this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Politics
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Social movements like equality and abortion are extremely popular, both amongst the voting population and the public in general.
Why do you think massive corporations jump on this stuff? They want the free PR so they can make more money! Corporations do not have political ideologies unless they are privately held and run by individuals--any company that has public investment is legally obligated to increase profits above all else.
Look up "rainbow capitalism" and you'll realize that the actual activists, the real leftists you are so scared of, don't like what they see any more than you do, but because of the empty slogans and meaningless marketing gestures. Because it's not real progress!
Just a minor point here... corporations absolutely do have political ideologies. those ideologies are dictated, as you mentioned, by seeking profit. Which is why they interfere in politics so much- it's less expensive for them to create a favorable regulatory frame work in place than it is to actually not be assholes. For example, one of the things that directly lead to trump's victory in 2016, was an episode where the Koch plant in Corpus Christi, TX got dinged by the EPA back around 2000. (technically for not reporting benzene leaks. unofficially, they removed monitoring equipment and were letting that shit go. because the EPA relies on self reporting... they actually have no proof at all that they were leaking shitloads of benzene.)
this lead the Koch brothers to back republicans basically everywhere, including Trump, where some of the stuff he actually did... involved deregulation of environmental protections. Yeah. Because not leaking freaking toxic pollution into the air, directly harming residents in the area is too expensive and too burdensome.
edit to add: on the other end of the spectrum, you have companies taht are definitely afraid of things like climate change (and whose business won't be adversely impacted by those regulations) absolutely lobbying for things to reduce the impact of climate change. (or, because their business is predicated on building solar or windmills, and such like.)
Very good points! I should have been more specific that corporations are usually not motivated by the social side of most political issues. Anything that impacts them financially, though, is certainly fair game from that perspective.
Mostly trying to clarify that Target almost certainly didn't have trans-oriented swimming suits for adults because the corporation or even the CEO cares about that issue in an ideological, philosophical or moral sense. They had those products because there was a market for them and they saw a way to meet that demand. That's it.