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Corporate Responsibilities after Roe v. Wade

photograph of "Abortion Is Healthcare" protest sign

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has raised numerous legal and moral questions. Making access to abortion an issue to be decided by individual states has already become a complicated legal matter, as some state courts have challenged so-called “trigger laws” – laws meant to make abortion illegal the second the Supreme Court decision came into effect. Many states had already made their intentions clear with regard to access to abortions when the draft Supreme Court memo was initially leaked back in May, and many other groups and corporations have weighed in on where they stand on the issue.

There is ample evidence that the Supreme Court’s decision harms American women (e.g., see from this thread alone: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8]). Overturning Roe has been derided as massively regressive by many, and is opposed by a significant majority of the American people.

In light of all the immensely important issues at play, the question, “what is the role of corporations in all this?” might seem trivial. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, however, numerous companies have announced recently that they would fully or partially reimburse the expenses of their employees should they require out-of-state travel in order to undergo an abortion. These decisions raise a lot of interesting questions, but I’ll pose just two here.

First, we can ask whether corporations have any moral obligation to provide so-called “abortion travel coverage” for their employees. Second, we can ask what it says about the functioning of a democracy when corporations step-in to help rectify a harmful and unpopular mistake made by the Supreme Court.

Let’s start with the first question first. There are, of course, evergreen questions about whether corporations have moral obligations at all, and if so, to whom and to what extent. Even assuming that they do, one might still think that corporations don’t have any specific obligation to help their employees avoid what they perceive to be unjust state laws, while also recognizing how such actions could result in the prevention of significant harm. In this way, providing abortion travel coverage may be seen as supererogatory – actions that are good but not strictly-speaking required, in that they go above and beyond the call of duty.

Some companies, however, see the provision of abortion travel coverage as being part of their agreement to provide access to health care to their employees. For example, a statement from Gap Inc. notes that part of their “mental health and family planning benefits…include coverage of adoptions, surrogacy, fertility treatments, paid parental leave, contraception, and abortion.” Similarly, a statement from Disney notes that abortion travel coverage is part of coverage that the company provides for other types of medical procedure:

In fact, we have processes in place so that an employee who may be unable to access care in one location has affordable coverage for receiving similar levels of care in another location. This travel benefit covers medical situations related to cancer treatments, transplants, rare disease treatment and family planning (including pregnancy-related decisions).

In these cases, companies may see the obligation to provide abortion travel coverage as nothing beyond the fulfilling of a contract to provide medical coverage that it has made to its employees.

Other companies have taken a different stance. For instance, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a recent statement that “[r]emaining silent on the issue of reproductive rights flies in the face of any public pledges professing a desire to create more diverse and inclusive companies” and that what is needed are “more business leaders to use their platform and influence to help ensure that reproductive rights are codified into law, and that the wave of abortion bans and restrictive policies across the country are not allowed to stand.” Stoppelman’s argument thus points toward a moral obligation on the part of companies: as major corporations have power, influence, and the potential to impact policy, they have a responsibility to act in the face of unjust decisions.

We are then led to the second question: what does it mean for the state of a democracy that corporations can (and potentially ought) to take actions that can help citizens side-step unjust laws?

Of course, it is not as if corporations haven’t influenced laws and policy decisions in the past. But this influence is typically lamented as being bad for a well-functioning democracy – i.e., corporate money financing and influencing political policies in ways that are beneficial to shareholders and detrimental to everyone else – not as a potential force for good.

We’ve seen already that the Supreme Court’s decision is not reflective of the view of the majority of Americans, by a large margin. Providing employees with the ability to travel out of state for an abortion can thus help restore a right that has unjustly been taken away, even if such a right is only restored in a practical sense. If the Supreme Court decision represents a failure of democracy, as some critics have argued, perhaps the actions of corporations can help counteract it.

I put forth that consideration while fully admitting that I don’t know what to do with it. It represents an oddly-shaped band-aid to a structural problem of U.S. democracy. But it’s one that might have to do for now, until real change can occur.

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Rainbow Myopia: The Left-Wing Case Against “Woke Capitalism”

photograph of colorful orchid tunnel

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: “Woke Capitalism.”

This year, NYC Pride is supported by (take a breath) T-Mobile, MasterCard, Hyatt, TD Bank, Macy’s, Delta, Virgin Atlantic, Target, HSBC, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Proctor and Gamble, AXA, Chase, American Airlines, Netflix, Airbnb, Nissan, IBM, Pepsico, Wells Fargo, United Airlines, TD Ameritrade, Microsoft, Deloitte, Starbucks, Johnson and Johnson, and Uber. Never before has a left-wing political movement enjoyed such overwhelming corporate support.

Companies have long acknowledged the value of “pink money.” Known to corporate demographers as “DINKY” (dual income, no kids), most gay couples have higher average levels of disposable income. As such, they are highly desirable customers and are often specially targeted. American Airlines, for example, formed a team devoted to gay and lesbian marketing and saw its earnings from this demographic rise from $20 million to $194 million in just five years. Pink money is approaching the buying power of all Black Americans, of Hispanic Americans, and exceeds that of Asian Americans.

Corporations have nothing to fear, and perhaps some good customers to gain, by supporting the LGBTQ+ movement.

The current outpouring of corporate support for the LGBTQ+ movement is an obvious example of so-called “Woke Capitalism.” Defining this term is difficult, as Ken Boyd explains here; its critics and defenders often seem to have different ideas of what it means. Boyd claims the criticisms of Woke Capitalism tend to fall into two broad camps. Capitalist critiques claim that the “woke” part of Woke Capitalism is bad for business, while conservative critiques reject the progressive values that Woke Capitalism promotes. I want to offer a third kind of critique — one from the political left.

