The Economist UK - 31.08.2019

The EconomistAugust 31st 2019 77

Most woke →

↑

Donate more to

Democrats than

Republicans

Wokeness index Wokeness index Wokeness index

← Least woke ← Least woke Most woke → ← Least woke Most woke →

Finance Consumer-facing† Health Technology

Energy, chemicals and others* Finance Consumer-facing† Health Technology

05100510051005100510

0

25

50%

0 25 50% 0 25 50% 0 25 50% 0 25 50 75% 0 25 50 75%

0

25

50

75%

Even socially liberal companies prefer Republicans—but not as much as their less “woke” peers do

Sources: Centre for Responsive Politics; JUST Capital; employersforpayequity.com; Federal Election Commission; SEC;The Economist

*Industrial goods, utilities, oil & gas, construction, aerospace & defence, chemicals †Household goods, transport, food, retail, entertainment

Wokeness index v share of donations given to Democratic candidates

By industry, 2018

Party that won presidential election

of2016 in company’s home state

Democratic

Republican

Share of firms that meet the following wokeness-index criteria Signed brief supporting same-sex marriage Signed brief supporting transgender bathroom rights

Signed brief opposing Donald Trump’s travel ban Belong to group seeking to end the gender pay gap Have employees who mostly donate to Democrats

Energy, chemicals and others*

Halliburton ExxonMobil

General

Electric

Visa

Bank of

America

Goldman

Sachs

BlackRock

Johnson &

Johnson

Pfizer

Cigna

Universal Health

Services

General

Motors

Wendy’s

PepsiCo

Delta

MGM Resorts

McDonald’s

Motorola

Solutions

Microsoft

Amazon

PayPal

Facebook Intel

Alphabet

HP

C

aptains of industryand social-jus-

tice warriors are strange bedfellows. Yet

many American companies have embraced

leftist causes. In 2016 PayPal cancelled its

expansion in North Carolina after the state

began limiting transgender people’s choice

of bathroom. When Donald Trump insti-

tuted a travel ban on people from Muslim

countries, 164 firms signed legal briefs op-

posing it. And following a mass shooting in

2018 Delta, an airline, ended discounts for

members of the National Rifle Association.

Sceptics of corporate social responsibil-

ity (csr) say that such acts are mere mar-

keting. Firms support reforms like laxer

immigration laws out of their own finan-

cial interest; and supporting causes like

gay rights costs them nothing. They still

prefer conservative policies on their main

concerns, often taxes and regulation.

Yet in a two-party system, firms cannot

order a main dish of tax cuts with criminal-

justice reform on the side. Democrats back

social liberalism and tighter state control

of corporations; Republicans espouse the

opposite. Do supposedly socially tolerant

companies donate more to leftists than to

candidates on the business-friendly right?

To answer this question, we built a zero-

to-ten “wokeness index” to measure the so-

cial progressivism of 278 firms. We give one

point each for signing legal briefs in favour

of gay marriage, or opposed to the Muslim

ban or transgender bathroom restrictions.

We grant another point for joining a group

that seeks to end the gender pay gap and for

having a workforce that gives at least 60%

of personal donations to Democrats. The fi-

nal five points are based on csrscores from

justCapital, a pressure group. The wokest

companies, such as Microsoft, cluster in

tech; the least woke are in oil and gas.

Armed with this index, as well as data

on political donations from the Centre for

Responsive Politics, a research group, we

sought to measure whether woke firms

practise what they preach. The results offer

some support for each side of the debate.

On one hand, wokeness clearly sways

political-action committees. Using a sta-

tistical model, we found that if you took a

group of companies in the same industry—

which all gave $100,000, and were based in

states that voted similarly in the presiden-

tial election of 2016—those with ten woke-

ness points would have given $12,000 more

to Democrats than those with zero. (Com-

panies tend to donate more to the party

that is more popular in their home states.)

This effect varied by industry. The wok-

est health-care companies (such as Cigna,

an insurer) gave Democrats half of their do-

nations, compared with just a third for the

least woke (like Universal Health Services,

a hospital manager). The gap was smaller

in industries affected by environmental

regulation, such as chemicals. The wokest

of these firms gave about 30% of their mon-

ey to Democrats, and the least woke 25%.

However, csr sceptics will note that

even the wokest companies give priority to

profits. Firms in the top quarter of our in-

dex gave 58% of their money to Republi-

cans. Liberals can denounce Alphabet, an

advocate of gay marriage, for donating to

politicians who oppose it. But if Google’s

parent company were less woke, it might

have given even more to Republicans. 7

Socially liberal firms really do give

more money to Democrats

Money where their

mouths are

Graphic detailWoke companies