Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam

Rounding out our month on Social Justice, this week’s book of the week is Woke, Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy.  

 The book opens with an introduction to the Woke Industrial Complex, explaining how this came to be, and Ramaswamy’s role in it. Because he is writing this book from an insider's perspective. He did not grow up rich, he grew up the son of two immigrants in Ohio, eventually earning his way into Harvard and then Yale Law. But having attended Harvard and Yale, Ramaswamy earned his own way into the halls of high finance and power, eventually forming his own pharmaceutical company called Roivant Sciences.  

 He then goes on to explain how corporate finance is like a magic trick. First, you have to find an ordinary market where ordinary people sell ordinary things. In his case: drugs...legally, of course, at least in his case, but drugs. Illegal drugs are ALSO big finance, but that is not the topic of the book. So, legal drugs. Next, you find an arbitrage in the market and squeeze the hell out of it. Arbitrage means the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same or similar asset in different markets in order to profit from tiny differences in the asset's listed price. It exploits short-lived variations in the price of identical or similar financial instruments in different markets or in different forms. 

 Most business books stop there. But Ramaswamy then reveals a third, dirty little secret behind high finance: Pretend like you care about something other than profit and power, precisely to gain more of each. 

 And that is what is going on with big business in the 21st century, specifically in the last decade, with a monstrous explosion of the hat trick corporate America has pulled off, but not only retaining all their corporate power, but convincing the useful idiots that corporate America is actually ON THEIR SIDE. Um, to clarify, a hat trick is three successes of the same kind, consecutively, within a limited period of time. And corporate America has managed to convince the world that they actually care about Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity more than family....and Ramaswamy lifts the curtain and shows just how deep the deception runs.  

 Want an example. How about the Fearless Girl statue right on Wall Street? This one right here, that is facing down the bull markets on Wall Street. This is an empty symbol, denoting how much women effect the markets. See, rather than actually paying women on Wall Street an equal salary, they paid millions of dollars for this statue...then later sued the creator of the statue, Kristen Visbal, saying that by making three unauthorized reproductions of the statue, Visbal damaged State Street’s global campaign in support of female leadership and gender diversity.  Because nothing says We Support Women like suing the creator of the statue that has come to embody Wall Street. 

And the left STILL supports Wall Street...based entirely on this empty statue. 

While the right tends to believe in the absolute infallibility of the markets. But not for long. As more and more companies put out Woke campaigns that cater to ideals, the right typically doesn’t support. 

 Ramaswamy then explains what capitalism SHOULD be, based on the early court decisions that allowed for the unbridled capitalism that grew America into the richest nation on earth....and how Woke capitalism is destroying that prosperity to pander to the vocal minority, to the detriment of everyone. 

 Essentially, the point of a corporation is to make money. Like that’s it. It’s to generate profits for its shareholders, the people who actually put money into the company. This is allowed by the supreme court decisions over the last 200 years that laid the groundwork for corporations to make money, while limiting the liability of the owners of that company. In return, the corporations are SUPPOSED to, literally, stay in their lane. In practice, corporations have, almost from the beginning, been buying off congress critters and local politicians to ensure policies were passed that were good for their companies. I don’t necessarily blame Ramaswamy for not knowing that. I only say this with a fair degree of confidence because of the books I’ve been reading on the presidents and the very long history America has of tariff protection rackets which always protect some industries at the expense of the American people. But that is not the topic of this book.  

 With the rise of Woke culture, a new, more horrifying policy, has taken over corporate finance. Stakeholder capitalism. What is the difference? Shareholder capitalism, which has been the working model up until recently, is where the corporations make money for the people who have bought into the company. For example, if you own stocks in Apple, Disney, and Microsoft, those corporations are supposed to be focused on one thing: making money for the people who own stock in the company. Stakeholder capitalism is where the company tries to make everyone who does business with that company happy. Consequently, the uber woke blue haired liberals who spend their days on TikTok finding life in general problematic, are now steering the ship, as their loud vocal whining leads corporations to believe this is what America wants. Also....by caving into the vocal minority, corporations are being actively encouraged to participate openly in politics. 

 In the 19th and 20th centuries, decorum demanded that buying off politicians be done behind closed doors, so that we the people never actually saw and while we might suspect what was going on, we didn’t actually KNOW what was going on. With the rise of stakeholder capitalism, corporations are being encouraged by members of the left to become involved in politics. This violates every tenet of capitalism. Corporations' one job is to make money for shareholders. Stakeholders have no actual stake in the company. Theoretically, they should have no say in how a company is run.  

 Enter the golden rule...no not the one where you treat others how you would want to be treated. The one that says he who has the gold makes the rules. If I own five shares in apple (I don’t but this is just an example), then my opinion that apple should quit pandering to woke ideologies should matter more than the blue haired TikTok star who owns no shares of Apple but films her videos on her iPhone. However, my opinion means very little to apple compared to the congress critter who owns 1 million shares of apple and wants to essentially buy the good will of the blue haired Tik Tok star.  

 And CEOs of major corporations have figured out that they don’t have to actually be elected to run a country. He cited the example of JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon kneeling in his office...his very posh, multi-million-dollar office... in “solidarity” with BLM activists. And he was lauded for doing so. 125 years ago, JP Morgan, for whom the bank is named because it was, to start with, HIS bank, was hated for saying “I owe the public nothing.” Dimon acts like he owes the public everything but in fact owes it nothing. It’s a show. It’s smoke and mirrors to buy feel good moments from an angry public, in an attempt to pay the Danegeld. Remember the Dane geld? I went over that last week, so I won’t go over it now, but yeah. There’s no way this ends well. And it’s really ironic that now, JP Morgan CEO puts on this mock show, and the ACTUAL JP Morgan literally prevented an economic collapse of the country in the late 19th century.

 Remember that deal with the devil Grover Cleveland made when the country ran out of money. It was JP Morgan who provided the gold, at interest, to bail the nation out. And JP Morgan Chase bank, for those who don’t know, bought failing banks during the 2008 financial crises, as enormous discounts. JPMorgan Chase Bank does not actually NEED the goodwill of the vocal minority. JP Morgan Chase is already the largest bank in the United States and has a century plus of “good will” with the government. So what game is JP Morgan playing? 

 How about China? China, the country that is actively running concentration camps against Muslim Uighurs, including forced sterilization. China is taking over Hong Kong and Taiwan and insisting that both be recognized internationally as being provinces of China. And companies from Disney, to NBA, Google, are all complying, chasing those sweet China dollars. About the only company that hasn’t publicly caved is South Park, who mercilessly mocked China in season 23 with Band in China and season 24 Pandemic Special.  South Park remains at the forefront of holding up a brutally honest mirror to the woke crowd. I actually dread the day Trey Parker and Matt Stone decide to hang it up, because we will lose a crucial voice in the culture wars. South Park has basically been grandfathered in with the things they say and do and, so far at least, remains unscathed by insanity. Anyway, back to the book.  

 Woke Inc is encouraging people to shout down, threaten, and physically harm anyone who disagrees with the message. In one generation we went from Voltaire “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” To “Agree with me or you’re a fascist pig who deserves to be publicly crucified.” Which is really interesting. Because eventually, with this encouragement to violate shareholder trust, someone with enough gold who actually IS a fascist is bound to take over at least one company. Hell, look how quickly the left lost their minds when Musk....who as far as I know is NOT a fascist.... purchased twitter and restored even a modicum of free speech. 

 And the book is filled with examples of this ever-faltering tower of self-righteousness which contributes to the division in the country. And as Ramaswamy says “A good barometer for the health of any democracy is the percentage of people who are willing to say what they actually believe in public.” So, on one hand, the average person is scared to speak up against this bullshit, while the corporations continue to pander.  

 Another example is Uber swearing to be an anti-racist company on one hand, while lobbying for proposition 22 in CA, which permits Uber to classify all drivers as independent contractors. This, incidentally, means that Uber is not required to provide any benefits for their drivers. Uber’s reason for wanting to keep everyone as contractors? It would impact on their profitability. So, they claim to be anti-racist, which keeps the good will of the people, while ultimately protecting their bottom line for their shareholders. They pay lip service to being good guys, while doing nothing to actually benefit their employees, essentially playing both ends against the middle, to ensure they remain the winners. 

 And another example is Unilever, who has tea plantations in Kenya. Following the 12/2007 elections in Kenya, rioting led to hundreds of men attacking the workers at the tea plantation, resulting in multiple rapes and assaults. Unilever had paid for armed guards to protect the tea and to protect the managers homes but left the workers to be assaulted and raped. Rather than addressing this error directly, Unilever writes a million dollar check annually to the UN Women to buy the good will of feminists around the globe. They closed the plantation for 6 months following the attack, leaving the already raped and brutalized workers unemployed. Unilever hides behind legalities as to why they were not responsible, and behind their annual donations to the UN Women. So....do with that information what you will. 

 Ramaswamy points out the role that social conscious economic policy creates bubbles, which burst with horrifying consequences, witness the 2008 housing bubble bursting. That entire scandal happened as a result of politicians wanting to buy voter goodwill by insisting on banks allowing subprime mortgages. There is a book about this, which I have not read yet, called The Big Short by Michael Lewis. This was made into a movie, which was very good, and explains in digestible bits exactly what happened between 2005 and 2008 that led to an enormous loss in wealth and employment for the nation as a whole. 

 Now, one might think that, with that information, a smart person could look at the market, figure out the timeline, and make a killing on shorting the current markets. However, as Ramaswamy points out, while The Big Short was a result of bad government policy, big business was not, at that time, actually directing that government policy, merely reacting to the policy. Now, thanks to woke activist encouragement, big business IS directing government policy. It will be much harder to predict that bubble burst. And harder for the country to survive it when it does go. And it will go. Woke and Capitalism are not happy bedfellows. 

 So, what do we do? Thankfully, this book was not just a clarion call. I mean, it was, but Ramaswamy provides some suggestions for how to fight back. First off, he is not a fan of boycotts, believing they contribute to the political divide in the country. I would counter that by saying boycotting woke corporate measures are how the other “stakeholders” are expressing their voice that they are not happy with the policies being enacted that affect the products they use. And so, they are fighting fire with fire. The currently disenfranchised are using the tactics that have worked so well for the formerly disenfranchised. Looked at that way, it does make sense; however, it also proves Ramaswamy’s point. Where does it end? How do we stop this ever-growing divide that is tearing our nation apart? 

 So, we need to open up the internet and social media to competing ideas. And he’s not just talking about unbanning Parler, although that’s certainly a good step. He’s talking about the blatant censorship that occurs across social media platforms, that have become De Facto branches of the government. See, Section 230, which was passed in the 1990’s, has granted internet corporations a get out of jail free card by determining that they are platforms, not publishers. What this means is, when Alex Jones says something truly heinous on his YouTube channel, YouTube and/or google cannot be sued for it. They have to sue Alex Jones. Since YouTube, google, Facebook, twitter are PLATFORMS, not PUBLISHERS, they have no reason to censor anyone. Yet they do so. Often at the behest of congress. We’ll pass laws that are favorable to you, but you need to keep XYZ off your platform. And we KNOW this is true, thanks to Elon Musks’ release of the Twitter files. There is and no doubt will be more, 1st amendment suits pending. And rightly so. The woke leftists celebrated their “victory” over right wingers for years, and delighted in social media complicity, going on and on about “it’s private property, they can do what they want with it.” But the more the curtain is pulled back, the more we know that it just ain’t so.  

 So, there’s one way to fight back, is to restore the open marketplace of ideas to public discourse. Incidentally, this also involves people who disagree with woke ideology voicing their opinions. 

 Another way we can help, is pushing hard on the fact that wokeness is a religion. Why is this important? Why would we want this ideology to be granted the status of religious exemption that is granted to Christians, Muslims, Judaism, Buddhism, Paganism.... Because if the Church of Woke is RECOGNIZED as a religion, then corporations become legally prohibited from forcing THEIR religious beliefs on the people who work for them. If they try to mandate DIE training, you have legal recourse to say they are forcing their religion on you. Same for colleges. So, when you engage in political discourse, politely point out that you follow a different religion.  

Ramaswamy provides five key points to replace Diversity Inclusion and Equity. Excellence first, Institutional Purpose, Institutional Pluralism, Separation of Corporation and States, and End Discrimination. 

 Excellence first: Diversity is not an end in itself. Diversity of thought, i.e., true diversity, is a means to achieve excellence. 

 Institutional purpose: a company should find its own unique purpose, divorced from DIE ideology. What kind of diversity are they seeking that will help them achieve their purpose? If the only diversity they want is skin deep, then what they actually want is homogeneity.  

 Institutional Pluralism: Pluralism is a condition or system in which two or more states, groups, principles, sources of authority, etc., coexist. Basically, learn to live and converse with people who think differently from you. Great things can be achieved by mixing up thoughts with DIVERSE opinions. 

 Separation of Corporation and State: I’m not sure I can add anything to this. Basically, corporations should Stay in Their Lane. 

 End Discrimination: The best way to stop discrimination is to just stop discriminating. We were basically there in the early 1990’s. Then Woke happened and it’s been all downhill ever since.  

 And finally, Ramaswamy recommends mandatory civil service when kids are in high school. I don’t in principle see a problem with this, but in reality, I see rich kids buying their way out of it, or paying to get into plum positions that they want that will advance their agenda. I would take his civil service idea a step further and mandate that anyone in X tax bracket will be assigned cleaning up roadsides, and anyone below X will get put into a lottery so that they get a chance to work in city hall, help out at the police department and community center.  

 I can even use Ramaswamy’s own example in the book to demonstrate why I KNOW I’m right; the rich kids would buy their way out. He tells a story about how he was trying to build goodwill with a possible investor and was having dinner at the investor's house. The guy's kid came down and was very polite and well-spoken and asked Ramaswamy for advice on getting into Harvard. Ramaswamy advised the kid that the real ticket to standing out was to provide something that he had done, that no one else had. Kid said he had founded a not-for profit dedicated to helping victims of sex trafficking. Perfect! Ramaswamy then wonders if the kid kept up the not for profit once he got into Harvard and entered corporate finance. Or was this just a box to check on his college application? 

 If it’s just going to be a box to check on a college application, then it should be just as mindless work that is done for this community service. Also, let the rich kids see how the other side lives. And gives the financially disadvantaged a chance to talk to the representatives who purportedly represent them, by working in city hall directly with those representatives.  

 Anyway, mandatory civil service is not a bad idea. But requires some thought to implement it fairly, if he really wants to build a country. And he does want to build a country. Ramaswamy is one of the 2024 presidential candidates for the Republican party. 

 I quite liked this book. It was well written, well researched, I learned just how deep corporate rot goes, and just how detrimental woke pandering can be on a big business, big finance, international level, and to our country, which is being destroyed by capitalism’s embrace of this thoroughly toxic ideology. 

 I was impressed enough that, while I don’t agree with everything he says, and we all know I lean towards the anarcho-capitalism branch of libertarianism, I might vote for Ramaswamy, if he actually gets on the ticket. So next year will be interesting, to say the least.

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on May 21, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.