If Woke Capitalism is meant to be supportive of progressive values, shouldn’t those on the political left be in favor of it?

Not necessarily. For example, many gay rights activists reject their newfound corporate support as “Rainbow Capitalism,” mere virtue signaling or “pinkwashing.” This is the most common left-wing critique of Woke Capitalism — that it’s cynical, insincere, and perhaps even hypocritical.

The critics are right in that there is something insincere about Woke Capitalism. For Pride Month, the major software company Bethesda changed its Twitter avatars to rainbow versions. Well, they did so in the USA, France, Brasil, New Zealand, Italy, Netherlands, and Germany. But Bethesda decided to leave its icon solid black in the Middle East, Turkey, and Russia. The same weakness of conviction is clear from the history of the gay rights movement. No major corporation supported the movement while it was still struggling for social and political recognition decades ago.

Arguably, these corporations are chasing popular opinion on these issues, rather than attempting to change it.

But the pinkwashing critique only goes so far. For one thing, being cynical, insincere, or even hypocritical does not necessarily mean your actions are wrong. It’s still good to give to charity, even if the reason you’re doing it is simply to get a tax credit or to impress a colleague. Even if the Woke Capitalists are doing what they’re doing cynically, they could still be doing good.

It’s also implausible that Woke Capitalism is entirely cynical. The people working in executive corporate roles are, demographically speaking, more likely to be politically liberal. Many of these people are surely genuine in their political convictions and are sincerely trying to do some good, as they see it. So we can’t dismiss Woke Capitalism as entirely hypocritical virtue signaling. Whether or not you agree with the progressive values Woke Capitalists push, we can surely acknowledge there is sincere goodwill behind at least some of these efforts.

What should most concern us about Woke Capitalism, however, is not merely the sincerity of its corporate practitioners. Instead, we should consider its actual political effects.

Imagine you are Mr. Corporate McCapitalist (if it helps, picture a hybrid of Mr. Peanut and Gordon Gekko). Things are very simple. You want a high return on your capital and you don’t want disruptive left-wing political movements getting in the way with policy interventions that empower workers or raise taxes on your profits. Uh-oh! The working class looks like it might come together and vote for meaningful political change! Workers are talking about unionization and politicians are advocating laws that would make you “pay your fair share” to support a decent welfare and education system! What can you do to stop this madness?

Sure, you could fund corporate propaganda campaigns or pro-corporate opposition candidates. These are both solid, well-established moves. But, if you’re feeling just a bit more ambitious, you might be able to pull a political Indiana Jones — replacing the golden idol with a bag of sand (or, in your case, replacing dangerous traditional left-wing economic causes with harmless left-wing “woke” causes).

This is, in cartoon form, the alternative left-wing critique I have in mind;

Woke Capitalism operates as a misdirection, sapping political movements of the focus and energy needed to make tangible gains.

Woke Capitalism has been incredibly effective at directing public and media attention. It has played a decisive role in pushing the most divisive social issues, so-called “wedge issues,” into the political limelight. Take Nike’s controversial Colin Kaepernick advertising campaign. It boosted Nike sales by 31%, creating $6 billion in brand value in the process. It was also perfect fuel for the culture war fire. “It doesn’t matter how many people hate your brand as long as enough people love it,” explained Phil Knight, Nike founder. The political controversy saturated political discussion for months.

These divisive political fights over “woke” issues such as race and gender inevitably divert precious media attention and grassroots political effort from likely more impactful economic struggles — struggles that threaten corporate financial interests. Our society uses more attention and energy debating something as insignificant as who should be allowed to use what bathroom than it does debating the merits of a carbon or wealth tax. CEOs must be pinching themselves to make sure they’re not dreaming.

The more controversial, engaging, and fierce the fight over these “woke” issues becomes the safer corporate profits.

According to this critique, Woke Capitalism is objectionable because it (very effectively) distracts the political left from taking effective action on the most impactful political struggles. By going woke, the corporate world has managed to neuter its traditional political opposition. Left-wing politics is no longer a significant threat to corporate economic interests. Instead, the political left sees corporations as allies in the culture war.

Politics is the art of the possible. It demands we do what we can with the time and resources we happen to have at hand. Therefore, some of the most important political questions are (and ought to be): What should we prioritize? On what should we focus our limited attention? Toward what goal should we put our limited resources? These are difficult questions to answer, but we can’t afford to let corporations answer for us.

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​​The Limits of Consumer Activism

blurred photograph of crowd below large interactive billboards

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: “Woke Capitalism.”

In response to Walmart’s roll out of new Juneteenth party supplies, wine, and themed ice cream, among other offerings (including a “Congrats Officer” police banner labeled as Juneteenth Day Party Decorations), prominent Black activists and comedians on Twitter, TikTok, and other social media platforms critiqued the corporation for failing to understand the actual values the holiday represents.

From Walmart’s trademark of the word “Juneteenth” to the promotion of its own branded Juneteenth ice-cream instead of a Black-owned ice cream brand with the same flavor, the company’s effort to bring in Black dollars read as tone deaf. Beyond the problems with the products themselves, Twitter users pointed out the general meaninglessness of corporate pandering when larger issues of oppression are still unaddressed.

What should we ultimately expect from influential companies like Walmart? Better products? Donations to just causes? More diverse representation within corporations? And, what is the role of activism targeted at corporations as it relates to larger projects of liberation?

Let’s start with the first set of questions: What should we expect from corporations? It seems that the primary issue in the Juneteenth merch case is that there is a disconnect between the company’s values and the buyers’ values. Whether Walmart made a good-faith effort to embody the values of Juneteenth or just attempted to maximize profit, the company failed to understand the values behind Black liberatory projects and the holiday itself.

