This is a mostly-fake, media phenomenon. Most CEOs and most companies do not engage in political activism, we just tend not to notice people not speaking out. What's described in this article is something the authors (and most journalists) want to happen, but it isn't actually happening at most companies.
this is nonsense. Most CEOs (and wealthy people in general) and medium-to-large companies engage in a lot of political activism, and always have. Lobbyists don't pay themselves, after all. We just don't call it 'activism' when it's in support of corporate interests (even when those corporate interests have social impacts) for some silly reason.
It only gets called activism when it scares someone with power.
Could be. But the motives remain the same, it's just a feedback cycle where whether you're for or against you call it activism.
It's pretty clear from many of the comments in this HN post's replies that many people find this particular form of political activity a threat in ways that they don't find more status-quo enforcing forms to be.
Yes, in other words one kind of activism is considered worse (or less 'neutral') than others.
Do you think that lobbying for and getting massive tax exemptions has no social impacts? SCV is basically one of the richest places on the planet, with likely trillions of dollars effectively flowing through it, and it can't even manage to keep enough shelter for homeless people going or have a functioning public transit system.
That's not neutral, but we pretend it is. It is social, but we pretend it's not.
>Yes, in other words one kind of activism is considered worse (or less 'neutral') than others.
You could also say that one kind of activism is considered more PR friendly. It's obvious that a company lobbying for lower taxes is directly beneficial only to that company, and that's why we don't hear about it. The problem I think a lot of people (myself included) have with the more obviously "social" corporate activism that the article describes is that it feels extremely fake, and corporations are only doing it to make themselves look good.
In 2017, Coca Cola put out a commercial[1] that depicted a heated kerfuffle between protesters and police. Then a celebrity walked onto the scene and handed some people a nice cold can of coke, and everyone started smiling and relaxing like the problems that brought them to that point were solved. Everyone rightly hated it, and it was pulled. How is anyone supposed to believe that that any of their activism isn't just a form of PR? When I see CEOs of gigantic corporations (including coke) go on TV to talk about how some new legislation is going to hurt the little guy, I can only roll my eyes and wonder how anyone in their right mind can believe them, or why they are being given a chance to speak on the matter in the first place.
I believe the most beneficial thing a company as big as coke could do to help anything would be to pay their fair share of taxes, and that any form of activism they engage in is a distraction from the fact that they will never willingly do that.
Your comment is an excellent illustration of how everything is "political" in some fashion, some things are just inconvenient or uncomfortable to think about in that way.
Exactly. It's somehow not activism when corporations and executives lobby for lower taxes or less regulation, it's only activism when a company or executive say that the police should kill fewer black people or that trans people deserve basic human rights.
Trans people do have all human rights - your gender expression does not change your access to your other rights.
So anyone saying 'trans people deserve basic human rights' is actually saying something else, like about access to women's spaces. That disingenuous advocacy of one thing to get another thing through under the table is more activist than principled. In a company or otherwise.
"As society became politically polarized, companies became more activist. With a 24-hour news cycle and social media fanning polarization, it’s more problematic for organizations and their CEOs to remain neutral. Consider what’s happened in the past decade: Hobby Lobby — a chain of craft stores that challenged a federal mandate stating companies pay for insurance coverage for contraception — took their case all the way to the Supreme Court and won. Nike featured the controversial athlete and social crusader, Colin Kaepernick, in an ad campaign. Retailers like Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods stopped selling certain weapons in response to tragic mass shootings nationwide."
99% of Colorado voters voted by mail with record turnout. There is no voter id when you vote by mail, only when you register. Moreover, Colorado accepts significantly more forms of ID for registration than does Georgia.
Colorado had just shy of 87% voter turnout. Without getting into specifics that points to a state which is pretty easy to vote in (mail in ballots, easy access to ballot boxes, same day registation, etc.)
By contrast Georgia has historic minority voter turnout and voted in 2 democratic senators and voted for the democratic presidential candidate. In response the republican state government passed a law restricting voting under the claims of voter fraud despite there being no evidence showing such fraud.
Colorado voters can use a wide range of identifying documents, from standard photo ID to a bank or utility statement. If you have no ID or any of the other documents, Coloradans able to cast a provisional ballot, and counties must attempt to verify those individuals’ identities.
"So, while it's true that Colorado has fewer days for in-person voting, it also has far less demand for in-person voting. Voters rarely encounter lines here. And the ultimate result of Colorado's system is relatively high turnout."
This is how the narrative moves. A few CEOs take a stand, the media jumps on it, people read it, other CEOs see people reading it, jump on board, and that's how it flourishes. The media didn't create it, it only amplified it. The media only ever amplifies what it finds. It doesn't manufacture it.
You mean likes: the media only ever amplifies what it likes and wants more of. There's like 1m people at the pro-life march each year that get zero press.
