Let me go on record and say that I don't like mandatory Thank You notes. A bit more tactfully stated, I doubt their effectiveness. They take time to write, address, stamp, mail, and they cost money. Maybe the biggest issue I have with them is that they are expected, not appreciated. In our society, sending a Thank You note has become a cultural routine we've created for ourselves and nothing more. They are a waste of time for all parties involved, except for the card stores that sell them. One gets no positive credit for sending a Thank You, but is considered a heathen if he or she chooses not to go along with this inane custom.

Call me crazy, but I think the world would be a better place without compulsory Thank You notes. For this reason, I call for an all-out boycott. Let me be clear, I'm not suggesting the act of thanking others is not an important part of a civil society. People can and should still express thanks, both in verbal and written form. I'm merely suggesting the costs of mandatory written Thank You notes outweigh the benefits - and conversely, the benefits of a boycott would outweigh its costs.

The Benefits of a boycott:

• Time Savings: All people would save the time to purchase, write, address, and mail Thank You notes.  In addition, we'd all save the time spent dreading doing all of these things. On the other side, the receivers of Thank You notes would have fewer pieces of mail, and less trash.
• Cost Savings: This is a simple one, not much explanation needed.  A boycott would eliminate the need to purchase cards, envelopes, and stamps.
• Guilt Reduction: This one is maybe the most important. We've all forgotten to send a Thank You note when our culture required us to do so - and we've all felt the associated guilt. In a Thank You Note-free world, this guilt is no longer present. When you think about a country-wide boycott, the magnitude of the collective guilt reduction is enormous.  

The Cost of a boycott:

• Potential for increases in other guilt-ridden activities:  A true boycott of mandatory Thank You notes could cause an increase in other activities. One could easily imagine a scenario where a boycott of mandatory Thank-You notes results in a marked increase in the importance of the verbal Thank You.  In this scenario, the guilt of a mandatory thank is not eliminated, it's just transferred to another medium. 

So while I believe a boycott would be worthwhile, in reality, I'm not naive enough to think it's actually possible.  These sorts of customs are incredibly sticky. They take generations to take hold of a population of people, and they usually last even longer.  It seems to me that they rarely go away - if anything, they just change forms. 

The biggest reason why this sort of boycott would never work, however, has more to do with our individual interests than anything else. A boycott would create the classic prisoner's dilemma.  While we'd all be better off if we didn't have this cultural requirement, in a boycott situation, we'd all be individually better off if we cheated. That is, if 99% of the population participated in the boycott, the 1% who "cheated" (i.e. sent Thank You notes) would actually receive more benefit than the rest of us. As long as this incentive to cheat exists, the boycott will never work on any large scale. If any of you have suggestions for actually making a boycott work, please let me know.  In the meantime, I'll continue to write Thank You notes like the sheep that I am.  Never underestimate the power of cultural norms.