Can Corporations be Authentically "Woke"?

In an age of money-hungry corporations and a polarized culture, corporations have decided to

fall onto the old proverb “modern problems require modern solutions”. The modern problem is

the age-old question “how can we (corporations) get money from consumers” with the added and

modern knowledge of contemporary trends. The modern solution is the age old answer to that

question. “Appeal to the consumer.” What makes this a modern solution is that first and foremost

it uses advertisements (a relatively novel invention in the history of companies) and that those

advertisements hold appeal to modern moral and political trends. In recent years (especially with

political polarization peaking) a large number of corporations have pandered to one side of the

ideological spectrum. These advertisements have often fallen under the umbrella of “wokeness”.

Despite this pandering, many corporations involved are often caught actively or in the past

violating those principles. In this essay, the question of whether it is possible to both preach and

practice wokeness as a corporation will be discussed, with the answer argued for being no,

companies cannot both practice and preach wokeness simultaneously.

Before the points for the assessment are stated, it is necessary to define a few key terms. Firstly,

“woke” will be defined as a cultural movement which seeks for an awareness and action to

combat societal injustices (mostly towards minorities), action on behalf of stalling climate

change, and prioritizing equity over equality. Corporations will be defined as entities run off of

profits made by selling products and/or services. This definition excludes NGOs and non-profits

from the term.

To properly answer the prompt, we must first look at the challenges a company which wishes to

“go woke” would face. Unique challenges apply to both companies which start out as woke and

companies that transition into being woke, so the shared challenges will be the main focus of this

essay. There are 4 main problems that come from having wokeness as a guiding principle. The

first is a lack of talent. The second is higher operation costs. The third issue is equity. The fourth

is the severity which comes from failure.

1. Lack of Talent

The pool of unemployed workers is (in good times) a market of competition which companies

play. The better the worker, the higher the incentives companies will give to attract them.

Similarly, lower quality workers will see less benefits offered by companies. A truly woke

company would (among many other things) make skin color and gender merit as well as

punishing talent and awarding incompetence. The complexity of the new woke meritocracy

makes talent almost worthless in any selection of candidates. This leads to a form of corporate

brain-drain. This leads to a less efficient, trustworthy, and stale company. Furthermore, the hiring

of a diverse crowd as a quota can even hurt their status. This was displayed with women in a

French paper which analyzed the productivity (among other things) of women around France’s

universities. It was observed that “the reform [gender quotas] significantly worsened both the

probability of being hired and the ranks of women.” To summarize, a corporation which would

want to become woke would have to face substantial brain drain.

2. Higher Operational Costs

The elements of wokeness which evokes this issue are environmentalism and its disdain of social

injustice. These two ideals evoke two types of costs. (1) The cost of using renewable energy in

most if not all of corporate operations. (2) The cost of using humane labor methods & sources.

Regarding the first issue, renewable energy (depending on its source) can be both affordable and

expensive. That being said, oil, coal, and other sources of energy are still the largest fish in the

energy market, and being able to switch from dirty to green energy could pose a challenge with

significant cost issues. Furthermore, many parts of the world don’t possess reliable infrastructure

for the cheap or affordable use of green energy, so corporations in second and third world

nations would find a significant challenge in green energy’s rarity. Regarding the second

challenge, many corporations have had a habit of exploiting the unregulated, unsafe, and often

inhumane labor found in places like Asia and Africa to create products for a cheap price. A woke

company would need to not give in to the temptation of resorting to dirty labor. This challenge

can be avoided if the company in question is not in need of production apparatus.

3. Equity

Equity is not itself a problem. It becomes a problem when applied to meritocratic and Darwin-

esq institutions. Generally, corporations practice equality. Equality of opportunity to be exact.

Each worker has the same opportunities available to them, but they being able to get them is up

to themselves. This allows for competition. Competition for a job, competition for a bonus,

competition for a commission, etc. In a corporation which values equity, workers would be given
equal means. This sounds like a great idea until one understands that there is a cost to it. In a

company which values equity, a lazy person would be promoted over a hard working person

because the lazy person would need more means to achieve their task. In other words, the

rewards system would favor incompetence and would punish excellence. There would be no

competition, no incentive structure. This would lead to a system of dysfunctionality, envy,

frustration, and ultimately, collapse. This obstacle is the ultimate thing in the way of a woke

corporation existing. If it wasn’t an issue, then there would be a poor but real chance of woke

corporations existing in earnest.

4. The Cost of Failure

One element of wokeness not discussed so far is the utter harshness given to any entity which

disdains, disregards, or fails at implementing and praising its values. Whether or not this is a

feature of the ideology can be debated, the real issue is that if a company were to ever appear out

of line to anyone it would get harshly punished by a mob of angry people. In July of 2022 a

coffee shop called “Mina’s World” (a place which proclaimed itself to be the first coffee shop

run by queer trans people of color) was shut down by its own workers. Despite the company

prioritizing fair worker’s pay and diversity, the workers listed several accusations (e.g. ableism,

anti blackness, etc) which ended in a call to “re-distribute the company” into the worker’s hands.

This ultimately led to the once profitable and championed establishment closing, and the charges

were never proven, investigated, or even brought to court despite them being criminal charges.

This demonstrates that for some corporations, especially small ones, the cost of minute or even

imagined failures could be collapsed.

Any one of these challenges would pose a serious obstacle, but together they serve as a

deathblow to any attempt at a woke company. The closest one could come would be partial

implementation of policy, and the current trends show this to be in effect. Many corporations are

mixing and matching corporate policy to become more woke. Nonetheless, half a turkey is still

only half a turkey, and partial wokeness is still only partial wokeness. A truly woke company

will likely never become a reality.

Sources:

1. Deschamps, P. (2018). LIEPP Working Paper Gender Quotas in Hiring Committees: a

Boon or a Bane for Women? Gender Quotas in Hiring Committees: a Boon or a Bane for

Women? *. [online] Available at:

https://genhet.web.cern.ch/sites/default/files/articlesAndBooks/wp82-pierre-

deschamps.pdf. ‌

2. Clifford, C. (2022). How higher and more volatile energy prices will affect the move to

clean energy. [online] CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/17/what-

higher-volatile-energy-prices-mean-for-clean-energy-transition.html. ‌
3. Schenimann, C. (2018). Running head: CORPORATE OUTSOURCING AND CHEAP

LABOR 1 Corporate Outsourcing to Take Advantage of Cheap Labor in Developing

Countries. [online] Available at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1864&context=honors. ‌

4. The Daily Wire. (n.d.). Woke Coffee Shop Closes Down After Insane Demands From

Even-More-Woke Employees. [online] Available at:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/woke-coffee-shop-closes-down-after-insane-demands-

from-even-more-woke-employees [Accessed 6 Aug. 2022]. ‌