It's not strictly political activism though. It's companies that are making voluntary commitments to thinks like diversity and inclusion, managing their ecological footprint, supply chain transparency. And this is all happening due to pressure from employees/customers/shareholders. In some cases it's CEOs having a genuine concern for the country, but more often they are being pushed out of economic necessity.
As an employee I want to join a company and exchange my services for money. Not join a political movement. I can also vote with my feet, if a CEO decides he wants to drag politics into this equation I can try and go else where. Also in my limited experience companies driven by some hr agenda about inclusivity and diversity have stopped promoting based on merit, instead promoting based on quotas. That will only last so long. Also hearing this moralising nonsense while they invest heavily in China makes me doubt there's any sincerity behind this. Just wanting to look virtuous to a bunch of misled virtue signaling staff, who are probably in the minority but who are extremely vocal.
This feels like a natural evolution as companies try to ingrain their employees with the concept of being a part of the "family."
If a company asks and gets you to spend SO much of your time living and breathing their values, then it only makes sense for that generation to push for the company to live out their values/the ones that resonate with them.
That being said, I agree with the comment that MOST CEOs and companies do not engage in any kind of political activism and don't have a reason to do so.
Companies that are extremely entrenched can use activism as positive PR. What you will never see is Companies engaging in activism that could possibly hurt themselves.
For instance a company that already pays everyone they employ more than $15 an hour might very well campaign for a $15 minimum wage. It costs them nothing and improves their image.
A company that employes a huge amount of people at the current minimum wage would never campaign for it to increase. It would be too costly. But they might find something else to be activist about. Currently popular are LGBT interests or BLM.
Both of those are worthy causes but you should give companies serious side-eye when they post BLM messaging on twitter yet campaign against raising the minimum wage or improving workers rights.
"CEOs can no longer resort to an avoidance strategy: "The middle ground is no longer feasible for anybody. Silence means acquiescence, which means complicity.""
Oh yes they can, and should. There is no appeasement possible in this. The only way to deal with these cultists is to keep them firmly at arms length and don't play their mind-games.
The old quote comes to mind: "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"
Perhaps this puts me among the first to stop clapping, but I would argue it's not generational changes, and it's not activism, it's appeasement. A CEO is a job like any other, they aren't founders, and they can be replaced by their boards like any other employee. Their job is to stay on message and sustain narrative that returns value to their investors, and if they have to deal with brand pressure from activists, their job is to do the needful.
A CEO isn't hired to be brave or risk a brand for some personal principle. It's also easier to affect concerned noises and gestures to appease domestic pressures instead of say, being principled about conditions in your foreign factories. It is a political job, and all politics is blackmail.
The quesiton all CEOs and senior executives are made to ask themselves is whether they want pride, or power? The ones who survive are these activist CEOs who take a public stand for global justice, because discretion is the better part of valor.
>CEOs can no longer resort to an avoidance strategy: "The middle ground is no longer feasible for anybody. Silence means acquiescence, which means complicity."
Nope, companies can take strong stances like Coinbase and say: you are for the mission or you're gone. Simple.
In the end, modern political activism doesn't keep the lights on, it doesn't improve the quality of your workers' output, the quality of your team, etc. Coinbase's tack while maybe seeming extreme to many is quite solid business sense.
A small group of very loud, and generally (unfortunately) rather unproductive people is doing just that.
But then again, if the response is to kowtow to the activists and not fire them for not doing their job - then I suppose I have no remorse for when your business eventually goes under, because you were not focused on your primary business objective.
And as somebody who comes in to work to work and keeps his politics firmly in his personal sphere, it's a good indicator for why I might not ever want to work for you.
I really think this is the answer. I think a lot about the fall out of the firing/accepted resignation of the AI ethics employee at Google. Based on anonomouys accounts from people talking about having worked with her, It seemed like she often turned interactions with her into hostile interactions, but people feared speaking up because she had a lot of power/influence which many found intimidating.
Lolz. An anonymous whisper campaign. Yeah that’s legit.
It was pretty obvious that Google was engaging in ethics washing. They wanted someone to pay lip service, but instead got a team that actually tried to do their task and hold the company to account. As the saying goes, if it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.
Google never wanted any of that. Like all megacorps, they want the status quo to be seen as inevitable and good. So they kneecapped the group for being naïve and thinking they were there to do a job, instead of just be gauzey feel good magazine fodder.
Can someone leave their politics at home if they work for Raytheon? If someone's life can be segmented so strictly in that way, it's a good sign that they're likely very privileged and insulated from any real political actions. Despite paranoid cries to the contrary, nobody is taking privileges away from white men.
Two points.
1. If you think this only relevant to white men - you are an incredibly privileged racist.
2. Yes, you can leave your politics at home if you work for Raytheon. Because if you work for Raytheon - you by default need to subscribe to a certain macro-view of the world, which has little to no bearing on your individual politics. Working at Raytheon is not a requirement for anybody.