One thing that we could expect from corporations is better products. Representation in product choice is important — when things are made for you with an understanding of your needs and expectations, it can improve quality of life and help you feel seen. But products alone are rarely the focus of our liberatory projects. What else might we expect companies to change?

We can also expect corporations to hire a diverse team of workers throughout all levels of the company. This helps to ensure not only fair equality of opportunity, such that anyone of any race, gender, or other social position can come to hold power within the company, but also good product design, because there will be multiple perspectives to influence the process. Walmart still has work to do in this regard, as Black employees are overrepresented in lower wage positions and underrepresented in higher wage positions.

However, diversity in corporate positions of power isn’t enough. If the lowest paid workers in a company make up the greatest share of workers and aren’t paid enough to live on, then we have simply created new hierarchies of inequality and injustice.

Corporate diversity, without fair wages, only liberates a select number of people (and those who make it into the halls of power often find them hostile to the historically marginalized).

It seems that better representation demands, in part, the material and social conditions for people of all different backgrounds to be able to live and flourish. For instance, a company should not merely hire disabled people and expect them to conform to company expectations without accommodation — the physical and organizational structures of the company should be rebuilt to allow those employees to carry out their jobs well.

This holds true at the level of corporate donations. We often expect corporations to donate to just causes and critique them when they don’t, but there are also unfortunate power differentials that arise when the corporate elite can hoard money to donate to political goals instead of paying their workers a fair wage that would allow them to donate to causes they care about. In the age in which money is speech, surely this is not what we want our representative democracy to look like.

The main issue with our discussions around woke capitalism is not any of the individual critiques: it’s the big-picture strategy. What seems to be happening in our collective discourse is that we get caught up in easily Twitter-izable consumer issues that companies will quickly respond to in order to avoid a social media backlash. Even at the level of corporate diversity, it’s much easier to put a few Black employees in positions of power than to ensure a living wage for all employees.

In some ways, the “woke capitalism” battle between conservative and liberal forces is the easier battle to win, and so we get stuck in these proxy wars for the harder work of systemic change to address inequalities compounded by history and multiple intersecting oppressions.

Instead of focusing our efforts into getting companies to respond to issues regarding product design, representation, and charitable donations, it would serve us better to treat these as issues that arise from the same central problem: class-based inequities that are built upon white supremacy and that disproportionally impact marginalized groups.

If we can shift our energy to the more difficult battles of ensuring that companies make the material and organizational changes for workers to have a good quality of life and that our broader social and legal structures are made more just, our victories will be more meaningful. We will ultimately have a greater impact, even if, on the whole, we have more failures at the level of responding to bad product design.

Black activists understand this point well. The Walmart social media outcry and subsequent apology happened over a relatively short period of time, and it represents a small (though not inconsequential) piece in a much larger project of policing and prison reform, affordable housing and fair wage fights, and other efforts to celebrate Black freedom and joy. Unfortunately, our collective discourse tends to highlight these shorter-term projects and hide the longer and more difficult labors of organizing. So long as we, especially as allies, remember to engage in and contribute to these larger projects of liberation, there is no problem in using consumer activism to promote better corporate practices. We just need to understand the limits of that approach.

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Corporate Activism and Non-Ideal Democracy

photograph of Disney and Mickey with castle in the background

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: “Woke Capitalism.”

In March, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Parental Rights in Education Act (PREA). The “Don’t Say Gay” law restricts classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity and empowers parents to sue school districts over teachings they don’t like.

Many are critical of the PREA, including, controversially, the Walt Disney Company. On the day it was signed, Disney released a statement saying that the PREA “should never have been signed into law” and declared that its “goal as a company is for this law to be repealed” or “struck down.” DeSantis and the state legislature retaliated by canceling some important privileges afforded to Disney. DeSantis described this as a wakeup call, declaring that Disney needs “to get back to the mission” and “back on track.”

The quarrel between DeSantis and Disney is representative of a broader ongoing controversy about the proper role of corporations in politics and public discourse.

Recent developments have propelled this issue into the spotlight. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting corporations from independently advocating for or against political candidates, opening the door to unlimited corporate spending. Moreover, corporations have recently become increasingly active in signaling support for progressive social causes, a trend which has been described as “woke capitalism.”

There are many reasons to be critical of corporate involvement in politics and public discourse. In most cases it’s probably motivated mainly by a cynical desire to curry favor with lawmakers, distract from corporate exploitation, or otherwise advance profits; corporate activism can exacerbate cultural divides and grievances; it’s unclear whether corporations have a moral right to free speech. And, most importantly, a democracy should be governed by the people, not by businesses or the economic elite.

Let’s suppose (as seems plausible) that there are many good objections against corporate activism and that in a well-functioning liberal democracy, corporations have no place in politics or public discourse. It does not follow that corporations should not participate in politics or public discourse in our society. The significance of this supposition for the Disney-PREA case (and the general controversy) depends largely on whether we live in a just and well-functioning liberal democracy. I’d like to suggest that we don’t.

If we live in a society that is only partially democratic and only partially liberal, a society that is characterized by serious systemic injustices, then perhaps we should welcome the efforts of the powerful, including corporations, when they act to redress injustices.

Perhaps corporate activism is less than ideal but nevertheless all-things-considered justified in our non-ideal situation.

To explore this line of thinking, I need to paint an ugly picture. We are told in school that the United States is a beacon of freedom and hope for the world. We are told that the U.S. is a liberal democracy, a state committed to protecting the basic freedom and equality of all its citizens, governed by the will of the people.

