Have you ever wondered why so many companies invest so much energy and resources into being woke?

After all, business seems like it should be about, well, business! Basic economics tells us that resources are always scarce, and the goal of a successful corporation is to use its resources more effectively than its competitors and thus make a profit.

Because every business executive knows this, he will constantly perform cost-benefit analyses to ensure his business is getting the biggest bang for its limited buck. This would seemingly boil down to simply selling good products.

So where does wokeism fit into all of this? After all, it has nothing to do with selling good products.

I believe the answer can be found lurking in the magic word I used in the previous paragraph: cost-benefit analysis.

Corporations are always evaluating the pros and the cons of the various actions they take, and in today’s highly politicized world, costs and benefits aren’t just rows of numbers flowing across an income statement. Cost-benefit analysis, more broadly speaking, implies that a corporation seeks to mitigate its risk—and there is definitely risk involved when you refuse to bend the knee to prevailing politics.

This risk will ultimately end up hitting the company’s pocketbook.

Think about it this way: if corporations are consistently exerting themselves to virtue signal their wokeness, that likely means—in some sense, because of the very nature of business—that there’s a financial incentive to do so.

And if so, is there a way for disenchanted consumers like you and me to leverage our financial influence to clean up the mess of corporate wokeism? I believe so.

Dr. Richard Kocur, associate professor of business at Grove City College, recently gave a talk on corporate wokeness this last March which was published on GCC’s Institute for Faith & Freedom Channel.

In his talk, he masterfully dissected the anatomy of modern corporate wokeism—in his words, an “alphabet soup” composed of concepts such as CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance), and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). These building blocks of the modern business environment pressure corporations to align with various environmental, social justice, and ideological commitments if they want to receive investment, comply with government regulation, or simply avoid negative publicity.

Ultimately, Kocur claims, businesses are herded into the cattle pen of wokeism because of that central business instinct—mitigate risk.

Think about where many companies get their labor—young employees fresh out of the higher education system. And think about what kind of values are promoted by the higher education system—many of the same ones that have now infiltrated the corporate world.

When businesses hire college graduates, they are hiring swarms of employees who believe they are morally bound to fight the social and racial injustices in society. And this internal pressure from employees, Kocur observes, prompts the businesses themselves to support these values institutionally.

Once wokeism infiltrates the business world, this pressure is no longer merely internal. If you’re a non-woke business holdout, you’re having to compete with a multitude of woke businesses for woke laborers. Good luck.

And that’s not all, Kocur explains—the risk of noncomformity only increases in the age of social media, where a single disgruntled employee can sound the alarm about his company management in front of the whole world. And journalists can pick it up and spread it like wildfire. And big investment funds can decide to remove your business from their portfolio.

Ultimately, we see how ideological stances—or the conscious decision to abstain from them—can really and truly impact the bottom line. For business, wokeism is a pocketbook concern.

So there is no ignoring it.

All in all, the forces undergirding corporate wokeism seem deeply entrenched in today’s business-culture environment. Is there anything we can do? I believe there is—we can leverage the very principle that drove the business world into this mess. Think about it this way—corporations can only survive if you give them your money.

Sure, as a company, it’s a big financial risk to avoid aligning with woke ideals if your own employees are yelling at you to do so, or if big investment funds are threatening to take you off the list. But it’s also a big financial risk to align with woke ideals if your customers will take their business elsewhere.

As oxygen is to your body, so a customer’s wallet is to big corporate giants. Sure, if one oxygen atom is removed from the room, you won’t get hurt. But if they all are, you will suffocate.

So, if you’re disillusioned with woke companies, refuse them your business. Your dollars are the most effective votes you can cast on business choices. And given the very definition of business, there is no ignoring them.

Kocur points out that conservatives are already using this strategy to good effect, recalling the recent controversies over Bud Light and Target’s support of LGBTQ values in their merchandising. As a response to consumer backlash, Target did indeed take down displays and move their gay merchandise to less prominent sections of stores.

But Kocur observes that they still suffered on the bottom line; their in-store sales dropped over 5% and their online sales sunk over 10%. That is a financial message that no business can afford to ignore.

Now, some may object to the whole idea of fighting fire with fire.

“Business shouldn’t be about politics. So why should I take into consideration ideological issues like wokeism when I’m simply doing my weekly shopping?”

Sure, on the one hand, it may seem odd that a company’s environmental commitments would be a reason for you to not buy their cereal. But keep in mind that, if you don’t like how business is about politics these days, that model exists precisely because these businesses are making their business about their politics.

Your choice to shop with them is buying into that—literally—whether you like it or not. So if you don’t want business to be about politics, why would you incentivize businesses that do?