1. They're the only ones complaining about "activism". Everyone else benefits from that activism, which is why white men are so threatened. When you're used to being superior, equality looks like a threat.
2. You're right that nobody is required to work for Raytheon, but that's kind of my point. Someone who voluntarily works for Raytheon is at the very least not bothered by their actions, which does reflect on their politics. You merely assert that it somehow doesn't, with no reasoning behind it. Someone working for Greenpeace (for example) shows exactly the same thing on the opposite side of the political spectrum and illustrates my point that you can't really leave your politics at home. There are no apolitical companies or organizations.
1. I could certainly do a better job of framing my arguments to avoid doing that. What gives you the ability to speak on behalf of entire groups?
2. Sure, but my point is those are the ends of the scale and every company or organization is somewhere on the scale. Your argument (as I understand it) is that you can keep personal politics separate from where you work, a political entity which interacts with all levels of politics. Small companies have an incredible impact on local governments. I don't think you can keep those things separate if you have meaningful choice about where you work (most tech workers and tech jobs). There are lots of jobs where that is not true. I'm not talking about the politics of the cleaning staff at Raytheon or Greenpeace, for example.
A different kind of activism, perhaps. Isn't the "work should just be for work" attitude simply a political statement of its own—one in support of the status quo?
Is a wedding supporting the status quo by asking guests to dress appropriately and sit quietly during the ceremony? Is a movie theater supporting the status quo by running the movie from beginning to end without an intermission for political expression? Is there any neutral zone where people can gather and connect for any other purpose than politics? How can we hope to forge bonds with other people based on our common humanity if there is a demand that every space is filled with confrontation over our differences?
Yes, weddings enforce a certain formal fashion and culture. That it is normal and widely supported and not a problem for most people. It is only when these practices infringe on some right or induce some harm (as in your example, weddings that do archaic purity tests as "tradition") that we decide these thjngs should evolve. If we didn't do that, weddings would still include the time old tradition of women being traded for goats/cash.
Of course there are important social changes that have happened with respect to weddings and marriage. The question is: did those things change because of political confrontations that happened at weddings themselves?
A wedding is a celebration where people have often come from far and wide. It may be the only time the two families will ever gather together at such a scale. It would be totally inappropriate for a guest to co-opt that moment to advance their own ideas about marriage, even if those ideas are just. Not every moment in life can or should be political.
> Not every moment in life can or should be political.
It's a good thing no one is making that argument. This article is about CEOs of large companies which handle millions of dollars daily and control about 1/3 of the lives of their employees:
> BRT redefined the purpose of a corporation from immediate profitability for shareholders, to a broader lens that includes customers, employers, suppliers and communities
I was responding to your claim/question (not the article):
> Isn't the "work should just be for work" attitude simply a political statement of its own—one in support of the status quo?
If we accept your premise, it allows for no neutral zones or moments in life. Every space is either actively political (by welcoming political expression) or is passively political (by excluding it).
Yes, we spend much more of our time at work than at weddings. But a workplace is also a captive space that people enter to support themselves, not for the purpose of associating with a particular group of coworkers. To me the captive nature of the space should lean even more towards political neutrality. A street preacher with a megaphone you can simply walk away from.
That's not my premise though, that is a misinterpretation. There will be issues discussed at work by you and your coworkers that involve how the business affects your community. That's an example of what I mean, there will be (a nonzero amount). Nowhere did I say politics must invade every aspect of your life (a 100% amount), so I don't know why you keep saying that.
Thanksgiving dinner is an apples to oranges comparison to what a CEOs job is. From the article:
> BRT redefined the purpose of a corporation from immediate profitability for shareholders, to a broader lens that includes customers, employers, suppliers and communities
CEOs think about how their business interfaces with the world around them. Some weild power on the order of states/countries, so that would make sense.
It is not true that every aspect of your life needs to be in service of political activism. It doesn't mean you're supporting the status quo because you don't spend 100% of your time doing politics.
It's the same illogic as: "If you pay taxes, you support bombing children in Iraq. You support the status quo."
Work is for work, movie theaters are for watching movies. Should moviegoers stand up and make political statements during a movie? No, "movie theaters should just be for movie watching" and "work should just be for work."
Precisely. The only people who complain about others bringing up politics at work are those who are privileged, as they have the luxury of not exposing themselves to politics because it doesn't affect them negatively like it does, say, minorities.
Minorities have the privilege and luxury of politicizing EVERYTHING. Whites do not enjoy such privilege and luxury.
>because it doesn't affect them negatively like it does, say, minorities.
Source for this claim? One could say politics negatively affects white people more negatively than minorities because white people foot the bill more so than minorities.
