I have been meaning to write this blog about Woke Capitalism for some time but David French’s latest piece here in the National Review inspired me today to respond. Woke Capitalism is the idea that enough people can orchestrate an online campaign to pressure large corporations to basically do one of three things: 1) Pressure the government to act; 2) Speak out in favor of or against something; or 3) Take some affirmative action or refrain from continuing to take some past action. French’s piece today addresses Wal Mart’s decision to stop selling certain types of guns and ammunition.
First and foremost, Woke Capitalism is actually just capitalism. The difference between this current brand and David French’s “more traditional” version is simply that more consumers today place a social value on what was previously reserved for purely economic choices. Said differently, truly free markets (which are basically a fallacy in today’s economy) change with the habits of the consumer class. Traditional Capitalism believes that consumers are rational actors who will seek out the best products (or services) for the best prices and if left unmanipulated, the company that provides the best products for the best price will generally be the most successful company.
Woke Capitalism is exactly the same thing with one addition. A growing number of consumers today want to give their money to company’s that share the same values. Here is a modern, but extreme example: Apps exist to hire handymen to do random jobs that people like me don’t want to do around the house. The kind of jobs baby boomers lament the younger generation for outsourcing. Let’s say, cleaning the rain gutters.
I go on my app and determine that Shawn has the best price and the highest rating and he can swing by TODAY to do the job. I also notice that Shawn has a Nazi tattoo on his arm. Instead of hiring Shawn the Nazi to clean my gutters because he’s the best, I am going to hire the second best guy even though he can’t come for two days and he’s $50 more expensive. I am not going to give my money to a Nazi. And that’s Woke Capitalism in the context of a silly example.
Back to David French for a moment. David’s piece and criticism is inspired by the fact that his first job was selling guns at Wal Mart. David’s general premise on the merits though, is that Corporations like Arkansas based Wal Mart hire liberals from elite Universities to run their companies and decisions like this one mirror the corporate executives’ liberal views. I think this take is pure nonsense.
First of all, David is apparently conceding that liberals are educated and conservatives are not. Secondly, David must assume that all liberals hate guns and want them banned and all conservatives want zero regulations of any kind. David you see, gets a lot of threats because he has a fairly large Twitter following, consistently demonstrates a brilliant ability to defend Christian Conservative positions and he adopted a black child. So the racists and the liberals hate him equally and he has written extensively about his need to defend his family. And it’s genuine and true.
David’s defense of the Second Amendment is unapologetic and uncompromising for these reasons. David however, misses the forest here because like me in San Diego, David lives in his own bubble in Tennessee. And despite being a staunch defender of capitalism, David simply does not like this particular outcome.
Wal Mart’s decision is solely based on market forces and those market forces are now driven by the social value that consumers affix to their purchasing power. Wal Mart felt that it could be more profitable if it made the decision to stop selling certain guns. Wal Mart came to this conclusion because the decision makers see a shrinking, aging population of people who, like David French want guns in the hands of every red, white and blue blooded American. Wal Mart felt that long term, the population trend will continue to head blue. Of course, the trend only appears to be headed blue because the red has moved so far to the right that the center right is now firmly on the left. At least optically speaking, but certainly not because those (like myself) on the center-right have changed our views. I would argue that the split on things like guns is basically generational rather than political. In fact, the major fights in Congress today are centered on old people against young people, including the polarization within Trump’s support and detractors. In other words, I believe young conservatives will be far more compromising on gun issues. So it’s only a matter of time.
This application of social value to economic behavior is relatively new, but extremely powerful and necessary. Woke Capitalism has done some good. Woke Capitalism forced fast food chains to provide consumers with healthier choices on the menu. Woke Capitalism forced Hollywood to finally blackball the most powerful man in Los Angeles – Harvey Weinstein. Think about it, Weinstein could make the best movie of all time today and no one would watch it. Same goes for Mel Gibson and his anti Semitic rant during a traffic stop several years ago. Woke Capitalism basically caused NFL teams to avoid signing Colin Kaepernick and led to NBA teams hiring female referees and assistant coaches.
French hates this new trend but fails to realize that “liberals” turned to Woke Capitalism only after exhausting every possible method to enact common sense changes to match the changing world we live in. Conservatives are oftentimes and accurately defined by their reluctance and outright contempt for abrupt change. This aversion to change in the modern day has become a ball and chain to common sense and equally inevitable changes.
Here specifically, the change requires the country shift the dialog to rationale conversations about which gun laws to pass that make a positive difference and still respect the Constitutional rights of gunowners. The gun culture has already predominantly shifted away from the Second Amendment protectionist views and the vast majority want the government to pass most of the modest proposals such as uniform and universal background checks, bans on certain magazines and modifications, some sort of system that merges mental health records, law enforcement and gun dealers information so that we can keep guns out of the hands of more bad guys.
Wal Mart’s proactive decision here is a direct reaction to their executives’ belief that their companies must play a roll in effecting the necessary change because the government will not. Wal Mart recognizes this culture shift and believes their path to maximum success rides with the tide rather than against it. Wal Mart and Dick’s Sporting Goods probably don’t make these gun related decisions if Congress actually did its job and tried to solve the gun violence problem in America.
To David French’s credit, he has openly advocated that Congress pass Red Flag Laws. That’s about it though. So David French, the Wal Mart decision is a reaction to Congress’s inaction which was motivated by a tiny minority of people such as yourself that want to do very little or even nothing to stop the gun violence – unless of course that means putting more guns in circulation.
Like I said at the beginning, Woke Capitalism is all we have left. Our government is bought and paid for by the large corporations. We have to force corporations to influence our lousy representatives by using our collective buying power to enact the changes necessary to modernize our laws. The Congress only listens to its largest donors and not each representative’s constituencies. I wish it were different, but this is the reality we live in and Woke Capitalism is here to stay.
The Reasonable Man Standard 