jessica amber murray 
if the logic of boycotts is effective, then there is no reason to abolish capitalism; merely taking part in capitalism would be enough to set the world straight. planning and organizing boycotts is consequently tacitly supporting the logic of capitalism, in the same way that voting is upholding the logic of liberal reformism.
on the other hand, if capitalism is an unworkable system that needs to be abolished because it concentrates power in the hands of a minority then it follows that boycotts are a waste of energy that could be applied towards effective resistance.

there is no way around it: boycotts are capitalist. they place faith in the power of markets as an agent of social change.

coach
Boycotts certainly operate within the rules of capitalism, including to a certain extent "pro-capitalist" ideology (i.e. can play into the myth of consumer sovereignty). On the other hand, you are talking about a tactic, in the context of our actual existing world, in which a great variety of tactics, and more importantly strategies, are deployed on all sides, so there is no one tactical "logic".

jessica amber murray 
that's not the point. if markets were an effective means of pushing social justice initiatives, what reason would there be to abolish capitalism?

it can drive down the price of goods. i'll give people that. how that works out, is another question.

coach
Most direct action tactics have "market effects", i.e. increasing the cost of business as usual when they fail to meet a demand (a "political" demand, not a market one).

I think that the problem that you're getting at is that limiting action to "voting with your dollars" is working entirely within the capitalist paradigm of How Things Should Work. What I'm getting at is that is only true if one can reduce the tactical repertoire of, say, a social movement using consumer boycotts, down to that one tactic. And, sometimes that's valid - but it's context-specific.

What I'm also saying is that the "secondary" effects of organizing a boycott may be quite significant, in terms of enabling other tactics within the repertoire.

jessica amber murray 
it's more just an observation. you're approaching this from a sort of vanguard perspective, intentionally or not. i think the empirical evidence of those theoretical secondary effects actually coming to fruition is rather weak, and i can come up with some suggestions as to why co-option is a more likely secondary effect, but that's not to say they can't happen under the right circumstances.

i'm just pointing out that anybody that actually believes that boycotts can actually work to a serious positive end - and i'm not getting the impression that that would be you - is upholding capitalism rather than combating it. it's some kind of libertarianism. actually operating under this perspective with faith, rather than utilizing it as a cynical tactic, whatever the merits of that cynical tactic may be, can only be counter-productive if the aim is to actually abolish capitalism.