Purchase Power, sometimes called Consumer Activism, is the way we spend our money.
Through selective, coordinated boycotts / “buycotts” we can persuade companies to change.
A boycott means refusing to buy from a company to protest or pressure change. A buycott means deliberately purchasing from a company to support its practices, products, or values. Rolling boycott, / “buycott,” campaigns will identify companies to avoid and which to support.
Crowdsourcing is:
1) Coordinated Community Action (CCA), using social media;
3) Effective Petitions, & as necessary;
4) Legal and 5) Political Action;
6) Fundraising when needed (via PACs and Advocacy Groups).
Acting in numbers compels authority, governments and corporations to pay attention where individuals would be ignored. To avoid reinventing the wheel, we will begin by joining best-in-class movements as led by RFK and MAHA for health.
The law remains one of the best tools for holding authority to account. Though underused, constitutional safeguards still exist (for example, the Constitution in the USA and the Magna Carta in the UK). Court cases can overturn unlawful activities, class actions can secure redress for consumers, and judicial reviews can restrain government overreach. Cost is often the thing preventing people from pursuing their legal rights. To fund these legal efforts, we use PACs for election specific matters, and Advocacy Groups for broader concerns.
Political Action Committees (PACs) are lawful crowd funding bodies (USA), pooling individual donations to influence lawmakers. In the USA, they can also function as a counterweight to corporate lobbying and donations. This is also an example of Purchase Power. Finally, Advocacy groups (USA & UK) are entities that can be used to take legal action. These might be charities, social-welfare nonprofits, trade associations, or Super PACs.They can have unlimited independent spending and lobbying.
While constitutional republic / democracy is the best political system society has come up with so far, it is clear that it is presently unsatisfactory. Politicians can win power with a small percentage of the vote - see Labour (UK) 2024. Congress (USA) re-elects the same candidates - on average 95% each election, which, in a two-party system, means there is little choice. Reform is necessary. Potential solutions are outlined in the book Restoration by George Will, written in 1992 (was billions, now trillions), or by looking at best-in-class global systems such as the Swiss referendum approach.
Peaceful public protest and legal non-cooperation.
A successful example of this was Gandhi's non-cooperation campaign. Peaceful protest can block destructive projects, mass boycotts deny compliance, legal minimisation of tax payments can protest self-serving spending, slowdowns highlight unfair systems, and symbolic acts such as refusing digital ID cards resist overreach. Social media supports these efforts, enabling people to group together quickly and in large numbers.