This is partly driven by fear of the de facto activists (graduates) that graduate from ideological bootcamps (universities) and infiltrate (join the ranks of) corporations, and partly fear of activists in the media.
Frankly, much of the activism we're seeing isn't all that dangerous to get behind and parrot given the current climate, so there's no real swimming upstream here (what's more "risky" at most colleges: being conservative or liberal? Which would make you terminally unhip?). Many students simply absorb the worldview imparted to them by university education (+ media and primary ed) without ever really stopping to consider any of it. So if you want a glimpse of tomorrow, look to what college students are learning today.
So there's an element of concerted political action (surveillance, the fusion of state and corporation, radical social changes esp. where human sexuality is concerned), but a good dose of the logic of the culture playing out. Ideas have consequences. It just takes a while for them to unfold. It would however be foolish to ignore the oligarchic dimension of it all. Plato's Republic has much to say about this and it rings eerily true.
This wouldn't have been an issue if we let corporations be money maximizing machines working within the confines of the legal system (and a strong legal system that treats them as such). Instead, we look to corporations for health care, retirement funds, a sense of purpose and belonging. This is the natural outcome.
I don't think another way is possible at least under the current system.
Politicians are able to shove responsibility (like healthcare) on the private sector as a way to address their ineffective programs and social need derived from policy blunders at the govt level. Employer based care can be directly traced to such an instance, for example.
So it seems like the natural state of systems is for politicians to demand the most successful sector (usually private) to intervene, by the way of passing regulations, and thus, given enough time and enough blunders, eventually they will require such sector to own a bunch of competencies they were not really designed for (for example, employers shopping for worker healthcare coverage).
In a lot of cases, I am not sure what the "pressure" actually is. Why do CEOs or other corporate employees care at all about the noise made by activists on Twitter or small numbers of employee activists? Why not just ignore them and move on? I feel like there would be no real impact and that they're unnecessarily caving into demands from progressive activists regularly. In doing so, these corporations are alienating center-left, center, and right customers as well as tilting the scales of our politics. This is especially true for highly influential companies that control information like Twitter, Facebook, and Google.
The old adage is "with great power comes great responsibility"
Most CEOs are not perceived -rightly or wrongly- as paragons of virtue, so one can see this not ending particularly well.
(The use of "CEO" here is the traditional use to refer to C-suite execs of large multinationals, and not necessarily business owners / founders... which are probably a distinct animal)
A long time ago I wanted to set up a proxy voting service - the idea was that your pension fund invested in X hundred companies, and you therefore had X/100 shares in each - with a median pension a single person would get to vote at a large % of AGMs annually.
Now one or two or 50 shares wont make much difference - but this eventually becomes shareholder democracy.
Sounds like a natural result of the Citizens United vs FEC. Corporations are now the richest and most influential "people" in our political system. Where there is power, there will be attempts to sway that power.
so what is the objective/cost function here?
My hypothesis:
- the longer humanity survives, the bigger the value.
- the more of humanity contributes to that goal, the bigger the value.
- the more of economic activity contributes to that goal, the bigger the value.
and finally, why is this relevant:
The more educated people are aware of this situation and are working in relevant companies, the higher the pressure for the companies to comply towards this objective function.
So, personally, I'd appreciate the phenomenon to move from anekdotal to the direction of 5 sigma.
I think the difference being poorly articulated in the article is CEOs making public declarations of political positions. They've always donated to politicians and been active in local politics - that's how the rich and powerful maintain their status.
Now, their employees and customers are demanding public stances on social/political issues that aren't directly related to the company bottom line.
The statements earlier this week from Coca-Cola, Delta, and MLB relating to Georgia's voting restrictions come to mind.
A few extremely vocal customers, and a few extremely vocal employees, mostly in the U.S.
People in other parts of the world seem to be aghast at what's happening in the U.S. because either a) they've tried on these kinds of political systems themselves and fled them in horror or overturned them already, or b) they see it as theater because all of the recommended actions are superficial or actively harmful.
The term "Outrage-Industrial Complex" is so apt here.
Ahem. This idea that companies -- and CEOs in particular -- only weigh in on things that directly effect their businesses is absurd. See Hobby Lobby. See Henry Ford and his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. See Peter Thiel.
Even the unwashed plebes using the power of the purse to influence policy isn't new. Lest we forget the original BDS against South Africa. You don't play Sun City[0]. You don't buy gasoline from Shell.[1]
"Strangely" pearl clutching is only involved with the much less effective later, never the much more effective former.
I agree with the comment you were replying to. Throughout most of history, corporations were seen as institutions that took an active role in shaping society. This was particularly true in the gilded age. This idea that corporations are purely apolitical money making engines is relatively recent, something purely of the post ware era, and somewhat illusionary in truth.
Or just right thinking rather than self serving. Every man for himself is a political position - not the inevitable reality some would have you believe.
