in that they appear to be highly rational and dependent on existing norms and structures. Lewis Killian criticizes that characterization, pointing to the Tallahassee bus boycott as one example of a boycott that aligns with traditional collective behavior theory.

Philip Balsiger points out that political consumption (e.g., boycotts) tends to follow dual-purpose action repertoires, or scripts, which are used publicly to pressure boycott targets and to educate and recruit consumers. Balsiger finds one example in Switzerland, documenting activities of the Clean Clothes Campaign, a public NGO-backed campaign, that highlighted and disseminated information about local companies' ethical practices.

Dixon, Martin, and Nau analyzed 31 collective behavior campaigns against corporations that took place during the 1990s and 2000s. Protests considered successful included boycotts and were found to include a third party, either in the capacity of state intervention or of media coverage. State intervention may make boycotts more efficacious when corporation leaders fear the imposition of regulations. Media intervention may be a crucial contributor to a successful boycott because of its potential to damage the reputation of a corporation. Target corporations that were the most visible were found to be the most vulnerable to either market (protest causing economic loss) or mediated (caused by third-party) disruption. Third-party actors (i.e., the state or media) were more influential when a corporation had a high reputation—when third-party activity was low, highly reputable corporations did not make the desired concessions to boycotters; when third-party activity was high, highly reputable corporations satisfied the demands of boycotters. The boycott, a prima facie market-disruptive tactic, often precipitates mediated disruption. The researchers' analysis led them to conclude that when boycott targets are highly visible and directly interact with and depend on local consumers who can easily find substitutes, they are more likely to make concessions. Koku, Akhigbe, and Springer also emphasize the importance of boycotts' threat of reputational damage, finding that boycotts alone pose more of a threat to a corporation's reputation than to its finances directly.

Philippe Delacote points out that a problem contributing to a generally low probability of success for any boycott is the fact that the consumers with the most power to cause market disruption are the least likely to participate; the opposite is true for consumers with the least power. Another collective behavior problem is the difficulty, or impossibility, of direct coordination amongst a dispersed group of boycotters. Yuksel and Mryteza emphasize the collective behavior problem of free riding in consumer boycotts, noting that some individuals may perceive participating to be too great an immediate personal utility sacrifice. They also note that boycotting consumers took the collectivity into account when deciding to participate, that is, consideration of joining a boycott as goal-oriented collective activity increased one's likelihood of participating. A corporation-targeted protest repertoire including boycotts and education of consumers presents the highest likelihood for success.

Legality

Protesters calling for a boycott of Israel

Boycotts are generally legal in developed countries. Occasionally, some restrictions may apply; for instance, in the United States, it may be unlawful for a union to engage in "secondary boycotts" (to request that its members boycott companies that supply items to an organization already under a boycott, in the United States); however, the union is free to use its right to speak freely to inform its members of the fact that suppliers of a company are breaking a boycott; its members then may take whatever action they deem appropriate, in consideration of that fact.

United Kingdom

When the boycott first emerged in Ireland, it presented a serious dilemma for Gladstone's government. The individual actions that constituted a boycott were recognized by legislators as essential to a free society. However, overall a boycott amounted to a harsh, extrajudicial punishment. The Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Act 1882 made it illegal to use "intimidation" to instigate or enforce a boycott, but not to participate in one.

The conservative jurist James Fitzjames Stephen justified laws against boycotting by claiming that the practice amounted to "usurpation of the functions of government" and ought therefore to be dealt with as "the modern representatives of the old conception of high treason".

United States

"Boycott Xinjiang Genocide Products! Also don't attack our Chinese neighbors. Just say no to xenophobia and racism!" sticker on New York University campus in 2020

Boycotts are legal under common law. The right to engage in commerce, social intercourse, and friendship includes the implied right not to engage in commerce, social intercourse, and friendship. Since a boycott is voluntary and nonviolent, the law cannot stop it. Opponents of boycotts historically have the choice of suffering under it, yielding to its demands, or attempting to suppress it through extralegal means, such as force and coercion.

In the United States, the antiboycott provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) apply to all "U.S. persons", defined to include individuals and companies located in the United States and their foreign affiliates. The antiboycott provisions are intended to prevent United States citizens and companies being used as instrumentalities of a foreign government's foreign policy. The EAR forbids participation in or material support of boycotts initiated by foreign governments, for example, the Arab League boycott of Israel. These persons are subject to the law when their activities relate to the sale, purchase, or transfer of goods or services (including the sale of information) within the United States or between the United States and a foreign country. This covers exports and imports, financing, forwarding and shipping, and certain other transactions that may take place wholly offshore.

However, the EAR only applies to foreign government initiated boycotts: a domestic boycott campaign arising within the United States that has the same object as the foreign-government-initiated boycott appears to be lawful, assuming that it is an independent effort not connected with the foreign government's boycott.

Other legal impediments to certain boycotts remain. One set are refusal to deal laws, which prohibit concerted efforts to eliminate competition by refusal to buy from or to sell to a party. Similarly, boycotts may also run afoul of anti-discrimination laws; for example, New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination prohibits any place that offers goods, services and facilities to the general public, such as a restaurant, from denying or withholding any accommodation to (i.e., not to engage in commerce with) an individual because of that individual's race (etc.).

Alternatives

A boycott is typically a one-time affair intended to correct an outstanding single wrong. When extended for a long period of time, or as part of an overall program of awareness-raising or reforms to laws or regimes, a boycott is part of moral purchasing, and some prefer those economic or political terms. Most organized consumer boycotts today are focused on long-term change of buying habits, and so fit into part of a larger political program, with many techniques that require a longer structural commitment, e.g. reform to commodity markets, or government commitment to moral purchasing, e.g. the longstanding boycott of South African businesses to protest apartheid already alluded to. These stretch the meaning of a "boycott."

