I like this theory. I got a PhD, and used to care a lot about the politics of academia when I thought that’s where I’d be, before realizing I could do much better outside it. And in my last podcast with Razib, he said he never finished his PhD as he at some point realized he was making more money than his professors doing outside work. And he was of course freer to speak his mind.
But tenured non-superstar professors are the exception to "people are not tied to organizations" as most of us expect to stay at the same college for the rest of our career. We also, collectively, have a lot of power over our institutions.
Would this imply that the ever-shortening average stay-at-one-job duration, and the apparently very large quit/retire rates we've seen over the past few months are going to accelerate this change?
"If you work for a company that engages in political gestures that you think are silly, why care? You work remotely and you have your own side project that you’re passionate about."
This describes me perfectly - I've worked remotely for 14 years now - even more weirdly, at the same job.
Eh, maybe, but if that were true, would you not expect that, say, a tech company whose founders are still running the show and still have the majority of their net worth tied up in the company would be most likely to resist? Is that actually what we see? Not from what I can tell. Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Jeff Bezos....I haven't seen much spine displayed by these guys the past few years.
Just this morning, I read about how the Rolling Stones have dropped "Brown Sugar" from the setlist on their current tour, because it's now offensive (it was always offensive, I guess, but now it offends the wrong people):
Think about that for a second. These guys are quiiite near to the end of their musical careers, now pushing 80 years of age and one of them, Charlie Watts, already having passed on. They have more money than the Queen, they have a relationship with their fanbase that goes back, in some cases, 50+ years, during which time their willingness to flout convention and push boundaries has been a major selling point; ie they have almost nothing to lose. And yet......here they are caving to somebody or other. I don't think software and organizational capital can explain something like that. And it is but one example of the kinds of things that have become a feature of popular culture.
This still seems to raise the question “where are the right wing firms?” that Caplan and Hanania have been writing about. Civil rights law plays a big part in this I think.
I'm not sure this specifically describes why "wokeness" and some individuals promoting woke causes is the answer. If general human capital is becoming more important, could it be the reactionary, or "anti-woke" forces, whatever those may be, feel and act the same way? Yet we don't see reactionary takeover of firms, from what I can tell.
There are other lenses perhaps. For instance, the idea that organizations exist to ... continue to exist. In this case, the question is not so much whether 'woke' can destroy all institutions, but whether it could destroy almost any given one, more quickly than compromising the mission/purpose does. The answer is pretty clear.
As for platforming or de-localization - mobility, etc - yes, it creates less of a stake, less of an identity. For the woke, it enables them to destroy an organization from within and then move on quickly to another rather than have to cope with the results of living in the rubble and perhaps rebuilding with a bunch of angry locals as the home team.
I wonder if this applies to countries. Maybe the elite vs populist dynamic is partly about the relative importance of specific and general social capital.
This deserves a longer response, but I will make a quick point: being more tied to your company cuts the other way too. If I am valuable to my current firm but would have to work to rebuild my career skills if I leave, putting up a resistance and then getting fired or punted off the promotion track is very costly. If I know I can go and get a similar job tomorrow I am much more willing to stick my neck out and challenge HR or other management.
A more subtle point is that woke isn't taking over otherwise totally neutral organizations, but rather represents a more fundamentalist sect of the same overall moral code of the left. Much like if you have a local church with lots of moderately religious people and then a hard core of very serious fundamentalists. Eventually the very serious tend to get their way because their arguments are very difficult to argue with when they are already what you are supposed to believe. You might say "Well, sure, we are supposed to follow these rules, and things would probably be better if we did them a bit more, but lets not get crazy." They simply reply "No, crazy is not following the rules you know you are supposed to follow. Friends, I don't think he really believes." Unwritten rules have a hard time standing up to the written in official processes.
I like this theory. I got a PhD, and used to care a lot about the politics of academia when I thought that’s where I’d be, before realizing I could do much better outside it. And in my last podcast with Razib, he said he never finished his PhD as he at some point realized he was making more money than his professors doing outside work. And he was of course freer to speak his mind.
But tenured non-superstar professors are the exception to "people are not tied to organizations" as most of us expect to stay at the same college for the rest of our career. We also, collectively, have a lot of power over our institutions.
Would this imply that the ever-shortening average stay-at-one-job duration, and the apparently very large quit/retire rates we've seen over the past few months are going to accelerate this change?
"If you work for a company that engages in political gestures that you think are silly, why care? You work remotely and you have your own side project that you’re passionate about."
This describes me perfectly - I've worked remotely for 14 years now - even more weirdly, at the same job.
Eh, maybe, but if that were true, would you not expect that, say, a tech company whose founders are still running the show and still have the majority of their net worth tied up in the company would be most likely to resist? Is that actually what we see? Not from what I can tell. Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Jeff Bezos....I haven't seen much spine displayed by these guys the past few years.
Just this morning, I read about how the Rolling Stones have dropped "Brown Sugar" from the setlist on their current tour, because it's now offensive (it was always offensive, I guess, but now it offends the wrong people):
https://triblive.com/aande/music/rolling-stones-drop-brown-sugar-from-tour-playlist-as-times-change/
Think about that for a second. These guys are quiiite near to the end of their musical careers, now pushing 80 years of age and one of them, Charlie Watts, already having passed on. They have more money than the Queen, they have a relationship with their fanbase that goes back, in some cases, 50+ years, during which time their willingness to flout convention and push boundaries has been a major selling point; ie they have almost nothing to lose. And yet......here they are caving to somebody or other. I don't think software and organizational capital can explain something like that. And it is but one example of the kinds of things that have become a feature of popular culture.
This still seems to raise the question “where are the right wing firms?” that Caplan and Hanania have been writing about. Civil rights law plays a big part in this I think.
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
I'm not sure this specifically describes why "wokeness" and some individuals promoting woke causes is the answer. If general human capital is becoming more important, could it be the reactionary, or "anti-woke" forces, whatever those may be, feel and act the same way? Yet we don't see reactionary takeover of firms, from what I can tell.
There are other lenses perhaps. For instance, the idea that organizations exist to ... continue to exist. In this case, the question is not so much whether 'woke' can destroy all institutions, but whether it could destroy almost any given one, more quickly than compromising the mission/purpose does. The answer is pretty clear.
As for platforming or de-localization - mobility, etc - yes, it creates less of a stake, less of an identity. For the woke, it enables them to destroy an organization from within and then move on quickly to another rather than have to cope with the results of living in the rubble and perhaps rebuilding with a bunch of angry locals as the home team.
Of course this means that the value of the takeover, falls, too.
I wonder if this applies to countries. Maybe the elite vs populist dynamic is partly about the relative importance of specific and general social capital.
This deserves a longer response, but I will make a quick point: being more tied to your company cuts the other way too. If I am valuable to my current firm but would have to work to rebuild my career skills if I leave, putting up a resistance and then getting fired or punted off the promotion track is very costly. If I know I can go and get a similar job tomorrow I am much more willing to stick my neck out and challenge HR or other management.
A more subtle point is that woke isn't taking over otherwise totally neutral organizations, but rather represents a more fundamentalist sect of the same overall moral code of the left. Much like if you have a local church with lots of moderately religious people and then a hard core of very serious fundamentalists. Eventually the very serious tend to get their way because their arguments are very difficult to argue with when they are already what you are supposed to believe. You might say "Well, sure, we are supposed to follow these rules, and things would probably be better if we did them a bit more, but lets not get crazy." They simply reply "No, crazy is not following the rules you know you are supposed to follow. Friends, I don't think he really believes." Unwritten rules have a hard time standing up to the written in official processes.