Deep Dive: Brian Knight on Woke Capitalism
May 22, 2022
Host Juliette Sellgren digs into the good and bad of "Woke Capitalism," Twitter's Trump Ban, Parler's Suspension, Disney's Fight with Gov. DeSantis and more with guest Brian Knight.
Host Juliette Sellgren digs into the good and bad of "Woke Capitalism," Twitter's Trump Ban, Parler's Suspension, Disney's Fight with Gov. DeSantis and more with guest Brian Knight.
Brian Knight, director of Innovation and Governance and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, talks to us today about woke capitalism.
Knight begins by expressing concerns with the politically polarizing use of the word “woke,” but goes on to define the problem as the use of corporate power to make a change outside of the corporation's usual area of concern. Knight’s example is the difference between an oil company trying to influence environmental regulations that will affect their business and an oil company trying to affect something further from their core business interests like voting regulations. Sellgren asks him to talk about recent high-profile cases and whether and to what extent these represent “woke capitalism” and what dangers they present
- Twitter banning Trump
- Apple and Google suspending Parler
-
The Walt Disney Company fighting to repeal the “Don’t Say Gay” bill (a topic of another recent Great Antidote podcast)
To find out Knight’s takes and Sellgren’s follow-ups, give it a listen.
Important questions they discuss include:
- Is anyone being harmed?
- Who is being harmed?
- How are they being harmed?
- Is the harm the type of thing that the state should take notice of (legally cognizable) or not?
- What are the potential responses (including no response)?
- What is the minimally invasive response to mitigate the harm?
You’ll also hear Knight talk about one thing he wants young people to know (it doesn’t always happen the way you want! And that can be good too) and something he’s changed his mind about (markets are good but not the only good).
Listen to this episode
The guest: Brian Knight
- Mercatus Center Professional page
- Relevant book review: The Dangers of Woke Capitalism - Discourse (Review of Woke Inc. by Vivek Ramaswamy)
- Relevant articles:
- UPDATE! Brian Knight's piece on Woke Capitalism was published on June 13, 2022 in Discourse magazine, "Woke Capitalism Isn’t a Thing—It’s Many Things"
- Private Policies and Public Power: When Banks Act as Regulators within a Regimen of Privilege
-
Federalism and Federalization on the Fintech Frontier
Related AdamSmithWorks content
- Maria Pia Paganelli and Anne-Pauline De Cler, Would Adam Smith Protest in a Pandemic? at Speaking of Smith
Related Liberty Fund content
- The Poverty of Woke Capital: A Law & Liberty Symposium
- Bryan Caplan, Backlash vs. Resistance: The Case of Wokism at EconLog
-
Review of John McWhorter's Woke Racism by Arnold Kling at Econlib
People, places and things mentioned
- Ross Douthat 2018 NYT piece coining the term “woke capitalism”
- Vivek Ramaswamy’s book “Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam.”
- Principal-Agent Problem
- US right to free speech and assembly
- Milton Friendman‘s 1970 NYT’s article, “A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”
- Arab boycott of Israel
- US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Acts
- The 2008 Financial Crisis (Econtalk)
- Why does FDIC insurance matter? And what does it mean that the Federal Reserve is the lender of last resort? (MRU)
- Starbucks compostable (?) cups
-
Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Right Commission
Resources compiled by Christy Lynn