‘Woke’ is a business. That’s why ‘woke’ is so powerful

I describe how 'woke' is systemically enforced inside corporations.

I explained in mid-June this year how we need to keep in perspective the idea that society is disintegrating (Our Society is Divided and Collapsing?) Much of what appears to be huge splits in social cohesion is more about impressions (intentionally created in traditional and social media) than reality.

In my analysis I’ve focused on the Modern Marxist marketing machine that’s in the business of creating a media atmosphere suggesting large-scale social disintegration. The Marxists’ effort is directed to fomenting social and political disintegration with the end goal being the destruction of capitalism. They hook on to emotive ‘victim’ issues to further this. The Marxists’ effort seeks the destruction of capitalist lifestyles and norms, which includes family values, sexual/gender definitions and so on. The list of issues is long but accessible from modern Marxists’ teachings in their ‘official’ publications.

But the problem the Marxists have is that this alleged social disintegration does not match the life experiences of the vast bulk of people. That is, the vast majority us are peaceful, respectful, polite, and tolerant of one another’s differences. In short, people are by and large ‘nice’. ‘Niceness’ and social disintegration are polar opposites. People don’t hate each other. Ultimately ‘nice’ people will intuitively recognise the social disintegration ‘con’ being conducted against them. Rejection of the ‘con’ eventually occurs—at least in democracies.

But I want to add another element to the quest for maintaining perspective. Yes, ‘woke’ is serious. And it is highly successful. It’s successful, not because of the modern Marxist marketing push or the victimised hate and bile spewing from many universities and others. It’s successful because ‘woke’ has been turned into a money-making business that imposes private-sector-created regulations on global corporations and anyone who does business with those corporations. It’s pretty amazing actually.

In this Substack article I’ll dig into the detail of how ‘woke’ agendas, as business enterprises in themselves, have penetrated the very internal operational fabric of global corporations. I’ll explain the implications of this.

Photo by Evangeline Shaw on Unsplash

What’s ‘Woke’?

For the purposes of this analysis, I’ll look at the primary ‘woke’ agendas of CSR, ESG and DEI. Below, I quote directly from sources in describing each one.

·      CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility is a “self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. Corporate social responsibility is a business model by which companies make a concerted effort to operate in ways that enhance rather than degrade society and the environment. CSR can help improve society and promote a positive brand image for companies.”

·      ESG “stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. This is often called sustainability. In a business context, sustainability is about the company’s business model, ie how its products and services contribute to sustainable development. It is also about a company’s risk management, ie how it manages its own operations to minimise negative impact.”

·      DEI or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion relates to “…employment actions based on the principles of diversity (employing people with a range of social identities) equity (creating systems that ensure equal access) and inclusion (ensuring all voices are heard)…the aim behind these initiatives is to create a working environment that benefits all employees, regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background or mental and physical ability.”

The first observation is that it’s easy to see how modern Marxists latch themselves and their ‘victim’ marketing on to each of these ‘woke’ items. But it’s a mistake, I think, to believe that the Marxists created these agendas. I see the Marxists more as sucker fish who connect themselves to the giant whale shark of wokeism and hang on for the ride.

Another observation is that, interestingly, these corporate ‘woke’ agendas—CSR, ESG and DEI—have nothing directly to do with ‘profit’. Profit, it seems, is almost assumed as a given but subsumed and swamped under the weight of the ‘woke’ social agendas. Rather what’s going on is an argument that if corporations don’t adhere to these agendas, they risk losing their ‘social license’ to operate. A social license being “…the acceptance granted to a company or organisation by the community.”

In other words, if corporate businesses don’t comply with ‘woke’ agendas, they will be subject to brand attack to such an extent that their businesses will be at risk. Corporations are terrified of their brands being attacked and will do almost anything to prevent this occurring. In fact, corporate brands are both a strength of corporate businesses but also a point of their greatest vulnerability.

Coordinated, organised and professionally run corporate brand attacks conducted over the last 30 years-or-so are the principal reason that corporations have acquiesced to ‘woke’ agendas. These professionally run brand attacks are business operations in themselves. Wokeism is a not a social movement. Wokeism is a business model that makes money from running corporate brand attacks then offering the targeted corporations ‘protection’ from the brand attacks for which the corporations pay.

In other words, CSR, ESG and DEI should be looked at as ‘woke’ money-making business models. Let me demonstrate how this operates with an example.

Ethical Chocolate

In 2000 the BBC aired a documentary, Slavery: A Global Investigation. The documentary asserted that the growing and harvesting of Cocoa (the key ingredient in chocolate) in Ghana and the Ivory Coast of Africa involved large-scale slave-trading. The BBC allegations were that ‘hundreds of thousands of people … work without pay (and) without the freedom to leave their job….” Other assertions made at the same time as the BBC documentary included that a ‘slave ship’ was trafficking people up and down the African coast.

The allegations ‘exploded’ over the heads of the major global chocolate manufacturers and retailers, threatening all of their brands.

In fairly short order, NGOs (Non-Government Organisations) ‘emerged’ offering to provide services to businesses in the global chocolate industry to stop the slavery. Further, these NGOs would provide to chocolate firms statements or ‘certifications’ that the firms’ cocoa purchasing was ‘slave free.’ In other words, these NGOs would, for a fee, provide brand protection for chocolate corporations.  

The national governments of the named African nations complained that the BBC allegations were grossly exaggerated. Subsequent investigations failed to identify ‘slavery’ as such. The ‘slave ship’, for example, turned out to be a regular passenger vessel that local populations used to travel up and down the coast. What was identified was that children were widely used in the production of cocoa. But these were overwhelmingly children who lived on family farms and worked on the farms as part of the family effort. Authoritative reports found that “…very few of the children were traded or could be described as slaves.”

Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

The true nature of slavery, child work and possible abuse in Africa is not something I’m debating. Rather, the point is to understand that from this campaign of brand attack against chocolate and chocolate companies, several NGOs ‘created’ businesses that offered brand defence for chocolate companies, for a fee. The service offered was that the NGOs would monitor farms where cocoa was produced and certify farms that were ‘slave free’. Major and minor chocolate companies signed up to these NGOs’ certification activities as a brand-defence mechanism. Big money was (and still is) involved.

In cannot be a coincidence that the emergence of these NGO brand-defence businesses happened precisely at the same time as the BBC’s and other allegations of slavery were aired. Instead, what can be observed and alleged is that campaigns of corporate brand attacks were possibly deliberate and done for the purposes of extracting money from corporations.

A ‘woke’ business model

This could be said to be a ‘business of brand blackmail’. Is it ethical? Is it legal? It doesn’t really matter. It is what it is. But this experience of what occurred with chocolate has (and still is) being replicated across free market economies around the globe. This gives some understanding about why CSR, ESG and DEI (the ‘woke’ agendas) have become so powerful.

CSR, ESG and DEI present permanent potential threats to the brands of a vast number of corporations across free market economies. This is particularly so for corporations whose brands are in the consumer space. But it also applies for corporations in the supply chain. Supply chain corporations supply services and products to other corporations, who invariably are in the consumer space. Everyone eventually gets caught.

And as has happened with the chocolate/cocoa example, a wide array of NGOs and private businesses have sprung up offering services that provide CSR, ESG and DEI-approved ‘ticks’ to corporate clients. These businesses certify compliance with CSR, ESG and DEI.

This “we’ll protect your brand from CSR, ESG and DEI attacks” business, is very big business. As a business model it extracts money from global corporations. But the money extraction goes further. Even if a small business is providing services to one of these brand-sensitive global (or even domestic) corporations, the small businesses are required to be ‘woke’ compliant (CSR, ESG and DEI) or their corporate client will cut them off.

For example, if a farmer is providing fresh produce to a supermarket chain, the farmer will be required to be woke compliant if they wish to retain the supermarket’s business. And if they use a self-employed owner-driver to deliver their produce to the supermarket, that owner-driver must also be compliant.

The compliance systems are not haphazard. It’s not enough to just declare, ‘we love the planet’ or ‘we hug everyone’. The businesses supplying the woke compliance services typically have on-line portals. Corporations and their corporate suppliers must pay to access the portals and complete extensive questionnaires. The aforementioned farmer, for example, may need to pay several thousands of dollars a year. The owner-driver will be paying many hundreds of dollars a year. And if they supply to several supermarket chains, each supermarket business may use different woke compliance companies, thereby requiring multiple certification exercises.

The questionnaires themselves are not simple. Rather, they are extensive, complex and require the uploading of considerable support documentation. It’s private-sector red tape on a scale that makes many public sector, bureaucratic, red-tape exercises look almost inviting. And if the suppliers to the corporations do not pass the standards set by the ‘woke’ monitoring businesses, they will be cut loose from their corporate clients. The approach and process are ruthless, reflecting the terror and sheer panic that corporations experience from even a minor threat (real, perceived or possible) to their brands.

To give you a sense of the questions requiring detailed responses, at the end of this Substack article I’ve included a selection of questions taken from a range of on-line portals of some of the ‘woke’ monitoring (brand defending) businesses.

(I’ve an example of another ‘woke’ monitoring business that requires completion of 173 questions across 24 different categories. The list is so large that I’ve not included it with this article. I can supply this to you if you’re interested. Just send me a request and I’ll get back to you.)

The woke stranglehold on corporations. Can it be broken?

The purpose of this Substack article is to explain just how structurally entrenched the ‘woke’ agendas are in corporate businesses. It starts with the largest of corporate businesses and cascades down to even the smallest of business (businesses of one) through contract supply chains.

This ‘woke’ business system is global in free market economies at least. It sets up management processes inside firms where no manager, from the CEO down to middle managers, can defy ‘woke.’ Whether they believe in the ‘woke’ agendas or not, managers careers and incomes are ‘woke-dependent’. Corporate boards monitor for ‘woke’ compliance through their entire organisation. Hence ‘woke’ requirements are systemically locked in. In many respects ‘woke’ compliance is now a more powerful dynamic inside firms than is profit. Strange but true!

Outside of business operations, public debates about ‘woke’ agendas is fierce. But these debates simply do not penetrate inside firms because of the ‘system’ I’ve described above.

This explains why many ‘big end of town’ corporations now seem to be so wildly out of step with many community values. The 2023 failure of The Voice referendum in Australia is perhaps a glaring example this. That is major corporations ‘woke’ commitment caused them to very publicly support a Yes vote against the 60 percent of voters who voted No.

Can this situation be reversed? Can the system of corporate ‘woke’ enforcement be broken?

Probably! But it’s only likely to occur when ‘woke’ agendas ultimately threaten the long-term profit and hence commercial existence of firms. My case study of Kentucky Fried Fightback gives an example of how push back can occur.

Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash

Questions

This a selection of questions taken from a range of on-line portals of some of the ‘woke’ monitoring (brand defending) businesses. Each question requires a detailed answer and where supporting documents must be attached. Pages in the documents must be referenced to the answers.

Environment

·      Describe the purchase and/or generation of renewable energy

·      Other actions to reduce energy consumption/GHG emissions not included elsewhere in this question.

·      What actions are in place regarding consumption and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions.

·      Detail improvement of energy efficiency through technology or equipment upgrades.

·      Actions to reduce emissions from transportation.

·      Energy consumption and GHGs

·      Waste Management procedures

On which of the following topics does your company report key performance indicators?

·      Career Management and Training

·      Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

·      Employee Health and Safety

·      Working conditions

·      Training of all employees on health and safety risks and good working practices

·      Regular employee health check-up

·      Family Friendly programs implement (eg: Parental or care leaves, childcare services or allowances.

·      Skills development training

What actions are in place regarding labor and human right issues?

·      Health care coverage of employees

·      Health and safety emergency action plan

·      Actions to promote the inclusion of minority/vulnerable groups in the workplace

·      Other actions on labor and human rights issues not included elsewhere I this question

·      Regular assessment of individual performance

·      Career management and training

·      Flexible organisation of work(eg: remote work, flexible-time)

·      Compensation for extra or atypical hours

·      Working conditions

·      Employee health and safety risk assessment