Another form of consumer boycotting is substitution for an equivalent product; for example, Mecca Cola and Qibla Cola have been marketed as substitutes for Coca-Cola among Muslim populations.

A prime target of boycotts is consumerism itself, e.g. "International Buy Nothing Day" celebrated globally on the Friday after Thanksgiving Day in the United States.

Another version of the boycott is targeted divestment, or disinvestment. Targeted divestment involves campaigning for withdrawal of investment, for example the Sudan Divestment campaign involves putting pressure on companies, often through shareholder activism, to withdraw investment that helps the Sudanese government perpetuate genocide in Darfur. Only if a company refuses to change its behavior in response to shareholder engagement does the targeted divestment model call for divestment from that company. Such targeted divestment implicitly excludes companies involved in agriculture, the production and distribution of consumer goods, or the provision of goods and services intended to relieve human suffering or to promote health, religious and spiritual activities, or education.

When students are dissatisfied with a political or academic issue, a common tactic for students' unions is to start a boycott of classes (called a student strike among faculty and students since it is meant to resemble strike action by organized labor) to put pressure on the governing body of the institution, such as a university, vocational college or a school, since such institutions cannot afford to have a cohort miss an entire year.

Sports events

Further information: List of Olympic Games boycotts

The 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin were held after the Nazis rose to power three years prior. Despite advocacy from numerous officials and activists, no country boycotted the games, although the United States was close to it. In the 1970s and 1980s South Africa became the target of a sports boycott.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the United States led a 66-nation boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics much to Soviet chagrin. The USSR then organized an Eastern Bloc boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which allowed the Americans to win far more medals than expected.

In at least one case, a boycott has been documented due to on-field results of a game; the residents of New Orleans boycotted television broadcasts of Super Bowl LIII after a controversial officiating call led to the hometown New Orleans Saints losing the NFC Championship Game and being denied a trip to the Super Bowl. Viewership of the game dropped in the city by half compared to Super Bowl LII, contributing to a noticeable drop in the overall national ratings, but the boycott failed to achieve any meaningful remedy for the Saints or their fans.

Diplomatic boycott

Nations have from time to time used "diplomatic boycotts" to isolate other governments. Following the May Coup of 1903, Great Britain led the major powers in a diplomatic boycott against Serbia, which was a refusal to recognize the post-coup government of Serbia altogether by withdrawing ambassadors and other diplomatic officials from the country; it ended three years later in 1906, when Great Britain renewed diplomatic relations through a decree signed by King Edward VII.

A diplomatic boycott is when diplomatic participation is withheld from an event such as the Olympics but athletic participation is not limited. In 2021, a number of Western nations, led by the United States, Britain and Canada, protested the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics through a diplomatic boycott, citing China's policies concerning the Uyghur genocide and human rights violations in the country.

Civil resistance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil resistance is a form of political action that relies on the use of nonviolent resistance by ordinary people to challenge a particular power, force, policy or regime. Civil resistance operates through appeals to the adversary, pressure and coercion: it can involve systematic attempts to undermine or expose the adversary's sources of power (or pillars of support, such as police, military, clergy, business elite, etc.). Forms of action have included demonstrations, vigils and petitions; strikes, go-slows, boycotts and emigration movements; and sit-ins, occupations, constructive program, and the creation of parallel institutions of government.

Some civil resistance movements' motivations for avoiding violence are generally related to context, including a society's values and its experience of war and violence, rather than to any absolute ethical principle. Civil resistance cases can be found throughout history and in many modern struggles, against both tyrannical rulers and democratically elected governments. Mahatma Gandhi led the first documented civil resistance campaign (using three primary tactics: civil disobedience, marches, and creation of parallel institutions) to free India from British imperialism. The phenomenon of civil resistance is often associated with the advancement of human rights and democracy.

Historical examples

Civil resistance is a long-standing and widespread phenomenon in human history. Several works on civil resistance adopt a historical approach to the analysis of the subject. Cases of civil resistance, both successful and unsuccessful, include:

• Mohandas K. Gandhi's role in the Indian independence movement in 1917–1947
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s, James Bevel's, and other activists' roles in the Civil Rights Movement in 1955–1968
• the Sudanese Revolution against military regime (leader Ibrahim Abood )-1958- 1964.
• Aspects of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement in 1967–1972
• a variety of raids on U. S. draft boards to protest the war in Vietnam, 1967-1971
• the Sudanese Revolution against military regime (Jaffer Numairy )-1969- 1984.
• the Revolution of the Carnations in Portugal in 1974–75, supporting the military coup of 25 April 1974
• the Iranian Revolution in 1977–1979, before Khomeini's advent to power in February 1979
• the Polish Solidarity Trade Union used civil resistance to protest against the Soviet controlled government, even after delegalization and numerous crackdowns.
• the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in the 1980s that ousted President Marcos
• the campaigns against apartheid in South Africa, especially before 1961, and during the period of 1983–1994.
• the mass mobilization against authoritarian rule in Pinochet's Chile, 1983–1988
• the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in China
• the various movements contributing to the revolutions of 1989 in central and eastern Europe
• the 1988–1990 Singing Revolution that led to the restoration of independence of the three Soviet-occupied Baltic countries
• the campaign against Serbian domination in Kosovo, 1990–1998, that was followed by war
• the revolutions in Serbia in 2000, Georgia in 2003, and Ukraine in 2004, all of which involved successful resistance against an incumbent government that had refused to acknowledge its defeat in an election and had sought to falsify the election results
• the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon in 2005, following the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri on 14 February 2005, and calling for Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon
• the demonstrations, mainly led by students and monks, in the Saffron Revolution in Burma in 2007
• the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests following evidence of electoral manipulation in the elections of June 2009

Egypt, 25 January 2011: marchers in Cairo with 'OUT' signs on the 'Day of Anger' against President Mubarak. On 11 February he left office.

