Deciphering Woke Capitalism

A phenomenon that one observes in recent times is the tendency of many leading firms or what one calls the Fortune 100 firms to appear politically correct. In more ways than one, they seem to be focused on pandering to what is termed woke activism. They seem to comment quite often on social justice issues with points of view being what is dubbed as politically correct. Firms from Pepsi to Gillette among many others seem keen to go out of the way to demonstrate their woke credentials. This assumed certain important proportions when many firms decided to boycott Facebook for a month and thus not advertise on the platform. The ostensible reason is the Facebook not demonstrating its liberal credentials sufficiently and its ostensible inability to monitor what woke activists term as hate speech.

 

Facebook does monitor hate speech and has been aggressive in taking down offensive posts. But woke activists are not impressed enough. To them, it is a conservative platform that seems to pride itself on white glory. As the protests over Black Lives Matter and Antifa gain steam, Facebook seems to have become their favourite whipping horse. They believe that given the current times, Facebook could be made to kneel down before them and thus capture their space back again. Twitter has fallen and given its recent actions on suspected right wing accounts, liberal spaces seem to have captured this platform a key public good for socio-political conversations. It is ironical, Twitter which was once the platform to bring down liberal power in countries including India is now hostage to the leftist anarchist tendencies.

 

To many firms boycotting Facebook, this could be a blessing in disguise. Their earnings are down in the shutdown imposed in the wake of spread of Wuhan virus. They have to scale down their expenditure. They need however an alibi to avoid signalling their declining earnings. The demands of Antifa and their supporters come in handy for them. They are able to impress and perhaps gain trust of these liberal fascists and thus appear on the right side of woke. In all probability, many of these boycotting firms might return after their thirty day period ends. Yet these raise certain uncomfortable questions.

 

As one surveys woke spaces, it must be pointed out the logic and expression of free speech is subject to certification of woke activism. Herein lies the paradox. Woke claims they stand for free speech which they feel is being trampled upon by what term as ‘fascist’ governments across the world. Yet they fume, deny and character assassinate any one going against their so called ideals and principles. To woke groups, it is generally anti-Trump in US, anti-BoJo in Britain, anti-Modi in India, anti-Israel among others that serve as their end objectives. The rest is merely commentary or whataboutery to justify their abuse. They are hardly interested in free speech or expression or even for empowerment of the under-privileged. In fact, they survive on the continued suppression of the under-privileged. They perhaps have an antipathy to those who are able to gain power since they cannot gain power. What firms are currently pursuing in their demonstrating woke capitalist credentials are to avoid being target of these fulminations. In some ways, they too represent the Bakasura syndrome as described in this post. For some others like Twitter, as this post highlighted, it is about pretensions of repeating 1868. To corporates, there is of course memories of Nike not too long ago.

 

Naomi Klein published a book or what she described as anti-corporate manifesto ‘No Logo’. It was a strong no-holds barred attack against the Western firms, Nike was in particular worst-hit. Their crime was in pursuit of profits, they would not mind cutting edges, which manifested in lower wages most of which was below subsistence level. Her argument was in the journey of cost-cutting, firms located to lesser developed countries where workers were willing to work at below subsistence wages. She was liberal with the rich adjectives she posed as conflict between citizen and consumer. Her documentation was mostly from China. Prima facie, it was appealing. In economics, it is called availability heuristic. Firms are known to exploit labour and other resources for their narrow ends, the evidence for which is plenty as one surveys the colonial rule all over the world. Thus it was relatively easy for Klein to gather opinion and create guilt ridden tendencies among her Western readers to rally against Nike among other firms.

 

What Klein missed and perhaps deliberately, was one key reason for the exploitation of workers in China has to do with the internal factors. China during Mao introduced the hukou system which permanently created a divide between the rural residents and urban residents. It virtually banned the mobility between rural and urban. Yet the jobs in the rural were virtually non-existent with hunger and starvation staring at the faces of the residents. Their option lay in moving to the cities or more particular the coastal economic zones in Shanghai or Shenzen. Yet they were ‘illegal’ immigrants there in the prevalence of hukou system. Moreover, the conditions in China bordering on starvation were result on Mao’s policies which were disastrous to say the least (discussion at some depth in this post). Her oblivious ignorance of this system causing a key factor in the working conditions deteriorating in China points towards some suspect tendencies.

 

Many firms today again would be at the receiving end of these liberal fascists who seek to impose their opinion and totalitarian tendencies on anyone opposing their opinion. Again it is the availability heuristic at work. Racist tendencies are visible in US and predominate below the surface level. It is just not blacks but many other groups including the Indian community that is at the receiving end. Therefore, any defence of the Antifa actions would obviously attract support while something critical of Antifa attracts on the face of it derision or at least displeasure. This is what Antifa and others of their like want to build on in consolidating their hold on the American psyche. Facebook at the moment is not playing to their gallery. Moreover, Facebook appeared to at conflict with Twitter over the conduct of policing the social media. This is something too much to digest for the liberal fascists. What appears as woke capitalism is to avoid Nike trap and thus pander to the fascists in the hope they will spare. Secondly, it sounds good positioning to the wider audience which at least in public expresses a disposition to anti-racism and social justice. Anti-woke boycotts are socially costly and thus relatively easy for woke supporters to impose their views.