6 ms·

‘Woke capitalists’ provoke backlash from US conservatives

18 points by guerrilla 5y ago

alxjrvs 5y ago
The irony of being unable to read this due to a paywall.
- pwg 5y ago
  https://archive.is/FFPmi https://archive.is/FFPmi
rayiner 5y ago
It’s not just “conservatives.” It’s something National Review and Jacobin can agree on: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/brands-corporate-publicity-racial-justice https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/brands-corporate-publicity-ra.... Solidly left-wing Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard have spoken out against it, and left-wing journalists like Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greeneald, etc. The right wing opposes it because it attacks American history and readily dispenses with notions of race neutral application of the law. The left wing opposes it because it’s transparent whitewashing and also divides the working class against itself.
- geofft 5y ago
  > Solidly left-wing Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard ???
  - rayiner 5y ago
    Gabbard is to the left of Biden—she supports single payer healthcare, etc. She has a few heterodox takes, such as supporting the Hyde amendment and certain other restrictions. But almost half of Democrat voters support the Hyde, and the majority oppose late term abortions. The fact that anyone would think Gabbard isn’t solidly left wing is a sign of how distorted the media bubble is.
    - tptacek 5y ago
      Gabbard is not to Biden's left, and what you're noting is the intrinsic incoherency of the "left-right" divide. Gabbard is an economic populist who makes calculated appeals to the white working class. She's a purer incarnation of what Trump represented in 2016, and nobody felt Trump was to the left of even Hillary Clinton. The brain poisoning here is that Gabbard has been instrumentalized by marginal "right-wing" activists as a cudgel to use against Democrats (I'm not making value judgements, Democrats have their own box of cudgels). What gives away the game is that you only hear spirited defenses of Gabbard from right-libertarians. Gabbard is herself a marginal political figure and the fact that we discuss her at all is itself an indication that something is wrong. I'm relating this because it's interesting, not because I have a powerful stake in how this discussion plays out here. We're not going to solve American politics in an HN thread. I'm just saying: it's way more complicated than you let on, and, while the media bubble is certainly very distorted, this isn't a good sign of it.
      - rayiner 5y ago
        > noting is the intrinsic incoherency of the "left-right" divide. Gabbard is an economic populist who makes calculated appeals to the white working class. She's a purer incarnation of what Trump represented in 2016, and nobody felt Trump was to the left of even Hillary Clinton. Trump didn’t support universal healthcare, have an F rating from the NRA, etc. > What gives away the game is that you only hear spirited defenses of Gabbard from right-libertarians. Gabbard is herself a marginal political figure and the fact that we discuss her at all is itself an indication that something is wrong. I don’t know anything about “right libertarians.” I was curious about Gabbard because she was the only one besides Klobuchar who sounded like she wasn’t reading from some memo everyone got. I also have no idea why the Democratic Party functionaries hate her so much. The occasional heterodox take she has, “we shouldn’t be racist against white people” or “maybe safe, legal, and rare was a good position,” are not controversial.
        tptacek 5y ago
        Tulsi Gabbard ran in 2019 in part on rapprochement with the NRA, so that's not a great example. Trump ran against Cruz in 2016 on universal health care, and was attacked relentlessly by the GOP field for it. See what I mean? I think Gabbard is horrible but I'm not interested in selling you on that. Rather, I'd just like to point out that she's a complicated figure, and not a good left-right benchmark.
akomtu 5y ago
This reminds me of the ancient Egypt where different factions of priests and governors fought for power by promoting their favorite gods to the "true and supreme" god of all. These days in America one faction is pushing a awkward "woke cult" and another faction has just realized that they gotta push back. Edit: one difference is that today information spreads instantaneously and cults don't live long for this reason.
nullc 5y ago
The theory that companies that are expending resources on high profile virtue signaling are doing so at the expense of profits depends on a pretty strong assumption that the executives don't know where their paycheck is coming from. Companies can blow money on many different things and still be highly successful. Tweets and other empty promises are extremely cheap and stapling your brand to fashionable kumbaya is a well established way to self promote and distract attention from your core businesses externalities. If you go look at ESG funds mostly appear to just be an excuse to extract higher fees out of what are essentially just broad market index ETFs (with a couple companies filtered out). ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/tidal-wave-of-esg-funds-brings-profit-to-wall-street-11615887004 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tidal-wave-of-esg-funds-brings-... ) It makes sense that this successful grift would be repeated in every applicable flavor. I find it amusing to see the large amount of overlap between ACVF and various ESG funds -- Microsoft, Visa, Costco... the fact is that if the funds don't produce market returns people won't invest in them in large numbers, and the only way to get market returns is to invest in the market, overall, in one way or another.