• the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, starting in Tunisia in December 2010, and resulting, in 2011, in the fall of rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In some countries the movements were followed by war (e.g. Syrian Civil War and War in Yemen) or by a return to military rule, as in Egypt in 2013 following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011
• the 15-M or Indignados movement, which included the peaceful occupation of squares all over Spain in May–June 2011, and a mosaic of other forms of civil disobedience by many of the groups that were created, or strengthened, after the squares occupations. In particular the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, or PAH.
• the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013, in opposition to urban development plans, and also to government encroachments on freedom of expression and on Turkey's secularist traditions
• the early phases of the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine in 2013–14, demanding closer integration with European Union countries, and the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych. Various tactics of unarmed civil resistance were also frequently employed in the Russian-occupied settlements during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• the 2014 Hong Kong protests, also known as "Occupy Central" and the "Umbrella movement", opposing the 2014–15 Hong Kong electoral reform in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
• Women's marches in USA from January 2017 Women's March onwards to resist President Donald Trump's sexist statements.
• Extinction Rebellion (XR), established in the May 2018. An international nonviolent movement with three climate and ecological emergency demands and 10 Principles and Values.

Numerous other campaigns, both successful and unsuccessful, could be included in a longer listing. In 1967 Gene Sharp produced a list of 84 cases. He followed this with further surveys. In 2013 Maciej Bartkowski authored a long list of cases in the past 200 years, arranged alphabetically by country. The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict's (ICNC) website houses an enormous Resource Library with dozens of case studies and other resources about civil resistance campaigns and movements as well as the dynamics of civil resistance. ICNC's blog, Minds of the Movement, also serves as a thorough compendium of civil resistance campaigns and movements throughout history and today. Swarthmore's Global Nonviolent Action Database is an additional key resource documenting hundreds of civil resistance campaigns and movements.

Effectiveness

It is not easy to devise a method of proving the relative success of different methods of struggle. Often there are problems in identifying a given campaign as successful or otherwise. In 2008 Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth produced a widely noted article on "Why Civil Resistance Works", the most thorough and detailed analysis (to that date) of the rate of success of civil resistance campaigns, as compared to violent resistance campaigns. After looking at over 300 cases of both types of campaign, from 1900 to 2006, they concluded that "nonviolent resistance methods are more likely to be successful than violent methods in achieving strategic objectives". Their article (later developed into a book) noted particularly that "resistance campaigns that compel loyalty shifts among security forces and civilian bureaucrats are likely to succeed".

On the other hand, the evidence of several of the 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa appears to provide contrasting pathways by which this logic may fail to materialise, with splits in the armed forces contributing towards civil war in Libya and Syria, and a shift in armed forces loyalty in Egypt failing to contribute towards enduring democratic reform. Criticisms of the central thesis of the book on Why Civil Resistance Works have included:

1. Forming judgements about whether a campaign is a success or failure is inherently difficult: the answer may depend on the time-frame used, and on necessarily subjective judgments about what constitutes success. Some of the authors' decisions on this are debatable. Similar difficulties arise in deciding whether a campaign is violent or non-violent, when on the ground both strategies may co-exist in several ways.
2. Regimes transitioning from autocracy to democracy tend to be highly unstable, so an initial success for a movement may be followed by a more general failure.
3. Perhaps, more generally, sufficient account is not taken of the possibility that violence often takes place in circumstances that were already violent and chaotic, stacking the odds against any successful outcome for violence.

In July 2020, Erica Chenoweth's new research was published in the Journal of Democracy, in which she finds that the success rates of civil resistance have been dropping since the beginning of the 2010s. Some of the reasons identified include the authoritarian learning curve and over-reliance of activists on digital forms of organizing such as social media campaigns. What's more, the Covid-19 pandemic which began in 2020 led large numbers of movements worldwide to cancel public actions and instead shift focus on internal priorities, such as strategic planning.

Reasons for choosing to use civil resistance

Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese pro-democracy leader, greeting supporters from Bago State, Burma, 14 August 2011. She has stated that she was attracted to non-violent civil resistance, not on moral grounds, but "on practical political grounds". Photo: Htoo Tay Zar

Some leaders of civil resistance struggles have urged the use of non-violent methods for primarily ethical reasons, while others have emphasized practical considerations. Some have indicated that both of these types of factor have to be taken into account – and that they necessarily overlap.

In his chapter on "Pilgrimage to Nonviolence" Martin Luther King Jr. gave a notably multi-faceted account of the various considerations, experiences and influences that constituted his "intellectual odyssey to nonviolence". By 1954 this had led to the intellectual conviction that "nonviolent resistance was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their quest for social justice."

Some have opted for civil resistance when they were in opposition to the government, but then have later, when in government, adopted or accepted very different policies and methods of action. For example, in one of her BBC Reith Lectures, first broadcast in July 2011, Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy campaigner in Myanmar (formerly Burma), stated: "Gandhi's teachings on non-violent civil resistance and the way in which he had put his theories into practice have become part of the working manual of those who would change authoritarian administrations through peaceful means. I was attracted to the way of non-violence, but not on moral grounds, as some believe. Only on practical political grounds." Subsequently, as State Counsellor of Myanmar from 2016 onwards, she incurred much criticism, especially in connection with the failure to prevent, and to condemn, the killings and expulsions of the Rohingya people in Rakhine State.

Relationship to other forms of power

The experience of civil resistance suggests that it can at least partially replace other forms of power. Some have seen civil resistance as offering, potentially, a complete alternative to power politics. The core vision is of nonviolent methods replacing armed force in many or all of its forms.

Several writers, while sharing the vision of civil resistance as progressively overcoming the use of force, have warned against a narrowly instrumental view of non-violent action. For example, Joan V. Bondurant, a specialist on the Gandhian philosophy of conflict, indicated concern about "the symbolic violence of those who engage in conflict with techniques which they, at least, perceive to be nonviolent." She saw Gandhian satyagraha as a form of "creative conflict" and as "contrasted both to violence and to methods not violent or just short of violence".

