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.
Replying to
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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