“Woke capitalism” is when companies seemingly support a progressive agenda, such as featuring LGBTQ issues in advertisements. Some critics have said that this is just marketing and public relations, and that “woke capitalism” is still “capitalism.”
 
The term “woke capitalism” has been cited in print since at least 2016, but it’s uncertain who came up with the idea first. “Woke capitalism, it’s lit” was posted on Twitter by “tragically offbeat” on February 22, 2016.
 
           
Twitter
tragically offbeat
@_imbg
More tragically offbeat Retweeted eve peyser
woke capitalism, it’s lit tragically offbeat added,
eve peyser
@evepeyser
I feel ready to die
9:13 PM - 23 Feb 2016
   
Twitter
MotherofLions
@universalbell
So keep your super woke capitalism tweets and your self hating jokes from around here. Representation matters.
8:33 AM - 21 Apr 2016
     
Twitter
Jamie Pastore
@jamiepastore
Replying to @mkurtkaya @mekosoff
Thanks for the Oscar Wilde level banter, but I’ll probably stick w/ Scumpeter for my daily dose of woke capitalism talk
12:09 AM - 17 Aug 2016
 
Twitter 
Mert
@GOPSPN2
The women of color who most favor the bougie feminist model of woke capitalism are the ones already most capable of succeeding monetarily\
7:24 PM - 28 Aug 2016
     
Twitter
Emily the Bulbasaur, dipshit anarchist 🏴
@bulbafren
LRT these people are so desperately clinging to the idea of Woke Capitalism fixing everything
4:22 PM - 11 Nov 2016
     
Medium
#DeleteUber, Super Bowl Ads, and the Limits of Woke Capitalism
MitchellCares
Feb 13, 2017
(...)
These are the limits of “woke” capitalism. Even in the most dire of political climates, there will never be a call to action or a true alternative to the potential horrors we might face. At the end of the day, what these ads are meant to do is to give a cathartic feeling so that consumers feel better buying their products. Capitalism does not inspire revolution or action, it suppresses it. No matter how much you want to try and turn buying Nordstrom’s products into a revolutionary act, it will never be one. At the end of the day, companies will do whatever they think is the best for their bottom line. Sometimes that lines up with our political positions, but rarely is it a genuine expression.
 
Twitter
💨ᴼᵀᴼᵀᴼᴵ 💨
@manwblueguitar
More 💨ᴼᵀᴼᵀᴼᴵ 💨 Retweeted The Daily Caller
woke capitalism (“latte capitalism”) might be the thing that finally unites me with 16-yr old marxists 💨ᴼᵀᴼᵀᴼᴵ 💨 added,
The Daily Caller
@DailyCaller
TheDC’s @ScottMGreer: Corporations Now Push Woke Consumerism http://trib.al/JaAPxDT 
9:30 AM - 22 Aug 2017
 
Twitter
blue 🌊 rant 🧢 2019
@web_rant
Replying to @cmclymer
Woke Capitalism is better expressed through the board of directors than the marketing department.
11:24 PM - 4 Feb 2018
 
New York (NY) Times
The Rise of Woke Capital
By Ross Douthat
Feb. 28, 2018
(...)
Corporate activism on social issues isn’t in tension with corporate self-interest on tax policy and corporate stinginess in paychecks. Rather, the activism increasingly exists to protect the self-interest and the stinginess — to justify the ways of C.E.O.s to cultural power brokers, so that those same power brokers will leave them alone (and forgive their support for Trump’s economic agenda) in realms that matter more to the corporate bottom line.
(...)
The win-win scenario for woke capitalism can’t last forever. But it might be quite the racket while it lasts.
       
Twitter     
Josh Barro
@jbarro
“Woke capitalism,” as practiced by companies like Delta and described by @DouthatNYT, is a real thing. But it’s not (mostly) a lobbying strategy. It’s a customer-retention strategy, because the customer base is more left-wing than the voter base.
7:20 PM - 28 Feb 2018
       
Twitter 
Steely Dean
@Ritalinhead
Replying to @jbarro @DouthatNYT
“Woke Capitalism” is just modern jargon for PR. Delta isn’t very “woke” on issues like labor, health care or taxation.
7:31 PM - 28 Feb 2018
 
Twitter 
Death Yoga
@Deathyoga777
Interesting thoughts from @DouthatNYT. Though Douthat uses the term with a bit of sarcasm, “woke capitalism” is ominously Orwellian. “Cronyism is good. Cronyism has always been good.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/opinion/corporate-america-activism.html …
1:49 PM - 3 Mar 2018
 
Twitter
𝔏𝔞𝔲𝔯𝔢𝔫 ℜ𝔦𝔫𝔞𝔩𝔡𝔦
@LRinaldiArt
Woke capitalism is still capitalism 😒
5:50 PM - 5 Mar 2018
 
Spectator USA
Gillette and the rise of woke capitalism
Is there no corner of life that will not be needlessly politicized by those who think they know better?
Tom Slater
January 15, 2019 11:45 AM
The politicization of consumer products is one of the weirder developments of recent years. First, Oreos came out in support of gay rights. Then Nike extolled us to ‘believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything’, in its multimillion-dollar campaign with controversial former NFL star Colin Kaepernick. Now Gillette has launched a new advert calling on men to be ‘the best men can be’ and shed the nefarious habits of ‘toxic masculinity’ in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
(...)
This all sounds very noble. But it’s not. It is just the modern-day blight of right-on snobbery infecting the corporate world and a sign that, in these increasingly polarized times, there is no corner of life that will not be needlessly politicized by those who think they know better. Down with this woke capitalism.
 
The California Aggie 
The problem with “woke capitalism”
BRANDON JETTER — .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) FEBRUARY 8, 2019
How the marriage of market capitalism with social progressivism trades the interests of the worker in favor of profit
While it may have already fallen out of relevance in our ever-accelerating news cycle, Procter and Gamble Co.’s Gillette ad targeting so-called toxic masculinity stirred up yet another culture war frenzy last month. The commercial, praised by some and the target of scorn for many more, was yet another entry in a growing list of corporate adverts aimed at promoting social justice. Yet the main takeaway from the ad may be just how hypocritical and exploitative the relentless force of “woke capitalism” is.
 
Twitter
Imtiaz Mahmood
@ImtiazMadmood
We are living in an era of woke capitalism in which companies pretend to care about social justice to sell products to people who pretend to hate capitalism.
1:18 AM - 3 Jun 2019