I tend to agree and I think the core of what bugs me about boycott strategies is the level of abstraction they operate on. The line “bourgeoisie conceptions of emancipation” I think elucidates this somewhat for me. It is often too much within this point of view that you can “reform the system from within via public pressure” without actually challenging power itself. Which makes me think boycott tends to be, at its best, a form of short-term harm reduction, but it’s little better than bourgeoisie electoral reform if there’s no comprehensive strategy beyond that. Even if you whittle away over time, the dominant power is going to work to reassert itself and if you didn’t wrest control over anything, then gains can very easily be lost. As seen in the US with the FDR-era reforms degrading into what the US is today.

I would venture to say people were taught wrong about power on purpose. Taught that improvements to society came through prolonged protest, essentially, rather than violent struggle. And when they operate on the belief that protesting an unjust system for long enough will fix it, that positions them to spin their wheels on action that never seriously challenges power. Never risks actual skirmishes, but instead acts merely like participants of the system who are a bit bothered with how it’s run.