There are good reasons for thinking this is a convenient bit of propaganda that is only partially true.

We can look outwards first. The U.S. is an empire of sorts. Old-style empires exerted power over territories by conquering and directly ruling them. Contemporary empires like the U.S. exert imperial power less directly. The U.S. furthers its international interests through soft-power and diplomacy, like when it leverages its considerable power in the UN to influence foreign governments. It also wields unprecedented hard power. For example, the U.S. has about 800 foreign military bases in 80 countries. It uses its economic and military might to overthrow foreign governments, influence foreign political and revolutionary movements, and generally meddle in the affairs of other countries.

Although those who have a grip on the levers of U.S. imperial power are ostensibly accountable to voters, we voters have virtually no de facto control over U.S. foreign affairs.

Consider the presidency. The president has a lot of say over how U.S. military power is deployed in the world. But voters only have two real options in presidential elections. And despite the standard rhetoric to the contrary, presidents from both parties tend to wield military power in more or less continuous ways. The War in Afghanistan is a representative example. This war was started by a Republican (Bush) and expanded by a Democrat (Obama). A Republican (Trump) initiated withdrawal from the region, which was completed by a Democrat (Biden).

Things look about the same looking inwards. The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Yet our laws routinely fail to conform to the will of the people. For example, U.S. federal laws currently fail to reflect that a majority of voters support changing the electoral college (55%), protecting access to abortion (61%), greater action on climate change (65%), decriminalizing marijuana (68%), health insurance public options (68%), universal background checks on gun purchasers (84%), and price limits on lifesaving drugs (89%). Many entrenched factors contribute to this, from the fact that some voters have far more power than others, to the influence of industries and economic elites (especially super-rich private donors) on public policy, the disproportionate wealth of lawmakers, the various demagogues clogging public discourse with inane conspiracy theories, and so on. The undemocratic elements in our society are coupled with illiberal systemic injustices like extreme economic inequality and laws that protect freedoms selectively. For example, in 2021, the top 1% of households held 32.3% of all household wealth, while the bottom 50% held only 2.6%. And at the time of this writing, federal law does not protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment and housing (although 70% of people support such protections).

The picture that is emerging is one of an empire that, despite having democratic and liberal elements, is largely run by elites and routinely fails to protect the basic freedom and equality of its citizens.

Suppose this picture is roughly accurate. Also suppose for the sake of argument that the PREA is seriously unjust. Since it is seriously unjust, we citizens should work to see it repealed. But we do not have as much power to affect legislation as we are encouraged to believe. Wealthy corporations have power, however, and we can solicit assistance from them. Now if the U.S. had legitimate democratic institutions, then corporate meddling in democratic processes would threaten the legitimacy of those institutions. But by supposition that legitimacy is already seriously compromised by entrenched factors. So, arguably we should solicit and welcome assistance from powerful entities like Disney insofar as this increases the likelihood that the PREA will be repealed and the expected side effects are acceptable. And arguably this is compatible with maintaining that corporate activism is ultimately a bad thing.

Here’s an imperfect but suggestive analogy. Imagine we live under a dictatorship. Many people are oppressed by harmful laws. But the dictator’s counselor is sympathetic to the oppressed. It seems to me that we could, without logical inconsistency or hypocrisy, both beseech the counselor to convince the dictator to change the harmful laws and also maintain that neither the dictator nor his counselor should have any power over us.

This suggests that corporate activism can be justified in our non-ideal situation, but only to the extent that it is efficaciously directed at making our society more just.

This marks a difference between corporations and citizens. Citizens have an autonomy-based moral right to participate in collective governance and public discourse, which entitles them to sincerely advocate for positions that are in fact unjust. Corporations have no such right. Their entitlement to advocacy is derived exclusively from the special power they have to improve our society.

It’s sensible to reject this argument if you are less pessimistic than I am about the state of our union. But I don’t think the argument should be rejected because of cynicism about corporate motivations. True, corporations are out to make a profit. Mickey is a rapacious mouse. Nevertheless, from time to time the motive of profit partially aligns with the cause of justice. We should do what we can to remind corporations of this.

Left unaddressed is the difficult practical problem of how we can effectively make use of corporate activism while also advocating for a society that is truly governed by the people, not corporations or elites. I don’t know how this problem can be solved. But I am hopeful that it can be.

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“Woke Capitalism”

distorted photograph of Times Square building stretching into sky

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.

Adam Smith’s matter-of-fact account of the moral consideration we should expect in our economic transactions will strike many as the self-evident ideal. The divorce of the social or political from the economic is nothing more than savvy industry. Business-as-usual. The introduction of sentiment to our dealings would only make for bad business and worse politics. This is the position of those condemning the rise of “woke capitalism.”

“Woke capitalism” has become a catch-all term standing in for a hodge-podge of ideas, convictions, and positions. Coined by Ross Douthat in 2015 to describe businesses’ hollow virtue-signalling, the term has been expanded to include even the slightest appearance of corporations “bending a knee” to the cancel culture mob.

Critics characterize woke capitalism as a kind of ill-informed and ill-intentioned boardroom activism solely invested in the construction and maintenance of a PR image. It represents a superficial dedication to sanitizing bad looks and poor optics. It presents as an unwillingness to countenance anything with a whiff of controversy about it. In this, cynics see a poorly disguised feint aimed at getting out in front of political blowback and indicating one’s social justice bona fides before the torch and pitchfork crowd come knocking.

