It was always somewhat absurd to celebrate large corporate enterprises for embracing the language of social justice. Many big companies discriminate and treat their workers poorly, whatever superficial inclusionist rhetoric their PR departments like to spout — to say nothing of how many union bust and contribute to climate change. Such enterprises are, by definition, guided by considerations of profit rather than those of justice, which structurally compels those companies to abuse and exploit workers and the environment — and makes the right-wing impulse to label them sinister agents of social progressivism even more ridiculous.

If there’s a lesson in all of this, it’s that much of what corporate America has done over the past decade or so to align itself with the language and iconography of social justice has been more a result of cold market calculus than anything more durable or sincere. With increasing numbers of Americans supporting LGBTQ rights and recognizing the systemic injustice facing black people, boardrooms and marketing teams clearly recognized the trend and airbrushed their branding accordingly. Greeted, as they have been more recently, by organized hostility by a small but vocal and mobilized right-wing minority to such branding, many have relented at breathtaking speed — evidently preferring to cave under pressure than risk alienating any section of their consumer base.

Read more at The Guardian …