When Customer Rebellion Becomes Open Revolution

[MedleyMisty]

What if your business isn't just fundamentally ill-equipped to survive and thrive in the 21st century — but is actually unequipped for it?

Indulge me for a paragraph, if you will. Imagine that there was a country in which bailed-out bankers announced extravagant bonuses. OK, that part's eminently realistic — even mundane. But then imagine that people (not activists, or even dreadlocked sign-waving hippies — just regular folks) began to express their dismay, anger, even outrage, everywhere from Twitter to the local bar, and that served as the spark for a self-organizing movement. And because people had the courage, self-belief and just plain orneriness to self-organize, their parliament was forced to do what just mere months ago might have been unthinkable: to tax those bailed-out bankers' bonuses at 100%. And not just going forward — but retroactively, since the beginning of the crisis. Poof: kiss that fleet of supercars, that fourth vacation home in Bermuda, and that closetful of handmade Swiss watches goodbye.

The above is no idealistic dream: in its broad contours, that's pretty much what's happening in Holland (psst — someone tell the Dutch that banks probably need society a lot more than society needs banks). This was no mere "consumer revolt." It was open rebellion by the people formerly known as consumers. Far from "voting with their wallets" or their "feet" — often impossible in an economy chock-a-block full of cushy, cozy oligopolies — people decided to take collective action of a very different kind: as citizens of a vibrant society, not merely as mute, hapless "consumers" of mass-produced junk.

http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2011/04/when_customer_rebellion_become.html?cm_sp=blog_flyout-_-haque-_-when_customer_rebellion_become

The Dutch showing us how it's done. Wonder what their immigration policy is?

[DirkGently]

1. Excellent.

[Worried senior]

2. My Grandparents

came from the Netherlands, maybe I can get in that way.

[DirkGently]

4. Stay here, please. It's our country, & we can do things right, if we all insist on it.

:)

[JoePhilly]

3. But ... there is an important quote ...

"Perhaps we are so upset because we are a small country that prefers to set an example, rather than follow others," suggests Polhout.

Key words ... "small country".

Part of the reason they can't "show us how its done" is because the US is far more geographically disperse, and far more heterogeneous.

Most European countries are not as disperse, not are their attitudes as diverse. Yes, they have liberals and conservatives, but in most cases, each European country is still "tighter" than the US is in this regard.

So can we get rallies against Walker in Wisconsin, sure. Can you get the same rallies in every major city in the US on the same day? Sustain those for a few weeks?

Not likely.