But for many, the problem isn’t so much its falseness as its ambition. Corporations, these voices contend, shouldn’t be in the business of criticizing public policy or shaping public opinion. They shouldn’t be throwing their weight around when it comes to matters of state. It’s corporatism, plain and simple — rule by unelected magnates rather than by the will of the people.

Thus the woke capitalists are either cowards submitting to progressives’ demands in pursuit of the path of least (commercial) resistance, or power-hungry usurpers bent on circumventing Congress in transforming their cultural preferences into social reality. Whether motivated by fear or greed, these elites are beginning to play an outsized and objectionable role in shaping our shared future.

But does this picture reflect reality?

Progressives would be surprised to see CEOs listed as co-conspirators. Woke capitalism will strike many as an oxymoron. Exploitation appears inevitable and its effects are not suffered equally. Our consumer society’s commitment to cheap goods and even cheaper labor seems wholly at odds with the project of social justice dedicated to revealing and combating inequality and discrimination.

While we may have moved on from Milton Friedman’s assertion that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to its shareholders, we’re still struggling to articulate a vision of businesses’ greater obligations that might be as equally concrete and action-guiding. We remain in dire need of defining just what considerations these corporate entities owe us — the people who make these businesses run, as consumers, laborers, voters, and tax-payers. From offshoring to tax evasion to union-busting, we need to know whether a corporation can be an ally.

The ongoing debate over the power and limitations of “woke capitalism” provides ample material, space, and opportunity for sustained examination of the kinds of problems corporations create, the kinds of problems they aggravate, and the kinds of problems they can (and cannot) solve.

-Tucker Sechrest

Kenneth Boyd — “What Is Unwoke Capitalism?”

Daniel Story — “Corporate Activism and Non-Ideal Democracy”

Elizabeth Williams — “The Limits of Consumer Activism”

Giles Howdle — “Rainbow Myopia: A Left-Wing Case Against ‘Woke Capital’“

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What Is Unwoke Capitalism?

close-up photograph of SHOP storefront sign

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: “Woke Capitalism.”

It’s Pride Month, which means that many of your favorite or not-so-favorite corporations have likely been changing their social media avatars to their rainbow versions, and perhaps making statements about how they currently/always have/have at least thought about supporting the rights of those in the LGBTQ+ community. Sometimes called “rainbow capitalism,” this yearly trend is one form of so-called “woke capitalism,” in which corporations disingenuously champion social causes with the sole purpose of making more money off of their left-wing consumers.

At least, that’s how it started out when the term was coined way back in 2018.

These days, however, “woke capitalism” is poorly defined.

Sometimes it refers to what critics call a hollow kind of virtue-signalling, either to court new left-leaning consumers or out of a fear of losing existing ones. But it has also taken on another meaning: whenever a corporation is guided by any kind of social values (or, at least, certain kinds of social values – more on this in a bit) and not by increasing value for its shareholders, it is engaging in “woke capitalism.” Interestingly, this new kind of woke capitalism ditches the requirement of being insincere: even, and maybe even especially, companies that have demonstrated a genuine interest in social causes have been placed under the umbrella of woke capitalism.

Depending on who you ask, woke capitalism is the future. Or a force that desperately needs to be fought. This fight is either a bad and regressive thing, or a good and necessary thing. Capitalism is something that the right has become ashamed of, or else it’s businesses that have become ashamed of being woke. When companies do go woke, they’re making good social progress, or not nearly making progress quickly enough. It can be difficult to keep up.

When considered in the broadest sense of merely being guided in some way by a concern for social causes (as opposed to the hollow virtue-signaling kind), a form of capitalism in which companies make at least some effort to address social issues seems better than nothing.

What corporate responsibilities ought to be, exactly, is a matter worth discussing. But with the notion of “woke capitalism” being as nebulous as it is, and with so much discussion about its merits, it’s also worth considering: are there good arguments for an alternative?

There seem to be two options. The most popular is what appears to be a return to shareholder capitalism: the idea that a corporation’s sole responsibility is to make money for its shareholders, and thus any potential decrease in profits in the name of furthering progressive social causes (or, really anything besides profits) is, in some sense, not what a business should be doing.

This seems to be the default position of many of woke capitalism’s critics. The main target is businesses that have expressed concern for environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG, for short). This is bad business, it is argued, since ESG puts causes over profits. For example, Disney’s recent speaking out against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill has the potential to cost the company money after Florida governor Ron DeSantis vowed to eliminate the special status that the state had given to Disney theme parks. Although not exactly hurting for cash, Disney could have hoarded even more if it had just stayed quiet.

Of course, defenders of woke capitalism will respond that investing in social causes is not antithetical to making profits, either because doing so helps capture certain consumers, or because failing to do so risks alienating them. Others will point out that shareholder capitalism has been challenged long before the rise of woke capitalism.

Indeed, DeSantis’ actions seem much more motivated out of spite rather than a desire to maintain the sanctity of shareholder capitalism. Instead, they are indicative of another way in which one can reject woke capitalism, namely to adopt what we might call unwoke capitalism.

If woke capitalism is that which is driven by a concern for causes that are typically viewed as progressive, then unwoke capitalism is driven by a concern for causes that are typically viewed as conservative.

For example, a recent opinion piece describes Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter not just as the acquisition of a business, but as “a wider fightback against a hyper-liberal version of global capitalism” as one of Musk’s stated goals in acquiring Twitter is “to correct what he sees as Left-liberal bias.” Unwoke capitalism pops up in smaller places, as well, in businesses such as Black Rifle Coffee – which touts itself as pro-military, pro-law enforcement, and “anti-hipster” – as well as other coffee businesses that feel like Black Rifle wasn’t sufficiently right-wing. Or consider Coign, the self-proclaimed “America’s first credit card for Conservative” which, as part of its fight against wokeness, pledges to donate part of its profits to “Conservative causes” (although said causes have yet to be determined). Other examples are easy to find.

