I once called myself a “business conservative” which used to imply “...and socially liberal” since otherwise you were just “conservative.” A very Gen X label.
Now I think that’s incoherent. At best you can be in favor of whatever murkiness grows the real economy (not financial).
Conversation
I’d say now the politics of a business = (personal politics of its executives) * (message of the medium)
Where the * operator is convolution.
For example you can’t be in the crypto business without being at least a little libertarian for example.
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Old economy businesses tend to be broadly favored by conservative economic policies and liberal social business policies. That’s why “business conservative” was a thing.
New economy companies tend to be all over the political compass, medium-message wise.
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The best CEOs tend to recognize the message of their medium and work with it. The resulting politics is illegible but not random.
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If you want to be broadly pro-business you can’t adopt a one-size-fits-all pro-business politics and expect it to be coherent. The technological stack is no longer a single meta-medium with a single message.
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If you try, you end up mostly supporting financialization and least-common-denominator shareholder value capitalism which is now in an ourbouros stage of eating itself.
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Employee activism increasingly strikes me as bizarre because it’s like the corporate equivalent of blank-slate theory.
It feels like pacifists deciding to work at an arms manufacturer and expecting it to disavow war.
Maybe don’t work in a medium if you don’t like its message?
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A sort of precautionary principle in business would be to stay out of areas of politics where the medium doesn’t suggest a clear slant. It doesn’t mean you’re for or against anything. Let self-selection into the medium drive things.
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Great movie about the moral hazards of employee activism is The Big Kahuna. Specifically the Bob Walker character (Peter Facinelli). Oblique ref but gets the psychology right.
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Walker is a young employee on an industrial lubricants marketing team trying to get the business of a major client. Both happen to be devout Christians.He gets an in during a marketing event... and blows it talking religion instead of lubricants. To the dismay of his seniors.
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If you want to preach a religion maybe don’t do it on the dime of a company that hired you to sell industrial lubricants?
There’s an element of deep bad faith in such a move.
Sub whatever religion you’re into.
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The only way to solve the moral hazard problem?
Be CEO. Run a company where the message of your medium harmonizes with the message you want to send. Auteur theory.
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A cheaper way is to be a free agent in the gig economy 🤣
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