It is generally difficult in practice to separate out entirely the use of civil resistance and power-political considerations of various kinds. One frequently-encountered aspect of this problem is that regimes facing opposition taking the form of civil resistance often launch verbal attacks on the opposition in terms designed to suggest that civil resistance is simply a front for more sinister forces. It has sometimes been attacked as being planned and directed from abroad, and as intimately connected to terrorism, imperialism, communism etc. A classic case was the Soviet accusation that the 1968 Prague Spring, and the civil resistance after the Soviet-led invasion of August 1968, were the result of Western machinations. Similarly, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, in March 2011, accused "enemies" of using "very sophisticated tools" to undermine Syria's stability; and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, in speeches in 2014, described events in Ukraine and the Arab countries as foreign-influenced. Such accusations of sinister power-political involvement are often presented without convincing evidence.

There can be some more plausible connections between civil resistance and other forms of power. Although civil resistance can sometimes be a substitute for other forms of power, it can also operate in conjunction with them. Such conjunction is never problem-free. Michael Randle has identified a core difficulty regarding strategies that seek to combine the use of violent and non-violent methods in the same campaign: "The obvious problem about employing a mixed strategy in the course of an actual struggle is that the dynamics of military and civil resistance are at some levels diametrically opposed to each other." However, the connections between civil resistance and other forms of power are not limited to the idea of a "mixed strategy". They can assume many forms. Eight ways in which civil resistance can in practice relate to other forms of power are identified here, with examples in each case:

1. Civil resistance is often a response to changes in constellations of power. Leaders of civil resistance campaigns have often been acutely aware of power-political developments, both domestic and international. In some countries there has been a growth of civil opposition after, and perhaps in part because of, an occupying or colonial state's internal political turmoil or setbacks in war: for example, this was a key factor in the Finnish struggle of 1898–1905 against Russian control. In other countries the problems faced by their own armed forces, whether against conventional armies or guerrillas, played some part in the development of civil resistance: for example, in the People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1983–86.
2. Civil resistance campaigns frequently lead to a situation of partial stalemate, in which negotiation between civil resisters and those in positions of governmental power is perceived as essential. Hence, "round table talks" were critically important in the Indian independence struggle up to 1947, in Solidarity's campaign in Poland up to 1989, and in Ukraine in 2004.
3. The relation between civil resistance and the military coup d'état can be especially multi-faceted. In some cases a civil resistance campaign has been an effective response to a military coup. In other cases a campaign could succeed in its final objective—e.g. the removal of a hated regime—only when there was the reality or the threat of a military coup to bring about the desired change. Thus, the 1963 Buddhist crisis in South Vietnam a long civil resistance campaign against the government resulted in change only when the South Vietnamese army coup of 1–2 November 1963 toppled President Ngo Dinh Diem. In Egypt in June–July 2013, a civil resistance movement in effect called for a military coup: peaceful demonstrators and a petition supported by millions of signatures demanded the replacement of the elected Muslim Brotherhood government, and provided a degree of revolutionary legitimacy for the army take-over of 3 July 2013. At least one non-violent campaign, the Revolution of the Carnations in Portugal in 1974–75, was in support of a military coup that had already occurred: this campaign helped to steer Portugal in a democratic direction.
4. Some non-violent campaigns can be seen as reluctant or unwitting harbingers of violence. They may be followed by the emergence of groups using armed force and/or by military intervention from outside the territory concerned. This can happen if, for example, they (a) are perceived as failures, or (b) are repressed with extreme violence, or (c) succeed in removing a regime but then leave a power vacuum in its place. Processes of the first two of these kinds happened, for example, in Northern Ireland in 1967–72 and in Kosovo in the 1990s. Processes of the third kind, involving some forms of power vacuum, included Libya from 2011 onwards, and Yemen from 2012 onwards. The possibility of such developments can be an inducement to a government to bargain with a non-violent movement before things get out of hand. However, in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 and after, campaigns by civil resistance movements were followed by violent internal conflict and civil war, often with the involvement of external forces: Syria is the most tragic case.
5.  
   

4. Václav Havel, impresario of civil resistance in the years leading up to the 1989 Velvet Revolution. In April 1991, as President of post-Communist Czechoslovakia, he praised the NATO military alliance; and on 12 March 1999 the Czech Republic (with Havel still as president) joined the alliance. He is seen here on 26 September 2000. Photo: IMF
5. There have also been some cases of certain uses of force by civil resistance movements, whether against their adversaries, or to maintain internal discipline. For example, on 2 February 2011, in the generally peaceful Egyptian struggle against President Mubarak, some groups among the crowds in Tahrir Square in Cairo did use certain forms of force for a defensive purpose when they were attacked by pro-regime thugs, some of whom were riding on horses and camels. In the subsequent days the crowds in Tahrir Square reverted to using non-violent methods.
6. Some civil resistance movements have sought, or welcomed, a measure of armed protection for their activities. Thus in the American civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Freedom Ride of May 1961, having been opposed violently, received armed protection for part of its hazardous journey; and the Selma to Montgomery March of March 1965 only succeeded in reaching Montgomery, Alabama, at the third attempt, when it was protected by troops and federal agents.
7. Some campaigns of civil resistance may depend up the existence of militarily defended space. A life-saving example of an effective civil resistance enabling threatened people to reach a defended space occurred with the Rescue of the Danish Jews in 1943 when thousands of Jews were spirited out of German-occupied Denmark and across a narrow stretch of sea (the Sound) to Sweden.
8. When leaders of even the most determinedly non-violent movements have come to power in their countries, they have generally accepted the continued existence of armed forces and other more or less conventional security arrangements. For example, in 1991 Václav Havel who had been a leading figure in civil resistance in communist Czechoslovakia from the founding of Charter 77 to the Velvet Revolution of 1989, in his new capacity as President of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic paid tribute to the NATO alliance. On 12 March 1999 the Czech Republic, along with Poland and Hungary, became a member of NATO.