18 points by guerrilla 5y ago

alxjrvs 5y ago

The irony of being unable to read this due to a paywall.

pwg 5y ago
https://archive.is/FFPmi https://archive.is/FFPmi

rayiner 5y ago

It’s not just “conservatives.” It’s something National Review and Jacobin can agree on: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/brands-corporate-publicity-racial-justice https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/brands-corporate-publicity-ra.... Solidly left-wing Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard have spoken out against it, and left-wing journalists like Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greeneald, etc. The right wing opposes it because it attacks American history and readily dispenses with notions of race neutral application of the law. The left wing opposes it because it’s transparent whitewashing and also divides the working class against itself.

geofft 5y ago
> Solidly left-wing Democrats like Tulsi Gabbard ???
- rayiner 5y ago
  Gabbard is to the left of Biden—she supports single payer healthcare, etc. She has a few heterodox takes, such as supporting the Hyde amendment and certain other restrictions. But almost half of Democrat voters support the Hyde, and the majority oppose late term abortions. The fact that anyone would think Gabbard isn’t solidly left wing is a sign of how distorted the media bubble is.
  - tptacek 5y ago
    Gabbard is not to Biden's left, and what you're noting is the intrinsic incoherency of the "left-right" divide. Gabbard is an economic populist who makes calculated appeals to the white working class. She's a purer incarnation of what Trump represented in 2016, and nobody felt Trump was to the left of even Hillary Clinton. The brain poisoning here is that Gabbard has been instrumentalized by marginal "right-wing" activists as a cudgel to use against Democrats (I'm not making value judgements, Democrats have their own box of cudgels). What gives away the game is that you only hear spirited defenses of Gabbard from right-libertarians. Gabbard is herself a marginal political figure and the fact that we discuss her at all is itself an indication that something is wrong. I'm relating this because it's interesting, not because I have a powerful stake in how this discussion plays out here. We're not going to solve American politics in an HN thread. I'm just saying: it's way more complicated than you let on, and, while the media bubble is certainly very distorted, this isn't a good sign of it.
    - rayiner 5y ago
      > noting is the intrinsic incoherency of the "left-right" divide. Gabbard is an economic populist who makes calculated appeals to the white working class. She's a purer incarnation of what Trump represented in 2016, and nobody felt Trump was to the left of even Hillary Clinton. Trump didn’t support universal healthcare, have an F rating from the NRA, etc. > What gives away the game is that you only hear spirited defenses of Gabbard from right-libertarians. Gabbard is herself a marginal political figure and the fact that we discuss her at all is itself an indication that something is wrong. I don’t know anything about “right libertarians.” I was curious about Gabbard because she was the only one besides Klobuchar who sounded like she wasn’t reading from some memo everyone got. I also have no idea why the Democratic Party functionaries hate her so much. The occasional heterodox take she has, “we shouldn’t be racist against white people” or “maybe safe, legal, and rare was a good position,” are not controversial.
      - tptacek 5y ago
        Tulsi Gabbard ran in 2019 in part on rapprochement with the NRA, so that's not a great example. Trump ran against Cruz in 2016 on universal health care, and was attacked relentlessly by the GOP field for it. See what I mean? I think Gabbard is horrible but I'm not interested in selling you on that. Rather, I'd just like to point out that she's a complicated figure, and not a good left-right benchmark.

akomtu 5y ago

This reminds me of the ancient Egypt where different factions of priests and governors fought for power by promoting their favorite gods to the "true and supreme" god of all. These days in America one faction is pushing a awkward "woke cult" and another faction has just realized that they gotta push back. Edit: one difference is that today information spreads instantaneously and cults don't live long for this reason.

nullc 5y ago

The theory that companies that are expending resources on high profile virtue signaling are doing so at the expense of profits depends on a pretty strong assumption that the executives don't know where their paycheck is coming from. Companies can blow money on many different things and still be highly successful. Tweets and other empty promises are extremely cheap and stapling your brand to fashionable kumbaya is a well established way to self promote and distract attention from your core businesses externalities. If you go look at ESG funds mostly appear to just be an excuse to extract higher fees out of what are essentially just broad market index ETFs (with a couple companies filtered out). ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/tidal-wave-of-esg-funds-brings-profit-to-wall-street-11615887004 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tidal-wave-of-esg-funds-brings-... ) It makes sense that this successful grift would be repeated in every applicable flavor. I find it amusing to see the large amount of overlap between ACVF and various ESG funds -- Microsoft, Visa, Costco... the fact is that if the funds don't produce market returns people won't invest in them in large numbers, and the only way to get market returns is to invest in the market, overall, in one way or another.