Commentary: Corporate America’s ‘social justice scam’ – By Richard Kocur (Trib Live) / Oct 7 2021
Coca-Cola, Google, Delta Airlines, Blackrock, Unilever and Facebook. On its face, this list may sound like a great investment portfolio. Instead, as shown in a new book by former biotech CEO Vivek Ramaswamy, these companies serve as the poster children of woke capitalism.
Ramaswamy, author of “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” uses examples from these companies, and many others, to assert his belief that woke organizations who signal commitments to various social causes do so to scam consumers with “the illusion that by engaging in normal acts of consumption we’re fulfilling our social obligations.” Said another way, consumers are being scammed to believe that supporting the right companies with our money somehow makes the world a better place.
Ramaswamy’s wide-ranging book clearly comes down in support of traditional shareholder capitalism, where the main duty of a company is the commitment to driving value for its shareholders. This is juxtaposed with many of the examples the author provides of stakeholder capitalism, defined by corporations that believe they have a duty to address the societal issues important to their stakeholders, such as climate change and racism. The obvious implication is that anyone could be a stakeholder and thus all issues facing society are issues worthy of corporate attention and support or opposition.
Even without the information presented in “Woke, Inc.,” one can see stakeholder capitalism at play in the corporate actions following the death of George Floyd and the passage of Georgia’s voting law.
CONTINUE > https://triblive.com/opinion/richard-kocur-corporate-americas-social-justice-scam/
