Lining Their Pockets

It takes Bhaskar Sunkara quite a while to get to the point in his piece in the Guardian about the limitations of the present demands for “equity” and its emphasis on action by private companies:

First, it might satisfy younger staffers who want to feel like they’re working for companies that are stalwarts of anti-racism. Second, some consumers might like such anti-racist gesturing. Third, showing a commitment to diversity and arranging for a diversity consultant to come in is cheaper than dealing with an anti-discrimination lawsuit, having to deal with a Twitter-led consumer boycott for a misstep, or paying black and brown workers more.

Yet even if corporations aren’t driving the race-conscious awakening, they’re willing to adapt to the new environment because the political demands flowing from activists are increasingly compatible with corporate profit-making and governance. Corporations are also more than happy to monetize the new social justice interest. Just think of Hollywood – which once blacklisted socialist actors and directors in the cold war – rushing to make films with watered-down accounts of Black Panther leaders like Fred Hampton (who was a Marxist) or the Chicago Seven (all of whom were radical anti-capitalists at the time).

Similarly, companies like Apple, where workers in the secretive Chinese complex that manufactures iPhones attracted global concern after a spate of suicides, just brought out a special edition $429 Black Unity Apple Watch that was marketed for Black History Month. Apple says: “The Black Unity Sport Band is inspired by the pan-African flag and made from soft, high-performance fluoroelastomer with a pin-and-tuck closure laser-etched with ‘Truth. Power. Solidarity.’” Where is the power or solidarity for the workers toiling in factories in China, one might wonder? Or for child workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo who toil and die in mines extracting raw materials like cobalt that are used in iPhones. One doesn’t hear anything about that kind of material injustice affecting the working class from the global south when corporations make their self-congratulatory PR statements around inclusion.

They would rather focus on symbolism and racial-justice-themed commodities and products than contend with more expansive state oversight of private employment decisions, like an affirmative action program. Better to have Kendall Jenner appearing in a schmaltzy BLM-themed Pepsi ad than paying more in taxes to help working-class people in the form of an expanded welfare state and cash transfers.

I wish he’d submit some evidence that there’s actually a connecting link between “paying more in taxes” and helping “working-class people”. In the U. S. the primary effect of higher marginal tax rates and a complicated personal and corporate income tax system is to enhance the power of Congress who then sells exemptions from the tax to the highest bidders. And for some reason increased revenues never go to help the poor but to hire people ostensibly to help the poor. The NGOs, contractors, employees, and higher wages for them always seem to materialize but the help for the poor is harder to demonstrate.

As I’ve said in other posts we’ve been here before, cf. Tom Wolfe’s “Mau-mauing the Flak Catchers” only this time the flak catchers are corporate HR departments rather than beleaguered federal, state, and local government employees.