As a means for creating social change "voting with your dollar" is bankrupt for a number of reasons.
Most of the processes that lay the groundwork for consumer-capitalism (roads, agriculture, work, mass transportation) are extremely harmful to basically every variation of life possible. To give an example, someone who suggests only buying vegan food to offset animal cruelty isn't taking into account the fact that the farms that grow their soybeans are damaging the soil as well as destroying animal habitat and chasing them off of the land, which disrupts the natural ecosystem and throws everything out of whack. The trucks which drive the soybeans around to grocery stores, and the infrastructure in general, are pumping poison in the air and creating run-off which poisons the planet. The purchasing of ANY product is contributing the profiteering of capital, which uses that profit to grow and invest further; resulting in further growth, more farming, more transporting, more buildings, more everything. The workers who prepare the soybeans, at whatever stage, are being alienated from the means of their own lives, with somewhere from 30-60 hours of their week taken from them where they are forced to endure a harsh form of discipline where they receive a multitude of "do this or you're fired and therefore can't afford to live" orders every day.
And as a caveat: even if you STOP consuming ANYTHING...the system doesn't stop producing. As we've seen with the recession, capitalism doesn't need all of us.