Here, then, we can see three different ways to understand the backlash to woke capitalism. One predicates itself on a concern for capitalist values (specifically that of maximizing profits); a second is based on a rejection of a specific set of progressive values (specifically ESG); and a third not only rejects those values but replaces them with conservative ones. While these positions are distinct, opinions and other think-pieces on woke capitalism often run them together.

For example, in the opinion piece on Musk’s attempt to acquire Twitter, the move was initially portrayed as one in which the historically unprofitable Twitter could finally be made profitable under Musk’s tutelage. The author also claims that woke capitalism is responsible for “soaring inflation, flat-lining growth, and massive debt mountains.” If any of this were true, it would constitute financial reasons for rejecting woke capitalist business models. However, the motive to “open debate that includes the Right as well as the Left” on Twitter is clearly based on values beyond pure profit-maximization.

Criticisms of woke capitalism thus tend to conflate two arguments.

The first is that businesses being concerned with social values is bad business; the second is that many businesses are concerned with the wrong values. But accepting the one doesn’t require accepting the other: for instance, one could argue that businesses that are concerned with advocating for conservative values also violate capitalist norms, as doing so risks putting values ahead of profits, they just happen to be different values from the woke capitalist crowd. In this way, woke capitalism and unwoke capitalism would share the same flaw.

Whether woke capitalism is bad for business is an empirical question. While there is no real indication that it is, rejecting it does not mean needing to replace progressive values with conservative ones.

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Liability and Luck

photograph of lone firefighter standing before small wildfire blaze

In the unlikely event that you have not yet experienced your daily dose of despair concerning the fate of humanity, then I’d highly encourage you to read Elizabeth Weil’s ProPublica piece “They Know How to Prevent Megafires. Why Won’t Anybody Listen?” The article makes two basic points. 1) Extensive controlled burns would be an effective precautionary strategy that would prevent recurring megafires. 2) There are political and financial incentives which trap us into a reactionary rather than precautionary fire strategies.

There are clearly lots of perverse incentives at play, but one part of the article was especially interesting:

“How did we get here? Culture, greed, liability laws and good intentions gone awry. There are just so many reasons not to pick up the drip torch and start a prescribed burn even though it’s the safe, smart thing to do. . . . Burn bosses in California can more easily be held liable than their peers in some other states if the wind comes up and their burn goes awry. At the same time, California burn bosses typically suffer no consequences for deciding not to light. No promotion will be missed, no red flags rise. ‘There’s always extra political risk to a fire going bad,’ Beasley said. ‘So whenever anything comes up, people say, OK, that’s it. We’re gonna put all the fires out.'”

It is risky to engage in controlled burns. Things can go wrong, and when they do go wrong it could be pretty bad, someone could lose their home, maybe even lose their life. Of course, it is far riskier, in one sense, to not engage in controlled burns. So why, then, our incentives set up the way they are?

At least two different explanations are likely at play.

Explanation 1: Action vs Inaction. First, in general, we are more responsible for actions than for inactions. The priest who ‘passed by the other side’ of a man left for dead did something terrible, but did not do something as terrible as the thieves who beat the man up in the first place. As a society we jail murders, we don’t jail the charitably apathetic, even if the apathetic are failing to save lives they could save.

And indeed, this point does have an appropriate corollary when talking about fire suppression. I am not responsible for houses burning in California — this is true even though last spring I could have bought a plane ticket, flown to California, and started burning stuff. Had I done so, likely things would have gone terribly wrong, and in that case I really would have been responsible for whatever property I had destroyed. This seems appropriate, it could be catastrophic if my incentives were structured such that I was punished for not starting vigilante fires.

Elizabeth Anscombe gives us a similar example. If the on-duty pilot and I are both asleep in our cabins, then we are doing the very same thing when our ship hits an iceberg. Yet it was the pilot, and not I, who sunk the ship. Indeed, had I, a random passenger, had tried to navigate the ship we would have absolutely held me responsible when something goes wrong.

So, what is the principle here? Is it that amateurs are specially responsible for actions? No, because we can also identify cases where we indemnify amateurs for their actions. Perhaps the best example here is good Samaritan laws. These laws protect untrained people, like myself, if we make a mistake when trying to render emergency first aid.

What is really going on is that we don’t want passengers trying to navigate ships. Nor do we want aspiring philosophers attempting unsupervised controlled burns in California. But we do want pilots to navigate ships, and we do want burn bosses attempting controlled burns. As such, we should construct incentives which encourage that, and protect people from culpability even if things occasionally go wrong.

Explanation 2: Causal Links. Second, we trace responsibility through causality. Because you caused a house to burn down you are, at least partially, responsible for that damage. The problem is, it is almost always easier to trace causality to actions than to inactions. We can identify exactly which active burning causes damage. We can easily say, “the first you started on February 14th destroyed these two house.” It’s much harder to say “the not burning that you didn’t do on February 14th was what allowed the fire to get out of hand.”

And indeed, I think probably we can’t really hold people responsible for any particular failure to burn. We can hold people responsible for how much controlled burning they can do in general, but we can’t trace causal paths to hold them responsible for any particular bad result of inaction. Indeed, it would be unfair to do so, no burn boss can’t foresee when a particular failure to burn will destroy a house (in the way they can sometimes foresee when burning in a particular area might destroy a house). This creates a problem though. Because we can’t hold people fully responsible for their inaction, that means we must hold people disproportionately responsible for actions, thus perversely incentivizing inaction.

