George Floyd

Leo

Well-known member
Continuing with Apple as an example, management is woke and legitimately cares about all the correct social issues, but in the end they will sell iPhones to BLM and Proud Boy followers alike. they might prefer to sell to the former rather than the latter, but they will ultimately sell to either/both.

The company's positions on social issues and marketing efforts may appeal to woke folk and repel racists, but they will sell to anyone. how can they not? apple store employees aren't going to interrogate shoppers about their political beliefs and then decide whether the customer meets their corporate criteria.

the only way anything changes is if more people bought iPhones because of the company's positions and racists decided among themselves to boycott the product. but as long as racists go to an Apple store and pull out their credit card, Apple will sell to them.
 

vimothy

yurp
ofc, there's no way for them to enforce this in practice. Im not suggesting its a real possibility, only that apple's commitment to being woke is real
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
and if they could somehow prevent racists from buying their products - assuming it would have a limited effect on profits - then so much the better
please

where is there any evidence of this?

they're going to tell shareholders "we could have done better this quarter but we decided not to sell to people whose beliefs we don't agree with"?

of course not
 

vimothy

yurp
why would they say that? and what shareholders would agree with them? but if they were to say, we're not going to sell our products to racists...
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it's absurd

I'm sure there are individual employees who'd make that trade-off. for a corporate entity ultimately there's just the bottom line.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
where was this commitment to social justice before it became the predominant national issue

where was it before it became good business
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I'm not saying you can disentangle them

I am saying that at any hard decision point, the bottom line will win out over a commitment to social justice

that is, a commitment beyond what is demanded by the social context of the particular historical moment

for evidence, see the entire history of free enterprise
 
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