Critics Of “Woke Capitalism” Are Out Of Step With The Working Class

The term “woke capitalism” expresses peoples' economic frustration, but the right uses that frustration to promote reactionary social causes instead of economic democracy.

For the last century, the left has been the primary critic of capitalism’s excesses. After the Great Depression, the 2008 recession, and the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, it was America’s left (sometimes embraced by the Democratic Party) that advocated the most far-reaching actions to protect workers and restrain corporate power. 

But in the last few years, amid massive working class discontent, the right has formed its own critique of capitalism summed up in the phrase “woke capitalism.” The term, coined by conservative New York Times writer Ross Douthat in 2018, describes the tendency of businessmen to adopt progressive social causes. The critique is that uber-wealthy capitalists are exerting an increasing role over every aspect of our lives. 

The term has been used in reference to Anheuser-Busch’s sponsorship deal with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, Target’s decision to sell LGBTQ+-friendly merchandise, asset managers who promote ESG investing, and the decision of many large corporations to express their support for Pride events and Black Lives Matter protests. In response, conservatives have launched consumer boycotts and several attempts at lawfare, using the government to punish corporations that voice opinions they find disagreeable. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been the chief architect of these lawfare efforts, but his primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy is no slouch on these issues. He’s already published three books on woke capitalism.

While this conservative backlash has managed to damage the stock prices of some companies, conservatives have been unable to actualize an alternative economic vision. However, several anti-woke businesses have been launched, with limited success, to capitalize off “woke” controversies, some of which were profiled yesterday in The New York Times. For instance, if you’re in the market for “100% Woke-Free American Beer”, you can buy a can from Ultra Right Beer with a picture of Donald Trump’s mugshot on it. 

Source: Ultra Right Beer’s Website

But what’s more important than the spectacle of it all is how this new concept of woke capitalism reflects peoples’ frustrations with the economy. In this sense, the entire critique of woke capitalism is more than a bit contrived. Allow me to explain.

Most of us enjoy democracy, a system in which we all, in some way, get to have a say over how society is governed. But, as critics of woke capitalism realize, our current economic system is much the opposite. Decisions are made by the bosses, CEOs, and large shareholders. They make decisions (both individually and in aggregate) that greatly affect the way we live. They decide:

• How much and what kind of housing is built and where it is built

• If groceries will be priced at a level where most people can afford a healthy diet 

• Whether or not dirty fuels will be burnt or harmful chemicals released into the environment

• Whether your private data will be sold off to third parties without your consent 

• Whether our investments will be channeled into American production or speculative financial instruments

• Whether they’d like to pay their employees the minimum they can get away with or a substantially higher pay with a modest cut to their profits. 

Mind you, these decisions are not made by businessmen with absolute freedom. Consumer demand, government regulation, and the pressures of competition do constrain their decisions (to the extent that regulation and competition exist in a given market), but the point is that businessmen still retain far greater agency in making these decisions than you or I.

But, you may have noticed, critics of woke capitalism don’t really care about the issues outlined above unless they happen to bleed into some ongoing culture war battle. What they do care about are other sorts of decisions made by corporations, primarily, whether they endorse certain social movements. This is the crux of their critique. Using your funds, Wall Street is cynically “creating a country you didn’t vote for.”

According to this theory, Wall Street makes these changes not through changing market realities but through supposedly altering our culture and our perceptions of it, sometimes cynically for profit and sometimes just because they’re so woke, depending on who you ask. (In this sense, the critique mirrors the old leftist criticism of advertising and the postmodernist fixation on culture.) As a result, the woke capitalism critique is non-threatening to capitalists or any of the activities that drive their profits; it only stands to challenge a subset of woke capitalists on narrow ideological grounds. Money in politics generally isn’t criticized, though woke money is. Amazon’s union-busting, anti-competitive practices, and exploitative working conditions are fine; their decision to support Black Lives Matter is not. This worldview treats the culture (not workers’ or consumers’ well-being) as the primary economic issue of our day, and in times when people feel so powerless to affect the workings of the real economy it can be a tempting opiate.

However, critics of woke capitalism usually find common ground with much of the left when they understand that corporations don’t really care about the causes they espouse. And this is pretty obvious. While Amazon might claim to care about racial justice, they’re happy to make money off flights where illegal immigrants are allegedly subjected to torture. One could also note Facebook’s multi-million dollar contributions to law enforcement and their decision to disproportionately boost right wing news for clicks or their direct targeted advertisements to “Jew Haters”. Clearly, profits are more important to these companies than any social agenda.

Much like John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, today’s corporate leaders give money and kind words to public works and social causes to mask their profiteering and the exploitation that drives their business models. And, to their credit, the more astute critics of woke capitalism seem to understand that. 

But this is where they get stuck. Instead of tearing into the undemocratic nature of corporate decision making or labor exploitation, critics of woke capitalism spend the majority of their time upset that some executives have more woke views on social issues than they do. The solution is not making capitalism more democratic; it’s making sure that the guys in charge hold conservative opinions. Critics will occasionally note corporations’ shortcomings on economic justice issues, but only to point out that corporations are hypocritical when they use woke rhetoric. They are hypocritical from the perspective of social justice; but they are not hypocritical at all from the perspective of profit maximization. These misguided views often lead to strange contradictions, like arguing that the elite use their riches to indoctrinate us, but that we should still cut their taxes. 

In a way, the idea of woke capitalism does draw out some of the frustrations people have always had with capitalism. But instead of using that analysis to promote class consciousness, a change in how corporations are governed, government regulations, the protection of public goods, or action on any of the issues I listed above, this line of thinking is simply intended to provoke reactionary opinions and policy on social issues in opposition to elite liberals and the much-ignored regular people who share their opinions. The fact that many of our society’s elites are centrists and conservatives is ignored.

Perhaps the biggest failing of the woke capitalism perspective is its lack of an economic or political base. Its critique is entirely divorced from the wishes or well-being of the working class and the labor movement. In the midst of one of the most important auto strikes in decades, Donald Trump is attacking the UAW president and JD Vance is desperately trying to make the strike about “political leadership’s green war on their industry”. Meanwhile, Shawn Fain, recently elected UAW president with the votes of more than 69,000 auto-workers, has been very supportive of a green transition, but wants to ensure that workers get their fair share, noting that: “Anyone that doesn't believe global warming is happening isn't paying attention.” Fain explains:

“The UAW supports and is ready for the transition to a clean auto industry. But the EV transition must be a just transition that ensures auto workers have a place in the new economy…We are glad to see the Biden Administration doing its part to reject the false choice between a good job and a green job.”

Finding itself entirely detached from the labor movement, critics of woke capital sit on the sidelines, making comments antagonistic to the union and its goals (and, by implication, helpful to bosses). Their long-term theory of change is not building power through a mass movement, but through the election of supposed economic mavericks — all Republicans, often coincidentally funded by billionaires like Peter Theil— to inexplicably transform the pro-business impulses of the Republican party. 

But these efforts have been stillborn. Watching the Republican primary debates a few weeks back (or listening to the policies advocated by Fox News or Donald Trump) one can quickly surmise that the critique of woke capitalism is all a critique of wokeness, and not a critique of capitalism. If conservatives find an opportunity (however fabricated) to paint themselves as the victims of America’s titans of industry, they’ll take it, but they won’t actually take actions that structurally undermine the power of America’s capitalists. 

While a critic of capitalism might have taken issue with Andrew Carnegie’s low wages and union busting, a critic of woke capitalism would probably object to the fact that one of his libraries was home to a few too many copies of Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk.