Corporate America isn't woke

Don't look to Apple or J.P. Morgan for morals

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Mocking neoliberalism is a vicious, unsporting pastime, like bear baiting or fishing with dynamite. This is not because our woke capitalist elites and their echo chambers in the media don't deserve ridicule, but because they invite it so heedlessly.

A case in point is the routine breathless enthusiasm with which corporations and their leaders are praised for making vaguely woke gestures. My favorite example is BuzzFeed's immortal classic, "46 beautiful rainbow brand logos celebrating marriage equality." But soberer voices are just as guilty. It is equally ridiculous for The New York Times to single out the chief executives of Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, PepsiCo, and Apple for praise. We should not be looking to corporate America for moral instruction or making exemplars of its leaders or heaping approbation upon their bland, cynical consultant-designed utterances.

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Matthew Walther

Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.