Woke capitalism is no capitalism at all

Andrew Abela, dean of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America, in today's WSJ:

In practice, “woke capital” does little more than pay tribute to progressive causes through marketing and posturing. The problem for companies that play along is that the proponents of many progressive causes are hostile to free enterprise itself. The best that such companies can hope for is short-term appeasement. ...

Another problem with woke capitalism is that it simply doesn’t work. One of my students recently reviewed 30 cases of companies engaging in political activism. Twenty-seven generated a “negative outcome,” or backlash. This shouldn’t be surprising. The U.S. is sharply divided on political and social issues. There isn’t much upside for a company to take a stand on abortion, same-sex marriage or complex racial issues, especially when such themes are irrelevant to its business.