The term "civil resistance": merits and concerns

Gandhi in South Africa in about 1906–1909. Referring to his years there, he later wrote: "... I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance."

The term is not new. Gandhi used it in many of his writings. In 1935 he wrote: "... I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance." It is a near-synonym for nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience, people power and satyagraha. While each of these terms has its uses and connotations, "civil resistance" is one appropriate term to use in cases where the resistance has a civic quality, relating to a society as a whole; where the action involved is not necessarily disobedience, but instead involves supporting the norms of a society against usurpers; where the decision not to use violent methods is not based on a general philosophy of nonviolence, but on a wide range of prudential, ethical and legal considerations; and where the technical and communications infrastructure of modern civil societies provides a means of organizing resistance. Because of such considerations, the term has been used in this century in many analyses in academic journals.

What exactly are the advantages of the term "civil resistance", as distinct from its near-synonyms "nonviolent action" and "nonviolent resistance"? All these terms have merits, and refer to largely the same phenomena. Indeed, there is a long history, in many languages, of using a wide variety of terms to describe these phenomena. The term "civil resistance" has been used increasingly for two main reasons:

1. It emphasises the positive (civic goals; widespread civil society involvement; and civil as distinct from uncivil conduct) rather than the negative (avoidance of the use of violence).
2. It conveys, more effectively perhaps than such terms as "nonviolent resistance", that a movement's avoidance of violence in pursuit of a particular cause is not necessarily tied to a general belief in "nonviolence" in all circumstances, nor to a philosophy of "Gandhism", but rather arises from the particular values and circumstances of the society concerned.

There have been concerns that the term "civil resistance" might on occasion be misused, or at least stretched in a highly controversial way, to encompass acts of violence. Thus, arising from experience within the anti-globalization movement, one participant-observer has seen "new forms of civil resistance" as being associated with a problematic departure from a previously more widely shared commitment to maintaining nonviolent discipline. Because of these concerns, those who have used the term "civil resistance" have tended to emphasise its nonviolent character, and to use it in addition to – and not in substitution of – such terms as "nonviolent resistance".

General strike

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike 

 

A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large coalitions of political, social, and labour organizations and may also include rallies, marches, boycotts, civil disobedience, non-payment of taxes, and other forms of direct or indirect action. Additionally, general strikes might exclude care workers, such as teachers, doctors, and nurses.

Historically, the term general strike has referred primarily to solidarity action, which is a multi-sector strike that is organised by trade unions who strike together in order to force pressure on employers to begin negotiations or offer more favourable terms to the strikers; though not all strikers may have a material interest in the negotiations, they all have a material interest in maintaining and strengthening the collective efficacy of strikes as a bargaining tool.

History

Precursors

Constantin François de Chassebœuf, whose early conception of the general strike lay the groundwork for its systematic formulation in the 19th century

An early predecessor of the general strike were the Jewish traditions of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, the latter of which involves widespread debt relief and land redistribution. The secessio plebis, during the times of the Roman Republic, has also been noted as a precursor to the general strike.

Early conceptions of the general strike were proposed during the Renaissance by Étienne de La Boétie, and during the Age of Enlightenment by Jean Meslier and Honoré Gabriel Riqueti. With the outbreak of the French Revolution, the idea was taken up by radicals such as Jean-Paul Marat, Sylvain Maréchal and Constantin François de Chassebœuf, who proposed a strike that included merchants and industrialists alongside industrial workers and farmworkers. In his essay Les Ruines, Chassebœuf proposed a general strike by "every profession useful to society" against the "civil, military, or religious agents of government", contrasting "the People" against the "men who do nothing". Chassebœuf's work held a great influence in Great Britain, where it was distributed throughout the country by the London Corresponding Society, while his chapter on the general strike was reprinted for decades after its initial publication. The idea was later taken up by the British economist Thomas Attwood and the French communist Louis Auguste Blanqui.

During the early years of the Industrial Revolution, an ill-defined conception of a general strike was expressed by workers in Nottingham and Manchester, but it lacked a systematic formulation. There were periodical strikes throughout the early 19th century that could loosely be considered as 'general strikes'. In the United States, the 1835 Philadelphia General Strike lasted for three weeks, after which the striking workers won their goal of a ten-hour workday and an increase in wages.

Conception

William Benbow pictured in Punch in 1848

The idea of the general strike was first formulated by William Benbow, a Quaker and shoemaker that became involved in the British radical movement of the early 19th century. After he was arrested for his political activities, Benbow turned away from reformism and began to publish a number of anti-authoritarian and anti-clerical polemics. At meetings of the National Union of the Working Classes, Benbow expressed impatience with the progress of the Reform Bill and called for armed resistance against the government.

In January 1832, Benbow published a pamphlet titled Grand National Holiday and Congress of the Productive Classes, in which outlined his proposals for a general strike. Benbow called for workers themselves to declare a month-long "holiday", which would be financially supported first by workers' savings and then by exacting "contributions" from the wealthy. He also proposed the formation of workers' councils to keep the peace, distribute food and elect delegates to a congress, which would itself carry out wide-reaching societal reforms. Months after the pamphlet's publication, Benbow was arrested for leading a 100,000-strong demonstration, which he had intended as a "dress rehearsal" for his proposed "national holiday".

The passage of the Reform Act brought with it the collapse of the radical movement, including Benbow's National Union. But six years later, in an atmosphere of rising disillusionment with the progress of political reform, the nascent Chartist movement adopted Benbow's platform for a "national holiday". The Chartists planned to carry out their month-long national holiday in August 1839, but following Benbow's arrest, the campaign was abandoned. Benbow was tried and found guilty of sedition. Although he attempted to continue his Chartist activities from prison, after being excommunicated from the movement by Feargus O'Connor, Benbow ceased his political activities.