This also parallels our interpersonal lives. For example, we generally want people willing to think for themselves. But we are also far more likely to condemn people for reaching terrible views they came up with themselves than for failing to recognize what is wrong with the conventional view. This can create perverse incentives, however. It might really be true that we are justly responsible for coming to terrible conclusions, but because it is so hard to hold people responsible for the majority view it might be important to forgive even egregious mistakes to keep incentives favoring original thought.

So here is the general point. Assessing responsibility is far more complicated than just establishing whether someone played a causal role. Sometimes holding people responsible for things they really should not have done can create perversely disincentivize people from taking risks we want them willing to take. The fires in California give one clear example of this, but the point generalizes to our lives as well.

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Gay Representation and ‘Onward’

photograph of Disney castle

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Disney-Pixar’s latest film Onward has generated a mild flurry of controversy in the week before its release. The film, which is set in a modernized fantasy world, features Pixar’s first openly gay character, a police officer (who also happens to be a cyclops) voiced by actress and writer Lena Waithe. Christian right-wing groups have protested the character’s existence, viewing her inclusion in the narrative as a blatant attempt to peddle the “LGBTQ agenda” to children. But surprisingly the LGBTQ community has evinced mixed feelings about the film as well. Disney’s frank attempt at inclusiveness could be seen as a groundbreaking move away from heteronormativity in mainstream film. Representation is a certainly good thing; the limits of our imagination is at least partly determined by pop culture, and when we see something treated as acceptable within the bounds of fiction, that thing starts to feel more possible in real life. But some have taken issue with the nature of LGBTQ representation in Onward, for two main reasons. First, they argue that it’s problematic to herald Disney as a champion of progressiveness in any context, and second, they take issue with the type of character Disney has chosen to make LGBTQ.

Any gesture towards inclusivity feels hollow when delivered by a mega-corporation like Disney, which has a checkered history with the LGBTQ community to say the least. In the same week that Onward announced their lesbian character, Disney also announced that they would be removing Love, Simon, a television show based on the movie of the same name centered on the life of a gay teenager, from the Disney + streaming service. Apparently, the show’s frank discussions of the main character’s sexuality pushed it out of the “family friendly” category, despite the fact that other shows still hosted on the service contain decidedly non-family-friendly themes, like explicit violence. Disney is a monstrously large company, and despite its many attempts to shape itself into a homogenous brand, it can still send out contradictory messages, like taking down a show for being “too gay” and proudly announcing the existence of a gay character in the same week. Part of this comes from the company’s desire to appeal to everyone, both the “family values” advocates and a more progressive crowd at the same time. In that sense, Disney’s form of representation will always feel false. It comes across as an attempt to make money and not a deep-seated commitment to equality.

In an article for Slate, Sam Adams further breaks down the problem with Disney’s gay representation, beyond the scope of just Onward. He explains that “From the ‘exclusively gay moment’ in the live-action Beauty and the Beast to a kiss between two minor female characters in last year’s The Rise of Skywalker, each baby step has been preceded by a flotilla of coverage proclaiming the advance—and each has been followed by the inevitable sense of confusion and betrayal when viewers see the movie and realize, “That’s it?” He correctly points out that the way these movies often use their landmark gay moments as a marketing tactic, drawing both positive and negative press (which, in terms of a company’s bottom line, often amount to the same thing). The marketing is often loud and expansive, in proportion to the half-second of actual screentime for the gay characters themselves. According to Adams, “The problem is often less with the movies themselves than with the self-congratulatory buildup to them.” It’s an attempt to capitalize on “woke points,” or credit for inclusiveness without actually being progressive, which ultimately translates into box office sales.

Beyond the film’s marketing, the lesbian character and the way the filmmakers have chosen to portray her is a source of controversy. Adams noted that “Waithe’s character is, like pretty much every character in every Pixar movie, essentially sexless; her girlfriend never appears on screen, so whatever intimacy the two of them might share happens only in the viewer’s imagination.” It’s worth asking whether this approach is better or worse than making the character’s sexuality more apparent, which might fall into the trap of harmful stereotyping. At the same time, treating gay characters in the exact same way as straight characters with the aim of normalizing them can has the effect of erasing difference completely.

Furthermore, the character is a police officer. This may seem like an innocuous choice, and given the light tone of the movie and the little amount of screentime given to the character, it probably is. But at the same time, LGBTQ cops are often difficult to portray in works of fiction. One has to balance both the reality that LGBTQ cops exist (and that they often become police officers with the aim of improving the way law enforcement treats their community) and the history of police brutality against gay people who protest against the state. This troubled relationship between gay people and cops is evident throughout the latter half of the 20th-century. In 1974, for example, the police department of Alamedea County in California began recruiting gay officers, because gay people in San Fransicsco were deeply uncomfortable reporting crimes to straight officers. In January of 2020, the San Francisco pride parade voted to ban various police departments from marching, and issued a statement that “[Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies can participate in Pride] so long as they do not visibly identify as deputies of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office while doing so.” This small example is a microcosm of the relationship between police officers and gay people on a larger scale, which involves both opposition and intersection. In that sense, portraying a gay character as a police officer, especially if that character is the first gay character in your animation company’s history, inevitably comes with baggage.

We might compare this problematic representation with NBC’s hit show Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which has been ensnared throughout its run in the same controversy as Onward. One of the main characters of the show is both a black gay man and a high-ranking captain within the NYPD. Funké Joseph, a black fan of the show, has written about the whiplash he experiences every time he sees this character, and how he balances between enjoying the show’s jokes and remembering the brutal reality behind the script. He explains that,

“Real life cops have abused their power countless times against me and people who look like me. It still feels like almost every other day there’s another black police brutality victim being turned into a post-mortem hashtag. That’s why cheering for the utopian version of cops is a moral dilemma for me.”

