Once marginal, over the past several years the idea that the left-wing lurch of society can be traced to big business has become a significant force on the Right. Yes, the idea was never fringe on the European Right, especially the Catholic European Right where their societal basis of feudalism, rather than classical liberalism, produced a much more skeptical view of market forces than was seen in the U.S.
To some extent, Dixie was an exception where thinkers such as George Fitzhugh (and his critiques of capitalism) could flourish, but again, you had something closer to a feudal society than a classical liberal one. Furthermore, despite the inroads made, the Buckley/Reagan theory of Big Business as basically a friend of social conservatives remains a far larger force. Still, there has been a significant shift and talk of capitalism as being an engine of social liberalism. In yesteryears, that was only advocated by folks like like Samuel T. Francis. Today, Tucker Carlson discusses this idea frequently on Fox News.
Much of this on the Right has centered on a criticism of what is called “Woke Capitalism” i.e. the tendency of major corporations to embrace strong social liberalism. Examples of Woke Capitalism can be seen in celebrations of neverending Pride Month, corporations threatening sovereign states that try to push back from Globohomo, the firing of thoughtcriminals, and so forth. What is being debated now is what are the origins of Woke Capitalism.
In this essay, my wish is to lay out the three major theories on the origins of Woke Capitalism that I have come across in right-wing circles and lay out the strengths and weaknesses of each theory. I will not be arguing in favor of one theory over other.
The Nature of Capitalism Itself
According to this view, Woke Capitalism is really just the fundamental nature of capitalism itself and the left-wing drive that so many corporations have taken over the past few years is the natural impulse of capitalism. And, this is not without merit. Capitalism creates near constant innovation; it creates change. Capitalism has to “change” in order for businesses to survive and that innovation will undermine any traditional social order. This is especially true when an aspect of the traditional social order is seen as being “bad for business.” One must win out – capitalism or the social order.
This is why the upper-class in Dixie wanted to move away from segregation, they feared that segregation was making it harder for them to bring in investors from outside of Dixie and were willing to sacrifice home rule for those investors. The backbone of support for Jim Crow, especially during its last days, came from the rural areas and the working-class. This same tendency can be seen in the number of major corporations giving benefits to homosexual couples back during the 1990s, when the general public was firmly opposed to gay marriage. A contemporary example can be seen in wealthy, suburbanite opposition to religious liberty bills – they fear the backlash in a way the working-class and rural areas do not. The modern corporations of Weimerica don’t care about those classes, their prime customers are the low-class, the bourgeois and the decision-making upper crust.
A major drawback to this theory though is that even if we are to grant that capitalism tends to produce social change, it is hard to ignore just how much it has intensified over the past few years. It can be argued that the Cold War and fear of socialism forced capitalism to “play nice” with the traditional order for fear of losing an important ally. But, this theory fails to take into account 1) why it took say long for Woke Capitalism to manifest itself the way that it has and 2) the amount of business executives that were historically committed to conservative and right-wing causes, and not just economic ones, but social ones as well.
The Vanguard
According to the vanguard theory of Woke Capitalism, the rise of Woke Capitalism is a result of a cabal of left-wing radicals who captured key positions within various corporations. The vanguard theory does have a lot of explaining power, especially in the media industry. Just a few years ago, terms such as white privilege, fat shaming, and gender fluid were completely marginal and mostly found in feminist thought classes at liberal arts colleges in the Pacific Northwest and Tumblr. On occasion, there would be an article or two in Salon, or some other progressive rag, that would talk about them. I was familiar with these concepts myself because 1) I had a front row seat for the Alt-Right/SJW libertarian split after 2012 and 2) Jim Goad started talking about them to troll the Left.
Today though, all of these concepts have exploded into the mainstream, thanks in large part to “serious” media sources publishing them. Just to take one recent example – The New York Times has recently published a series on the 1619 Project that frames the United States around slavery. The scholarship is so poor it’s been roundly criticized by even left-wing historians. But, that doesn’t matter – the ideology must be pushed. Furthermore, several in the media industry have stated that there is a clash occurring between the younger leftists, that actively push this narrative, and the older liberals who are too afraid to speak up. And, as soon as the second camp is gone, things will get even worse.
The problem with the vanguard theory is it cannot explain why this all happened so quickly and at one time. Media companies hiring progressives, hellbent on pushing deep leftist identity theory is one thing, but why have other industries followed suit so quickly? It seems unlikely that a small cabal was able to, and with minimal pushback, capture the heights of a wide range of various industries.