Early expressions

Statue commemorating the 1842 general strike

In April 1842, after the second Chartist Petition was rejected by the British Parliament, demands for fairer wages and conditions across many different industries finally exploded into the first general strike in a capitalist country. The strike began in the coal mines of Staffordshire and soon spread throughout Britain, affecting factories, mills and mines from Scotland to South Wales. Although the general strike started as an apolitical demand for better working conditions, by August 1842, it became directly associated with the Chartists and took on a revolutionary character. But government forces intervened, cracking down on the protests and arresting its leaders, eventually forcing a return to work.

Strike actions by workers in Barcelona played a prominent role in the Spanish Revolution of 1854, which gave way to a progressive period that extended a number of civil liberties to Spanish workers. But labour unrest grew as the new authorities again prohibited freedom of association and work stoppages, leading to the outbreak of the 1855 Catalan general strike, the first in Spanish history. After months of strike action and attempted negotitations, the general strike was suppressed and the draft constitution suspended in a coup by Leopoldo O'Donnell.

During the American Civil War, millions of black slaves escaped southern plantations and fled to Union territory, depriving the Confederacy of its main source of labour in what W. E. B. Du Bois described as a "general strike" in his book Black Reconstruction in America. However, this conception were rebuffed by African-American economist Abram Lincoln Harris, who dismissed Du Bois' claims of a general strike as fantastical. A. A. Taylor also rejected Du Bois' interpretation, noting that the flight from the plantations didn't constitute an organised movement to achieve economic or political concessions. And American historian Arthur Charles Cole criticised what he described as "discrepancies between well established facts and extravagant generalization" in Du Bois' claims of a general strike.

Debate in the First International

Mikhail Bakunin, leader of the anti-authoritarian faction of First International, which advocated for a revolutionary general strike to overthrow the state and capitalism

In 1864, the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) was established as a federation of trade unions by delegates from England and France. The French trade union delegates, such as Eugene Varlin, saw the nascent International as a means to coordinate support for strike actions by its members. In the first volume of Das Kapital, published in 1867, Karl Marx conceived of the general strike as a means by which to build class consciousness.

At the International's Brussels Congress of 1868, the Belgian delegate César De Paepe proposed that a general strike could be used to prevent the outbreak of war, which he considered to be a means for the ruling class to subordinate working people. He further declared that trade unions themselves constituted the mechanism for replacing capitalism with socialism, the establishment of which would put a final end to all wars. In a letter to Friedrich Engels, Marx himself rejected what he described as "the Belgian nonsense that it was necessary to strike against war". When Mikhail Bakunin joined the International the following year, he declared his own support for these proposals. Bakunin rejected political participation, instead advocating for workers to take strike actions to improve their working conditions. He argued that the International could be the organisation through which trade unions could build such strike actions into a revolutionary general strike, which would abolish capitalism and institute socialism.

The proposals for a revolutionary general strike to overthrow the state were rejected by the Marxist faction, who instead proposed the creation of political parties to take state power. Through the General Council, which had centralised control over the International, Marx moved to expel Bakunin's anti-authoritarian faction at the Hague Congress of 1872. In response, the expelled sections established the Anti-Authoritarian International, which was designed to operate according to a federal structure. The anti-authoritarians upheld the syndicalist view of using the International as a coordinating body to support strike actions and build them towards a revolutionary general strike, which would overthrow the state and establish workers' control over the means of production. This view was particularly supported by the Spanish Regional Federation, which itself organised a general strike in Alcoy, although it was quickly put down by Spanish government forces.

At the Geneva Congress of 1873, Belgian delegates proposed the adoption of the general strike as a tactic for social revolution. This motion was supported by the Jura Federation, which additionally stressed the need for smaller strikes as a means to achieve wage increases. The discussions over strike action at the Geneva Congress lay the foundations for what was to become known as anarcho-syndicalism. But before long, the anti-authoritarians began to move away from the anarcho-syndicalist model. Members of the Belgian section began to advocate for a dictatorship of the proletariat and electoralism, while the French and Italian sections moved towards anarcho-communism and proposed the theory of propaganda of the deed. By 1880, the debates within the International had led to its collapse.

Rise of revolutionary syndicalism

Engraving depicting the Haymarket affair of 1886

In 1881, a revolutionary socialist faction of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLPA) split off and established the International Working People's Association (IWPA), which developed anarchist tendencies and held itself to be a continuation of the defunct IWA. Inspired by the example of the Paris Commune, IWPA members such as the Chicago anarchist Albert Parsons formulated a kind of revolutionary syndicalism that eschewed the general strike in favour of popular insurrection. In response to the repression of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the IWPA armed and drilled its members into workers' militias, seeing violent action as a necessary compliment to strike action. On 1 May 1886, the IWPA organised a nationwide general strike for the eight-hour day, which had been a focus of demands for Parsons and the Chicago anarchists. Throughout the United States, hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike. The general strike's epicenter was in Chicago, where protests against the police repression of striking workers escalated into a riot. Eight of the protest's organisers, including Parsons, were executed by hanging on charges of conspiracy. In the wake of their execution, the IWPA demand for the eight-hour day spread around the world and 1 May was declared International Workers' Day.

Inspired by the IWPA's general strike, European anarchists began to reconsider the general strike as a revolutionary instrument, with the French anarchist Joseph Tortelier taking up the idea of the revolutionary general strike, which then spread to Italian and Spanish anarchists. Albert Parsons' wife Lucy Parsons also adopted the revolutionary general strike in her own platform, which became a founding precept of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The first trade union to adopt the revolutionary general strike into its platform was the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT). The CGT launched its own campaign for workers themselves to institute the eight-hour day, culminating in a general strike which secured French workers a reduction in working time and workload, an increase in wages and the introduction of the weekend.

The CGT's example accelerated the spread of revolutionary syndicalism throughout the world, bringing with it a wave of general strikes at the turn of the 20th century, to mixed results. Although the Belgian general strike of 1893 was halted in order to prevent damage to the workers' movement, it eventually won its demand of universal manhood suffrage. Following the Cuban War of Independence, in 1902, anarcho-syndicalists organised the country's first general strike against the government of the new Republic of Cuba. In the Netherlands, the railroad strikes of 1903 resulted in harsh repression against the Dutch workers' movement. The Swedish general strike of 1909 was broken up without achieving its demands, accelerating the split of syndicalists from the social-democratic unions and the formation of the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC).

The 1905 general strike in Tampere, Grand Duchy of Finland

Some of the general strikes of this period reached revolutionary levels: the Russian Revolution of 1905 demonstrated the efficacy of the general strike as a revolutionary instrument, but was ultimately suppressed; in 1909, the Catalan syndicalist union Solidaridad Obrera called a general strike against conscription for the Spanish invasion of Morocco, briefly bringing Barcelona under workers' control before the revolt's suppresion by government forces; and following the Revolution of 1910 in Portugal, a syndicalist-led general strike briefly brought Lisbon under workers' control before being repressed, resulting in the formation of the National Workers' Union [pt] by Portuguese socialists and anarchists.

In Italy, there was a particularly large wave of general strikes during this period: the general strike of 1904 resulted in no political reforms but strengthened the social movement; in 1908, syndicalists led a two-month general strike in Parma, but were likewise defeated; and in 1911, anarcho-syndicalists mobilised a general strike against the Italian invasion of Libya, blocking troop trains and even assassinating an army officer. This series of syndicalist-led general strikes brought about the establishment of the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), which itself led a further series of general strikes that culminated in the Red Week of 1914.

Debate in the Second International

Rosa Luxemburg, a Polish socialist that argued in support of the political general strike in the Labour and Socialist International

In 1889, the Labour and Socialist International was established by classical Marxists and social democrats, such as those of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). At the Brussels Congress of 1891, it became clear that the International was already divided over two main tactical issues: electoral politics, which the socialists embraced, but anarchists generally opposed; and, the general strike as a mechanism to prevent war, which anarchists supported, but socialists refused to endorse. As a result, at the Zürich Congress of 1893, anarchists were ejected from the International and banned from attending future congresses. Anarchist trade union delegates from the French CGT and Dutch NAS attempted to continue participation, but after being physically attacked while trying to join the London Congress of 1896, the anarchists finally abandoned the International.

Nevertheless, the anarchist defense of the general strike left a lasting legacy within the International. At the Paris Congress of 1900, the French socialist politician Aristide Briand adopted the idea of the revolutionary general strike in order to boost his popularity with the syndicalists. At the Amsterdam Congress of 1904, another French socialist politician defended the general strike as a means to convince socialist voters that they weren't merely supporting career politicians. At the Stuttgart Congress of 1907, the anarchist calls for a general strike to prevent war were taken up by Gustave Hervé, but these were ardently opposed by the German delegates, who feared repression by the authorities. Finally, at the Copenhagen Congress of 1910, a proposal for a general strike to prevent war was put forward by the French socialist Édouard Vaillant and the Scottish labour leader Keir Hardie, but this too was voted down by the other delegates. While it was consistently defeated by the social democrats, the anarchist proposal for a general strike was taken up by members of the far-left, such as Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who saw it as an instrument for obtaining political concessions.

Pierre Monatte, a French syndicalist who argued in support of the revolutionary general strike at the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam

Having been completely frozen out of the International, the anarchists resolved to hold their own International Anarchist Congress, which met in Amsterdam in 1907. The Congress played host to a fierce debate between Errico Malatesta, a proponent of classical anarcho-communism, and Pierre Monatte, a disciple of the new current of anarcho-syndicalism. The latter upheld the central role of the trade union in organising a revolutionary general strike to overthrow capitalism, after which the unions would form the basis for the construction of a new stateless society with a socialist economy. But the advancement of syndicalism was blocked chiefly by Malatesta, who objected to the class reductionism of the syndicalists. Malatesta was particularly critical of the general strike, which he dismissed as a "magic weapon" that was incapable of fighting a violent conflict with state militaries, which had the ability to starve out workers in the event of such an industrial dispute. Although the anarcho-syndicalists had seen the Amsterdam Congress as a means to establish an international anarchist organisation, efforts in this direction were sabotaged by the conflict between the two factions.

Despite all the calls for a general strike to prevent war, by the outbreak of World War I, many socialists dropped their anti-militarism and instead threw their support behind the Allied war effort. The Second International itself collapsed, leaving only anarcho-syndicalists and Bolsheviks to rally an anti-war opposition.

20th century

The 1926 United Kingdom general strike started in the coal industry and rapidly escalated; the unions called out 1,750,000 workers, mainly in the transport and steel sectors, although the strike was successfully suppressed by the government.

The year 1919 saw a number of general strikes throughout the United States and Canada, including two that were considered significant—the Seattle General Strike, and the Winnipeg General Strike. While the IWW participated in the Seattle General Strike, that action was called by the Seattle Central Labor Union, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor (AFL, predecessor of the AFL–CIO).

In June 1919, the AFL national organisation, in session in Atlantic City, New Jersey, passed resolutions in opposition to the general strike. The official report of these proceedings described the convention as the "largest and in all probability the most important Convention ever held" by the organisation, in part for having engineered the "overwhelming defeat of the so-called Radical element" via crushing a "One Big Union proposition", and also for defeating a proposal for a nationwide general strike, both "by a vote of more than 20 to 1". The AFL amended its constitution to disallow any central labour union (i.e., regional labour councils) from "taking a strike vote without prior authorization of the national officers of the union concerned". The change was intended to "check the spread of general strike sentiment and prevent recurrences of what happened at Seattle and is now going on at Winnipeg". The penalty for any unauthorised strike vote was revocation of that body's charter.

As part of the fight for the Indian independence movement, leader Mahatma Gandhi promoted the use of what is called Hartal, a mass protest and a form of civil disobedience that often involved a total shutdown of workplaces, offices, shops, and courts of law.

Legality

In America, after the passage of the anti-union Taft–Hartley Act in 1947, the general strike changed from a tool of labor strike solidarity into a general form of social, political, and economic protest. US Congress passed the law in the wake of the women-led 1946 Oakland General Strike. It outlawed actions taken by unionized workers in support of workers at other companies, effectively rendering both solidarity actions and the general strike itself illegal. Before 1947 and the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act the term general strike meant when various unions would officially go on strike in solidarity with other striking unions. The act made it illegal for one union to go on strike to support another. Hence, the definition and practice of a general strike changed in modern times to mean periodic days of mass action coordinated, often, by unions, but not an official or prolonged strike.

Since then, in the US and Europe the general strike has become a tool of mass economic protest often in conjunction with other forms of electoral action and direct civil action.

Forms

Two of the main forms of general strike are: the political strike, which aims to achieve political and economic reform; and the revolutionary strike, which aims to overthrow capitalism and the state in a social revolution. Other forms, identified by Gerhart Niemeyer, include: the general strike as a "revolutionary exercise" which would eventually lead to a transformation of society; a one-day demonstration on International Workers' Day, aimed at identifying a "worldwide proletariat"; and a theoretical mechanism by which to stop wars between nation states.

Industrial unionists such as Ralph Chaplin and Stephen Naft also identified four different levels of general strike, rising from a localised strike, to an industry-wide strike, to a nationwide strike, and finally to a revolutionary strike.

Debates on general strikes

Socialists versus anarchists

In his study of the debates within the Second International, Niemeyer perceived the socialist-friendly general strike for political rights within the system and the general strike as a revolutionary mechanism to overthrow the existing order—which he associated with a "rising anarcho-syndicalist movement"—as mutually exclusive. Niemeyer believed that the difficulty arose from the fact that the general strike was "one instrument", but was frequently considered "without distinction of underlying motives".

Syndicalism and general strikes

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) began to fully embrace the general strike in 1910–1911. The ultimate goal of the general strike, according to Industrial Workers of the World theory, is to displace capitalists and give control over the means of production to workers. In a 1911 speech in New York City, IWW organiser Bill Haywood explained his view of the economic situation, and why he believed a general strike was justified,

The capitalists have wealth; they have money. They invest the money in machinery, in the resources of the earth. They operate a factory, a mine, a railroad, a mill. They will keep that factory running just as long as there are profits coming in. When anything happens to disturb the profits, what do the capitalists do? They go on strike, don't they? They withdraw their finances from that particular mill. They close it down because there are no profits to be made there. They don't care what becomes of the working class. But the working class, on the other hand, has always been taught to take care of the capitalist's interest in the property.

Bill Haywood believed that industrial unionism made possible the general strike, and the general strike made possible industrial democracy. According to Wobbly theory, the conventional strike is an important (but not the only) weapon for improving wages, hours, and working conditions for working people. These strikes are also good training to help workers educate themselves about the class struggle, and about what it will take to execute an eventual general strike for the purpose of achieving industrial democracy. During the final general strike, workers would not walk out of their shops, factories, mines, and mills, but would rather occupy their workplaces and take them over. Prior to taking action to initiate industrial democracy, workers would need to educate themselves with technical and managerial knowledge in order to operate industry.

According to labor historian Philip S. Foner, the Wobbly conception of industrial democracy is intentionally not presented in detail by IWW theorists; in that sense, the details are left to the "future development of society". However, certain concepts are implicit. Industrial democracy will be "a new society [built] within the shell of the old". Members of the industrial union educate themselves to operate industry according to democratic principles, and without the current hierarchical ownership/management structure. Issues such as production and distribution would be managed by the workers themselves.

In 1927 the IWW called for a three-day nationwide walkout to protest the execution of anarchists Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. The most notable response to the call was in the Walsenburg coal district of Colorado, where 1,132 miners stayed off the job, and only 35 went to work, a participation rate which led directly to the Colorado coal strike of 1927.

On 18 March 2011, the Industrial Workers of the World supported an endorsement of a general strike as a follow-up to protests against Governor Scott Walker's proposed labour legislation in Wisconsin, following a motion passed by the South Central Federation of Labor (SCFL) of Wisconsin endorsing a statewide general strike as a response to those legislative proposals. The SCFL website states,

At SCFL’s monthly meeting Monday, Feb. 21, delegates endorsed the following: "The SCFL endorses a general strike, possibly for the day Walker signs his 'budget repair bill.'" An ad hoc committee was formed to explore the details. SCFL did not CALL for a general strike because it does not have that authority.

Notable general strikes

See also: List of strikes § Chronological list of general strikes

 

1926 United Kingdom general strike

The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country—and the first general wildcat strike in history—was May 1968 in France. The prolonged strike involved eleven million workers for two weeks in a row, and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government. Other notable general strikes include:

• In Portugal, a general strike was called in 2011 by the federation of public labour unions to avert austerity measures.
• In Honduras, a general strike was called in 2011 by union workers, farmers and other organisations demanding better education, an increase in the minimum wage and against fuel price hikes.
• In Yemen, thousands of people took the streets in a general strike in 2011 to protest President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
• In Algeria, public sector workers in 2011 mounted a general strike for higher wages and improved working conditions.
• In February 1947, General Douglas MacArthur, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, banned a planned general strike of 2,400,000 government workers, stating that "so deadly a social weapon" as a general strike should not be used in the impoverished and emaciated condition of Japan so soon after World War II. Japan's labour leaders complied with his ban.
• In June 2022, Tunisian workers initiated a general strike that halted all transportation.