Imagine the screaming outrage from the left if a multinational corporation or a billionaire publicly campaigned against gay marriage or “transgender rights”.
Actually, we don’t have to imagine: we’ve already seen it. Even something so mild as a brewery calling for civil debate over gay marriage was met with a wave of denunciation and vilification from the left’s keyboard warriors. The Koch brothers, who fund a variety of conservative causes, are hated Goldsteins for the gibbering left.
Yet such corporate interference in democracy doesn’t bother them in the least if the plutocrats dutifully toe the woke line.
[The] assertion that a company has a “duty” to become a political player and campaign for its pet policies fundamentally redefines the role of a capitalist corporation.
The assumption of the duty to use the power of Big Business to bring about political and cultural change is the most disturbing feature of woke capitalism.
Plutocracy – rule by the wealthy – was long one of the greatest bugaboos of the left. Even an internet image search for “plutocracy” brings up a vast gallery of leftist propaganda depicting top-hatted moneybags smashing workers and controlling the system for their own benefit.
Yet, now that we have an undeniable plutocracy overtaking Western democracy, the left are openly celebrating it.
One of the most disturbing consequence of capitalism going woke is that influential groups of unaccountable executives have a corrosive impact on public life. The threat to democracy posed by woke capitalism is all too evident in the US. Many critics poke fun at the ice-cream company Ben and Jerry’s, the wokest of woke companies. This company employs a “a social mission and activism manager” and now promotes policies that are extreme even by the standards of many woke capitalists.
Ben and Jerry’s has put forward the demand for defunding the police and contends that the “system can’t be reformed” and therefore it “must be dismantled and a real system of public safety rebuilt from the ground up”.
Last year, Ben and Jerry’s took it upon itself to criticise Priti Patel, the British Home Secretary, about her plans to control illegal immigration across the English Channel. Treating Patel as if she was a thick unaware nonentity, the company tweeted: “Hey Priti Patel, we think the real crisis is our lack of humanity for people fleeing war, climate change and torture. We pulled together a thread for you …”
In this instance an unaccountable American company, owned by the global giant Unilever took it upon itself to lecture an elected member of the British cabinet about the facts of political life. It is worth noting that the arrogant tone adopted by a company that brands itself as open and cuddly, reflects the paternalistic and intolerant instinct of the woke oligarchy.
Of course, one could readily test Ben and Jerry’s real commitment to dismantling the police by robbing one of their stores.
Then we’d find out just how deeply these arrogant Masters of the Wokiverse really are committed to the values they espouse. While the Silicon Valley elite prattle far-left nostrums, they simultaneously lobby against laws that seek to prevent genocidal slave-labour in China.
Woke capitalism is a downstream result of Woke Academia. When companies employ PR execs with Communications Degrees, and CEOs who are likewise graduates of overwhelmingly leftist universities, the values of the far left fester upwards.
Those who believe that woke capitalism is just a fad that will soon disappear had better think again. I still remember when similar sentiments were expressed about the university sector 30 years ago. What began as a fad turned into the new normal to the point that most universities have thoroughly institutionalised it.
The cultural politics of identity triumphed in universities because it faced very little opposition.
The Australian
When academics go hard-left, they face no repercussions, no threat to their livelihood. Tenure guarantees these ideological cretins lifelong employment. Corporations are different: consumers can vote with their wallets in a way that students cannot. While corporate monopolies are hard to fight, they are not impregnable.
To borrow a leftist catch-cry, consumers angered by woke capitalists need to stop mourning democracy and organise.
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD