Book Review: Revisiting philanthropy in The Dictatorship of Woke Capital
News Flash. The Founders started off as a nonprofit organization. And they were woke, that’s why they fomented revolution against the Crown. Every government starts as a nonprofit, and every nonprofit starts off woke. And . . . nonprofits aren’t anti-business or government, necessarily, they just don’t presume government and business have all the answers. So nonprofits are invariably, necessarily and inevitably woke. I’d like to add the word, “dumbass” at the end of that sentence but most people know this better than I do. I am really preaching to the chicken littles who are rehashing Milton Friedman-esque fears that the sky is falling because nonprofits tend to be woke and capitalists are waking up (just now wiping sleep out of their eyes, yes, but still waking up). Like Soukup, whose book is adored in the book review mentioned below. Every government begins as nonprofit organization and, if successful evolves into government like a caterpillar to a butterfly. Having evolved from nonprofit to government, the entity then tends to suspect all other nonprofits for being “woke” and therefore threatening to incumbent government. Milkweed butterflies eat milkweed caterpillars. Seriously. Its all history and natural law, just the language has changed. “Woke” is just a 21st century version of “corporate social responsibility,” and nonprofits have always pursued social responsibility, dumbass (sorry, I couldn’t help it, I pretty much have the same reaction when people yell “socialist!” in a crowded theatre). Ain’t nothing new.
From Philanthropy Daily, April 26, 2023
Stephen R. Soukup’s great new The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business, from Encounter Books, describes how the Left has taken its long march to the last remaining non-leftist institution—corporate America. It is doing so, by Soukup’s telling, via “woke capital”—defined by him as “the top-down, antidemocratic means by which some of most powerful and best-known men and women in American business are endeavoring to change capitalism, the securities markets, and the fundamental relationship between the state and its citizens—and to ‘save’ the world.”
His straightforward explanation of increasing, and increasingly destructive, “wokism” in the country’s for-profit sector necessarily includes the role of some who are also in, and/or are acting through, the nonprofit sector. In a portion of the book identifying players engaging in these activities, he helpfully overviews the work of some of the most-prominent billionaire philanthropists in the U.S., and groups they support.
. . . .
Soukup’s characterization of woke capital — in business or philanthropy — as “dictatorial” is a pile of pungent noxious bovine defecation. Its like calling the pilgrims “dictatorial” over the Crown. Ahh, but it helps to know what other people think, even if they aren’t thinking. I am not an economist, neither micro nor macro, but people who believe that social responsibility is anathema to for profit or nonprofit sectors really don’t understand the first thing about markets.
darryll jones