In my last column, I talked about how the best businesses work hard to satisfy all their stakeholders.Not just shareholders but employees, suppliers, customers and communities.Businesses focused solely on short-term profits don’t last long.If you cut corners on quality, your customers will leave you.If you squeeze your suppliers too hard, they won’t trade with you.If you undercompensate your employees – or ignore their reasonable requests – they will take their talents elsewhere.Smart managers know this. And so do smart investors.That’s why I scour the market regularly for companies that exemplify the stakeholder approach.In recent years, however, stakeholder theory has morphed into something different… woke capitalism.Woke capitalism isn’t about companies fulfilling their mission or maximizing shareholder value.It’s about promoting a particular social agenda.Not everyone shares that agenda, however, or benefits from it. And therein lies the first problem.Woke capitalism is inherently divisive.Instead of seeing each employee or job candidate as a unique individual with specific talents, skills and shortcomings, it sorts them into groups based on race, gender or sexual orientation.This shouldn’t need to be said but I’ll say it anyway: No one is less qualified for a job because of their race, gender or orientation.However, the converse is also true.No one is more qualified for a job because of their race, gender or orientation.When companies prominently announce that they are changing their hiring and advancement policies to increase their “diversity scores,” it is not about fair treatment… or equal treatment.It is about preferential treatment.That is bound to create hard feelings in some quarters.Yet in today’s hypersensitive workplaces, expressing dissent on woke policies can leave employees open to charges of bigotry, ignorance or closed-mindedness.Rather than fostering unity and inclusion, it creates frustration and resentment.How does that promote team cohesion?
Justplainbill's Weblog 
The Trouble With Woke Capitalism, by A. Green
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