That same moral dilemma is evident on a much smaller scale in Onward. The film encourages gay viewers, who may have a deeply negative relationship with the police, to cheer for a lesbian cop.

The fact that there is a gay character in Onward at all is a good sign; at the very least it signals that Disney thought it was more profitable to market to a LGBTQ or LGBTQ-friendly audience than the “family values” group. But it remains crucial that we understand Disney’s profit-based motivations for this move, beyond the empty rhetoric and marketing strategies. One solution for the moral problem of representation, perhaps, is to stop giving Disney credit for every new “first gay character,” and begin to ask what kinds of gay representation are considered acceptable for mainstream audiences and why.

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Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights: DNA Data Collection in Xinjiang

photograph of Uighur gathering

Since 2006 China has engaged in a large-scale campaign of collecting DNA samples, iris images, and blood types in the province of Xinjiang. In 2016, a program under the name “Physicals for All” was used to take samples of everyone between ages of 12 to 65 in a region home to 11 million Uighurs. Since the beginning of the program, it has been unclear whether the patients were at any point “informed of the authorities’ intention to collect, store, or use sensitive DNA data,” raising serious questions about the consent and privacy of the patients. The authorities largely characterized the program as providing benefits for the relatively economically poor region, with a stated goal: “to improve the service delivery of health authorities, to screen and detect for major diseases, and to establish digital health records for all residents.” Often accompanying program coverage were testimonies describing life-saving diagnostics due to this program. Despite being officially voluntary, some program participants described feeling pressured to undergo the medical checks. The Guardian reported numerous stories in local newspapers that encouraged officials to convince people to participate. 

Once a person decided to participate and medical information had been taken from them, the information was stored and linked to the individual’s national identification number. Certainly, questions concerning the coercive and secretive nature of the campaign arise as the government is collecting a whole population’s biodata, including DNA, under the auspices of a free healthcare program. In addition, this is a gross violation of human rights, which requires the free and informed consent of patients prior to medical interventions. The case is especially troublesome as it pertains to Uighurs, a Muslim minority that has been facing pressures from China since the early 20th century, when they briefly declared independence. China is holding around million Uighurs in “massive internment camps,” which China refers to as “re-education camps” (see Meredith McFadden’s “Uighur Re-education and Freedom of Conscience” for discussion). According to The New York Times, several human rights groups and Uighurs pointed to the fact that Chinese DNA collection may be used “to chase down any Uighurs who resist conforming to the campaign.” 

To be able to ensure the success of this campaign police in Xinjiang bought DNA sequencers from the US company Thermo Fisher Scientific. When asked to respond to the apparent misuse of their DNA sequencers, the company said that they are not responsible for the ways the technology they are producing is being used, and that they expect all their customers to act in accordance with appropriate regulation. Human Rights Watch has been vocal in demanding responsibility from Thermo Fisher Scientific, claiming that the company has a responsibility to avoid facilitating human rights violations, and that the company has an obligation to investigate misuse of their products and potentially suspend future sales.

Should transnational actors, especially those providing technology such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, have a moral responsibility to cease sale of their product if it is being used for “immoral” purposes? One could claim that a company that operates in a democratic country, and is therefore required to follow certain certain ethical guidelines, should act to enforce those same guidelines among their clientele. Otherwise they are not actually abiding by our agreed-upon rules. Other positions may demand the company’s moral responsibility on the basis of obligations that companies have to society. These principles are often outlined in company’s handbooks, and used to keep them accountable. These often stem from convictions about intrinsic moral worth or the duty to do no harm.

On the other hand, others may claim that a company is not responsible for the use to which others put their goods. These companies’ primary duty is to their shareholders; they are profit-driven actors which have an obligation to pursue that which is most useful to itself, and not the broader community. They operate in a free-market economy that ought not be constrained simply as a matter of feasibility. As Thermo Fisher Scientific notes, “given the global nature of [their] operations, it is not possible for [them] to monitor the use or application of all products [they’ve] manufactured.” It may be that a company should only be expected to abide by the rules of the country it operates in, with the expectation that all customers “act in accordance with appropriate regulations and industry-standard best practices.”

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The Reasoning Behind the $417 Million Baby Powder Lawsuit

Photos of Johnson's baby powder.

Last month, according to the Los Angeles Times, a court ordered Johnson & Johnson, purveyor of several household health and beauty products, to pay $417 million in damages to Eva Echeverria, a 63-year-old Los Angeles resident who claims the company failed to warn her and other consumers about the cancer risk of their talc-based products, such as their baby powder.

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Corporate Social Responsibility Depends on Ethical CEOs

Corporate social responsibility (CSR), once seen as a sure indicator of a company’s intentions, is increasingly becoming a trend for all companies to adopt.  More and more, companies engage in CSR for their own benefit, and stakeholders are left unsure which companies participate for the right reasons. Corporate social responsibility is the branch of business that handles how a company upholds ethical standards, including sustainable sourcing, production, and corporate transparency, sometimes “going beyond” expectations to engage in community building projects. Research on the effectiveness of CSR has almost solely relied on signaling theory, which proposes that companies send positive signals to stakeholders (consumers, employees, investors, and communities) when they engage in CSR.

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When Memories 404

The Internet is forever. Think before you post. Once something is uploaded, it can’t be taken back. These prophetic warnings, parroted in technology literacy PSAs and middle school lectures all over the country, remind us to think about our online presence, to consider what will come up when we Google our name fifteen years from now.

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