Matthew Goodwin has written an interesting piece for the Telegraph in which he tries to get to the bottom of so-called ‘woke capitalism’. Here is an excerpt:
What is driving this so-called “woke capitalism” – companies adopting openly political beliefs, entering the culture wars, and encouraging if not forcing their workers and customers to follow suit? Is it driven by firms themselves? Do senior executives feel compelled to adopt such positions due to pressure from Government? Is it an attempt to curry favour with younger, more activist employees?
Regardless of the cause, ask ordinary people what they think about it and you will soon encounter a public that is deeply sceptical if not openly hostile to this growing moral righteousness. Consider the findings of my new research for Policy Exchange, which has just launched Britain’s first major project investigating the corporate culture wars, which I am proud to be leading. We polled a large and nationally representative sample of voters to probe their views on these issues. And what we found directly contradicts what some companies appear to believe the public wants.
Should companies be able to refuse to do business with people who hold political beliefs they disagree with? Only 20 per cent of people think they should. Should companies be able to force workers to declare their gender pronouns? Only 16 per cent think they should while nearly 60 per cent oppose such efforts to get people to align themselves with gender identity theory. Should companies such as Ben and Jerry’s publicly campaign against the Government’s immigration policy? Only one in three think they should. Or should firms be able to fire workers because they share controversial beliefs on social media, outside of working hours? Only 12 per cent of people think companies should be able to do this.
Consistently, in all these areas and more, most voters openly push back against the creeping tenets of progressive ideology. Indeed, when we asked voters whether they think employees should be discriminated against because of political beliefs they express at work, we found more than half the country think they should not while only 18 per cent express some support for this political discrimination. Remarkably, Conservative and Labour voters are united in their opposition to woke capitalism.
Clearly, woke capitalism is unpopular. So why do companies keep doing it? Goodwin’s poll also addresses that question:
But voters are not idiots. When we asked them why firms make political statements, only 10 per cent thought it was because “they genuinely believe in them” while more than four in 10 said it was either because they wanted free publicity or because they want to distract from bad behaviour. In short, it is not hard to see how wading into the culture wars narrows rather than widens one’s consumer base.
While there is no doubt plenty of cynicism involved, I tend to think many at these companies actually are woke zealots. Though of course it depends on the company, and I haven’t done any research, so I will defer to the poll.
Sadly the article does not tell us how to stop this trend. But still, worth reading in full.
Stop Press: You can read a longer piece by Matthew Goodwin about his polling on ‘woke capitalist’ on his Substack.
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