Joe Hildebrand: Time the message was a-changin’

Corporate activism continues unabated despite the overwhelming majority of employees and shareholders not caring a jot about the causes overpaid executives attach themselves to, writes Joe Hildebrand.

In a famous interview with Playboy magazine in 1966, Bob Dylan was challenged about the fact he appeared to have left his protesting days behind.

“Why have you withdrawn from participation in all these causes?” the interviewer asked. And then again: “Do you think it’s pointless to dedicate yourself to the cause of peace and racial equality?”

Dylan’s answer was withering.

“Not pointless to dedicate yourself to peace and racial equality, but rather, it’s pointless to dedicate yourself to the cause; that’s really pointless,” he said. “To say ‘cause of peace’ is just like saying ‘hunk of butter’. I mean, how can you listen to anybody who wants you to believe he’s dedicated to the hunk and not to the butter?”

These words from more than half a century ago came rocketing back to me when I saw a report from the Centre for Independent Studies on corporate activism this week.

Qantas changed its livery in support of the Voice to Parliament referendum. Picture: Qantas

Using research from pollster du jour Redbridge – a sharp new outfit co-founded by former top Labor and Liberal Party officials – the report mapped corporations’ social activism on to the engagement of their shareholders and employees to see it matched up.

After all, a corporation is merely a legal entity; it is its shareholders and employees who are the actual people in it.

The results were stark. The vast majority of employees – 58 per cent – and an even greater majority of shareholders – 66 per cent – simply did not give a rat’s about the “social causes” advocated by their company.

It wasn’t that they necessarily disagreed with their company’s position on any given issue, they simply did not know or care what it was.

Presumably most employees just wanted their pay cheques and most shareholders just wanted their returns. And what causes they would or wouldn’t support was a matter for them.

Clearly, therefore, corporations are not responding to a groundswell of demand from within their ranks when they come out in support of this or that.

And clearly, given that they cannot get the vast bulk of their employees and shareholders to even notice, let alone support, their advocacy it is not very effective.

In other words, corporate advocacy, often derided as corporate wokism, does not arise from a real need within the company’s sphere nor does it make a real difference.

It’s about making a brand look better and improving its reputation, often as a fig leaf for the fact it is really just there to make money.

Employees are sceptical of corporate activism. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

Or perhaps, more generously, to make its overpaid executives feel better about themselves and convince themselves that they are really “making a difference” instead of just making money (see above).

Little wonder young people are sceptical and shareholders don’t care.

What does this mean for the issues themselves rather than those who most loudly and proudly proclaim how much they care about them?

This was put into sharp, sad and darkly ironic relief during the Indigenous Voice to Parliament campaign. The fact that support for the Voice went from about 60-40 in favour before the campaign started to 60-40 against by the time it finished tells you just how successful that campaign was.

As an ardent and longtime supporter, I watched all of this unfold with jaw-dropping dismay, particularly at how nauseating and counter-productive the platitudes of corporations were during a cost-of-living crisis which many people blamed on said corporations.

It quickly became clear that every expression of corporate support was hurting the Voice rather than helping it. When a top campaigner was brought in late to try to salvage the wreckage I grabbed his ear and said it was a terrible look. “I know,” he replied ruefully. “The problem is it would look even worse if we told them to stop.”

And so, much like the drowning man who clamps himself around his rescuer and drags them both down, corporate woke warriors were a dead weight on the outcome they supposedly wanted.

But this hardly matters to them because it is not really about outcomes, it is about demonstrating how much you care – that you are a good and socially responsible corporate citizen.

Indeed, it’s just a richer, slicker version of a bumper sticker that says “CLIMATE ACTION NOW!”

Is this expected to give the tailgater a Road to Damascus conversion? As in: “I was a bit sceptical about climate change but then I saw this sticker on the back of a Corolla and it changed my mind …”

Or maybe they’re hoping to cut in on a presidential motorcade and give Xi Jinping something to think about?

Hardly. Instead, it’s simply about declaring the values of the person driving the car, just as corporates endlessly and earnestly proclaim their “values” to anyone who’ll listen – which does not include most of their workers or owners.

It’s not helping to achieve the outcome – it’s simply telling people how much you care about the cause.

Or, as Bob Dylan would say, it’s all about the hunk and not the butter.

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