Corporations Pursue Profits, Not Justice

Our relationships with corporations are by definition transactional. We give them money, and in return they provide goods or services.

It’s a particularly American trait for us to extend greater meaning to our relationships with corporations. We identify with brands — what we think they represent — and utilize them as proxies for our identities, both to ourselves and to others.

But branding and cause marketing and commercials and messaging — all of it is for a single purpose: to generate revenue. This is the raison d’etre of corporations, which we should keep in mind when they attempt to insert themselves into our heated culture wars.

By now most are aware that Target — a place to buy underwear and cleaning supplies and luggage and electronics and swimsuits — pulled LGBTQ-friendly or branded merchandise from its stores after threats of violence to its employees and stores from homophobic, intolerant bigots concerned that some children’s sexual preferences would be forever influenced by items for sale at a department store.

Target, of course, will survive, although the hit to its bottom line was not insignificant — and might last a bit. Bud Light and its parent company Anheuser-Busch are still experiencing a similar backlash after making Pride-designed beer cans.

Personally, I’m not changing any of my purchasing habits after these incidents. I already don’t drink Bud Light, and have no intent to start now, simply because I don’t like that beer. (I also drank a lifetime’s worth of it during my freshman year of college.)

And I went to Target as recently as two weeks ago to buy undershirts and a suitcase, and will return without hesitation. The reason I go there is because they have things I need at a decent price, and no other.

That said, do I personally boycott stores because of their stances? There is a local coffee shop I used to love…but quit supporting when I found out their ownership financially contributes to forced-birth causes. I avoid Chick-fil-A, despite their fries, because of their homophobia.

But there is a difference here. Chick-fil-A actively and financially supports causes to which I’m opposed.

Bud Light was simply putting their same watery beer into a different can. And Target was making money by turning an identity and cause into a market.

If companies want to create markets out of social identities, and profit off of that, and market towards that, go for it.

But if they’re going to quickly cave to pushback, and give in to intolerant, violent bigots, maybe it’s better to stay out of it.

I respect prioritizing protecting employees and stores, and can’t argue against it. But it does make me wonder about those calling in or making other sorts of violent threats.

That’s against the law, right? Besides, if you don’t want a t-shirt, don’t buy it. If you want to boycott, like I do with Chick-fil-A, do it.

(Why the violence towards workers and stores? Why the impulse towards threatening property and people over merchandise you find distasteful? That impulse is a separate conversation, and is indicative of a breakdown of our social order. It seems that no, we can’t agree to disagree, and no, we can’t all get along. That is perhaps not surprising, but it seems a long away from engaging in a civil war over slavery and the role of the federal government to rebelling against rainbow-colored bathing suits.)

Of All People, Americans Should Know What Drives Business: $

The so-called justification is people are afraid of corporations trying to impose values on them, of pushing an agenda.

But corporations have always been transparent about their ultimate value and single most important agenda: to make money.

Bud Light didn’t go woke. Just the opposite. It was doing what it’s been doing forever: trying to sell more beer.

I’m not aligning myself in the culture wars via commercialism. Instead, I’ll advocate for my values and chosen causes in ways that are more meaningful: by donating to organizations that support civil rights, equality and tolerance, by voting for candidates who do the same and engaging with elected officials.

The revolution won’t be televised. Neither will it be won at a convenience store.

. . .

It can be tempting to want to support companies attempting to showcase values of acceptance. There is a part of me that loves Bud Light seeming to embrace Pride Month and the LGBTQ community.

Just this weekend I was at a coffee shop displaying a Pride flag. I, too, am touched when companies showcase tolerance and creating welcome spaces, especially for those who are targeted, still, for so much discrimination and hate.

But Anheuser-Busch crushed its rainbow-colored beer cans just as fast as Target yanked its rainbow-colored swimsuits from its shelves. They retreated the instant there was backlash, because that backlash, in addition to threatening actual property and people, also put at risk their bottom lines.

I understand that it’s disheartening to see mega-corporations fold so easily. But I’m not so sure Target and Anheuser-Busch truly care about the LGBTBQ community past their market value. What they care about are profits.

The Fight for Equality Goes On — Just Somewhere Else

The cause marketing businesses engage in, while superficially beneficial, is deceiving in how it impacts social movements, which in actuality is not at all. It can seem like a culture war win for a store like Target to sell Pride merchandise, but a win via a commercial outlet is really not a win.

In the wake of threats to Target stores remain the very real and frankly more consequential threats to actual LGBTQ people.

Equality, tolerance and fairness won’t be gained at the check-out line. It will only be gained in legislative bodies and in court.

If you really care about promoting and supporting the LGBTQ community, don’t buy Bud Light. Give your money to the ACLU, which is actually working to secure rights for the LGBTQ community nationwide.

As mentioned, the reflexive response to violence is a testament to the rot and intensity of our political and cultural moment, our inability to tolerate or accept people unlike ourselves.

Yet that reflex exhibits the real work that remains.

Be far less disappointed and horrified at what is happening at Target than what is happening in state houses in Florida and Texas. While no one wants to see your average store employee targeted for violence, those in the LGBTQ community, especially people of color, are on the front lines of violent bigotry every day, and at rates much higher than non-LGBTQ people.

They are suffering, and they need help. Urgently. And that help won’t be delivered by what flavor or brand of six-pack you buy.

. . .

These cycles only frustrate and let down those they are meant to bolster and include — and fortify those who discriminate against them.

Because of our culture’s emphasis, nee reliance, on social acceptance via commercialization, wanting to be seen by corporate America is an understandable desire. Seeing Jewish objects in stores like Target or in grocery stores do make me feel seen and recognized. I can sincerely relate to that.

But that only goes as far as my checkbook — and I don’t feel any more or less Jewish based on how the commercial market sees me.

And I’d rather not be seen as a market anyway. Aren’t we tired of being exploited by being some company’s target demographic?

We can’t buy our way to social justice. Corporations exist only to serve themselves, and we’re foolish to think or expect otherwise. It’s why, despite even the noblest intentions, most Americans feel corporations fall short of any social justice goals or accountability.

It’s understandable why corporations want to appear to have a sense of social justice. Research shows companies with effective Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are more profitable than those that don’t.

But that study measures profits — not social justice.

The costs of failure are too high. It’s not what companies are built to do.

Instead, corporate America should take a Hippocratic Oath of sorts. Commit to doing no harm first and foremost.

That means treating employees with respect, providing them a living wage with benefits and working conditions that are safe, reasonable and humane.

It also means not despoiling the natural world in the process of producing and dispensing your product.

That’s as much as we can ask for.

Let us fight for quality and justice where it matters most: in our legal systems and our access to safe and secure housing, food, medicine, clean air and water, and equal rights under the law.

All of those are more valuable — and sustainable — than bathing suits.

And when we attain them, when justice is truly garnered and secured for all, we can toast to that — with any damn beer we choose.

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This post was previously published on Scott Gilman’s blog.

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