The Masses Want It
The last theory on the origins of Woke Capitalism is the one most frightening for the Right. It holds that Woke Capitalism is not the result of the nature of capitalism or a leftist vanguard, but rather because it is now what the masses want. In other words, the culture has decidedly moved to the Left and companies are just following suit to keep consumers happy. This is especially true of the younger generations who are more left-wing than their parents or grandparents, something that is itself part of the Great Replacement.
Remember, if given the choice companies would rather have a 50 year old as a customer than a 70 year old; and companies would rather have a 30 year old as a customer than a 50 year old. The younger customer will be a consumer longer. So, companies tend to cater to them more. As their consumer base moves left, so do the companies. At this point, it looks like the libertarians were right in this respect, though in the worst possible way – private businesses really do respond more quickly to the needs of the masses than the government does.
The retort to this is “get woke and go broke” i.e. the tendency for franchises that embrace the Left’s agenda do poorly, as seen in the recent flops of Charlie’s Angels, the newest iteration of the Terminator, and Ghostbusters. Indeed, polling does show that much of the Left’s agenda is not all that popular.
Though I have taken no strong position here, I do think that understanding the origins of Woke Capitalism is one of the most important projects for the Right. In the immediate future, the threat of joblessness is far greater than the threat of jail for thoughtcrimes. This is largely thanks to how thoroughly Big Business is now on the side of the woke. Understanding its origins is a major task in understanding what needs to be done to defeat it.
-Dixie Anon
O I’m a good old rebel, now that’s just what I am. For this “fair land of freedom” I do not care at all. I’m glad I fit against it, I only wish we’d won, And I don’t want no pardon for anything I done.
The threat of social ostracism and joblessness vs. the threat of jail/prison time. Pick your poison.
Interesting article; I hope you’ll follow up with a couple more. I don’t have anything “insightful” to add at this moment, but I do know that if in fact this is what the society wants and corporations are in fact pandering to that (which all seems plausible enough), “the replacement” is a huge factor in all of this. I mean, this isn’t exactly the same (demographic) “society” my parents were born into in the mid-’40s, if you know what I mean. Remember too that the big corporations are most assuredly ‘looking to the future’ as it were when majority-minority will be (according to all the projection models) an accomplished fact.
DA.
“Though I have taken no strong position here, “. Why have you not taken a strong position? Why are you not sharing your internal position? I don’t intend to armchair quarterback here. You, and the ID men, are in the wild and taking the shots. I know that. I, we, need more commitment in word and deed from those God has given a mantle. So read my question with a “please share your position” instead.
Action wins.
I think the last statement is the correct one. It is “what the masses want”. With a caveat.
If you polled a true random sampling of America, 60%, maybe more, would say that they don’t want to see politics in advertising or marketing. But this is a centrist position. They don’t want to see ANY politics in advertising. If they felt like a company was pushing an extreme conservative message, especially one tied to religion (pro life for example), they would balk at that too.
That polling data would be heavily weighted by boomers.
If you targeted JUST millennials and zoomers in a poll, I’d wager that the data would flip. Over 60% would say that corporations have a duty to be “good citizens” and promote “rightthink” messages in their marketing. The millennial and zoomer demographic is far more “woke” and also diverse. Even with the meme about zoomers being more socially conservative, I think they are in reality just more polarized, with the majority of them being far more politically aware than previous generations, and more prone to think that politics in advertising is good.
These are the most malleable consumers, the ones that can be swayed to be brand loyalists. Older people like Gen X and boomers are less likely to spend money on expensive brand names and are typically more “set in their ways” as to their consumer habits.
I think the risk of losing customers because of wokeness has been trumped by the certainty of gaining new loyal customers.
And this doesn’t necessarily pan out in immediate profits. A smart company is investing in long term strategies, even if they take 5-10 years to fully manifest. They larger, anti-fragile brands will even take a short term loss if it means securing long term profits.
Bottom line is, it is TRULY scary what the future holds. These companies spend megabucks on marketing research. They know their customer and potential customer inside and out. I truly shudder at the prospects of what the nest decade has in store.
Oh and one other point. It does seem rather sudden that all the “wokeness” happened. But this only stands to reason, because the “promised land” was in reach with Obama being president. Everything, including marketing strategies, was retooled during that 8 year span, because big capital believed the demographics had already been shifted enough to justify it. Trump only accelerated that process as the culture war escalated.