Will Boycotting Gas really help and who is really going to do it?
it has a slim chance of working “If this invitation to participate in a “Gas War” against Exxon Mobil seems familiar, that’s because one version or another has been in constant circulation since 1999. Unfortunately, this “different approach” to addressing rising gasoline prices is no more likely to succeed this year than it was in 2004, 2003, 2002, or any other year the message has circulated. Economists say it’s unlikely that any form of consumer boycott could have an appreciable effect on gas prices nationally. Furthermore, it is hard to conceive of a less effective way to “organize” such a boycott than passing around an anonymous, randomly distributed chain letter like the one above. Past attempts have shown little or no results. “It’s hard for a call to boycott to work,” Monroe Freeman, author of a book on consumer boycotts, told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2003 when a previous version of this message was spreading via email. “These often are ‘Johnny One-Note’ efforts which don’
