Quote:
Which raises the question: Why do billionaires such as Howard Schultz retain such faith in the neoliberal formula despite the evidence that no voters want to drink it? Why are free markets and social justice the philosophy of choice in Seattle and Palo Alto if this combination is so disliked by everyone else?
The answer can be found in the boardrooms where Howard Schultz made his living. Our era has witnessed an unprecedented groundswell of corporate progressive activism, from boycotts of the NRA to a push to legalize same-sex marriage to the circulation of open letters in support of trans rights and undocumented labor. Corporate leaders are largely white, well-educated, urban, and wealthy, and wokeness, especially to the younger half of that demographic, is a form of social currency. As Ross Douthat has pointed out, such activism is also an adaptive strategy to facilitate continued corporate enrichment: By taking the progressive side in the culture wars, corporations can earn goodwill from the “resistance” and deflect its regulatory impulses.
A simpler answer: he's just a guy with liberal instincts who is also rich and following his economic self-interest. I notice no elaborate theory was required to explain the existence of the populists, presumably because National Review wouldn't want to print the obvious: that they are reactionaries who are also voting their economic self-interest. Since the explanation can't be ACTUAL CURRENCY, you know, material self-interest, we have to suffer through this idiot explanation about "social currency".