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<\/a><\/p>\nOne of the big mysteries of the contemporary political and cultural scene is why big business\u2013which used to be a Republican and conservative enclave\u2013is now largely in the pocket of Democrats and progressives, even as the latter plan to tax and regulate them to death.<\/p>\n
More specifically, why the big corporations are socially progressive<\/em>, proud supporters and donors for the cause of abortion, feminism, LGBTQ rights, critical race theory, etc.\u00a0 \u00a0Companies threaten to pull their operations out of states that pass socially conservative laws.\u00a0 And they fire or subject to indoctrination camps employees who are dissidents.<\/p>\n Usually, businesses have economic motives for what they do.\u00a0 Cameron Hilditch<\/a>, in an article I blogged about<\/a>, opened my eyes when he quoted J. D. Vance, author of the outstanding book Hillbilly Elegy<\/a>.\u00a0 This is from the keynote address he gave to the Claremont Institute\u2019s conference on \u201cWhat to Do About Woke Capital?\u201d<\/p>\n From J. D. Vance, \u201cFighting Woke Capital<\/a>\u201c:<\/p>\n A couple of years ago Stacey Abrams said, about a Georgia abortion restriction, that this was a bad bill because it was bad for business. That was the argument of our new corporate, neoliberal class. And she was right. This is something that those of us on the right have to accept. When the big corporations come against you for passing abortion restrictions, when corporations are so desperate for cheap labor that they don\u2019t want people to parent children, Stacey Abrams is right to say that abortion restrictions are bad for business.<\/p>\n But what that means for those of us who want to protect the dignity of the unborn is that we should be for abortion restrictions, even if they are bad for business. We should support the dignity of human life, even if it means the corporate class doesn\u2019t like it. That is a simple and unavoidable fact of the era that we find ourselves in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course!\u00a0 Big corporations have an interest in getting workers.\u00a0 Women who stay at home with their children can\u2019t work in their factories.\u00a0 \u00a0Abortion-on-demand, feminism, and anti-family policies keep women in the labor market, where they can be exploited accordingly.\u00a0 Demands for labor also explain why the big corporations are so pro-immigrant, to the point of wanting open borders.\u00a0 More workers to underpay!<\/p>\n Vance goes on in this vein in the rest of his speech, which is printed here,<\/a>\u00a0going so far as to\u00a0 accuse \u201cwoke\u201d companies of profiting from the destruction that took place in the Black Lives Matter riots.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not so sure that economic reasons alone are motivating this new capitalist progressivism.\u00a0 To be sure there are also larger kinds of economic issues:\u00a0 Today\u2019s consumer capitalism depends<\/em> on inflaming people\u2019s desires and in encouraging self-indulgence.\u00a0 The advertising mentality thus promotes and profits from our moral hedonism.\u00a0 But not everything is economic.<\/p>\n Corporations are led by human beings, who crave social approval from their peers.\u00a0 Transgenderism has overwhelming approval in the business world, not because they have that many transgendered employees and customers but because this is a cause that signals membership in elite society.\u00a0 Support for LGBTQ issues and Critical Race Theory is a class marker.\u00a0 This is not simply virtue signaling or fear of boycotts.\u00a0 These views are honestly held, for the most part, but they also separate the \u201cright\u201d people from the \u201cwrong\u201d people.<\/p>\n The \u201cwrong\u201d people are, of course, social conservatives, many of whom are members of the working class, the folks who toil in their factories and warehouses.\u00a0 White collar corporate types still look down on them.\u00a0 But now they can do so while still feeling progressive.<\/p>\n Under classical Marxism, the capitalist class oppresses the working class.\u00a0 But under post-Marxism, which substitutes other kinds of group conflict for class conflict, the affluent owners and managers can feel leftwing, while still oppressing their workers with impunity, since they are, after all, Trump-supporting racists and homophobes.<\/p>\n This helps explain why huge corporations such as Amazon can be exquisitely \u201cwoke\u201d while subjecting their warehouse workers and delivery drivers to inhuman working conditions and preventing them from forming unions.\u00a0 And how a mega-corporation like Apple can support all the socially-progressive causes, while having their products made in Communist China, sometimes by the slave labor of Uighurs<\/a> and other dissident prisoners (to the point that Apple lobbies against<\/a> proposed laws that would prevent American companies from using forced labor).<\/p>\n But none of that matters.\u00a0 The corporations are \u201cwoke\u201d when it comes to identity politics, they shell out money to support progressive causes, and today\u2019s progressives don\u2019t care that much about workers any more.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n