The S.W.I.N.E. Strike

I have often speculated on why so many corporate CEOs happen to be leftist.  It seems to me that running a company in a capitalist competitive system, for profit, would turn even an idealistic youth into a strong proponent of capitalism.  They would relish the thought that they had made a major difference in the lives of so many who otherwise might starve had it not been for the company they ran and the jobs it provides.  They would also relish the fact that they had made so many of their fellow citizens happy with the products they produced that had made lives better.  I think here of Henry Ford, who noted that he produced cars so inexpensively that even his own workers could afford them.  But he also paid a premium wage for his workers.

Now, I understand that journalists today are a college trained, self selected cohort of people who naturally want to change the world.  These people I understand.  But the majority of CEOs of large corporations, I have never understood.

But now, in an article at The Federalist Willis L. Krumholz explains How To Stop China And The Left From Controlling The World Through Intolerance. You, like me have probably noticed that the Left seems to be eternally offended about something. And this is not new. When I was a teenager, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I used to read and get a laugh at a cartoon called L'il Abner by Al Capp. Among the many denizens of characters appearing in the cartoon was  a protest group called S.W.I.N.E. which is an acronym for "Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything." But in the era of political correctness, the S.W.I.N.E. have become more numerous, more strident, and if it is possible, more intolerant of every value we traditional hold.  Why?

Krumholz explains that it is a little known law of psychology that the most intolerant wins.  Every time.

A Harvard Business Review article from earlier this year conducted an admittedly limited survey of consumers’ views of when corporations engage in political activity. It found Democrats are much more intolerant of corporations that engage in conservative activism than are Republicans toward corporations that engage in liberal activism. More research here is needed to track what consumers actually do with their money, instead of what they simply say they will do.

Nevertheless, the message to corporate America has been clear: Liberal activism doesn’t cost anything, while even latent conservatism might result in boycotts and media frenzies. In the face of this asymmetric intolerance, corporations rationally take the path of least resistance and slide into corporate leftism.

It turns out a great many of the baffling frustrations Americans feel — from Nike paying Kaepernick millions, to Hollywood bowing to Chinese censors, to China holding an undue and sinister influence over the World Health Organization (WHO) — may be explained by a simple axiom: “The Most Intolerant Wins.” As we’ve seen in Hollywood, the media, Big Tech, and now the World Health Organization, often the most intolerant is China.

Note that the emphasis is mine.

I can't help but believe that this may be the true reason. I myself often react by trying to ignore yet another outbreak of PC mania nonsense. It is too disturbing to my serenity. The latest, when Land-O-Lakes decided that the Indian maiden logo offended some vocal S.W.I.N.E. protesters, I couldn't get worked up about it. Let Land-O-Lakes do what the want, I don't have to buy it. Indeed, Land-O-Lakes is not, by far, the tastiest butter around. In fact, it is pretty flat, only exceeding margarine in terms of flavor. But Land-O-Lakes won't notice that I have stopped buying their products, any more that Starbucks, or Target, or Walmart will notice these things.

And herein is the problem.  The great majority of people have real lives, have a sense of perspective, know that most of this protesting is seeming trivial stuff being shouted by a tiny minority and then amplified by the media.  This minority would be controllable, except that they have a big brother making waves behind the scenes, in board rooms, at media headquarters, and as we learned yesterday, even in our entertainment, movies, television, and academia.  The most intolerant of all is the Chinese Communist Party.

Of course, merely finding a problem is of little help if there is no solution.  Luckily, Krumholz offers one:

The answer is to make American policy the new path of least resistance. American corporations should no longer operate in an environment where America is playing nice while China is playing hardball. This may require some blunt-rule policymaking.

...snip...

Finally, the ultimate removal of the perverse incentive to take the path of least resistance will require systematically cutting ties between China and the United States. This means ensuring the independence of our health-care supply chains and onshoring much else. We should pursue something the Japanese are doing: paying manufacturers to bring jobs out of China and back to America.

Please go read the entire article. Then think about what we can all do to address the S.W.i.N.E. in our lives.