Most big companies have a “deep state” of their own that drags them into taking woke positions on social issues, and it is called middle management, according to Ben Shapiro.
Citing a recent study titled “Why Do Companies Go Woke?”, the best-selling author and host of “The Ben Shapiro Show” said companies get pulled into taking social stands that have nothing to do with their core business by strident middle managers. Middle managers push their companies to take stands on social issues not only for ideological reasons but also for their own job security, Shapiro said, citing co-authors Nicolai Foss, of Copenhagen Business School and Peter Klein of Baylor University.
“If you’re a middle manager, the best way for you to ensure your own future employment is to go woke, because it means that if you get fired, then you get to yell at your former employer about how they are racist and terrible,” Shapiro said, referring to the study. “If you go woke, it’s a protection mechanism.”
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While lower-level workers worry about providing for their families and the brass frets about the bottom line, middle managers have figured out that being outspoken about Left-wing social issues means job security. It signals to human resources departments that an employee will make a big stink or portray themselves as a martyr if they are fired, Shapiro said.
The woke Left requires your surrender. If they don't get it, they'll come after you. They're Voldemort.
But why are corporations complying? Because their middle management rules the roost. Major corporations act out of fear: fear of liability, fear of bad media coverage. pic.twitter.com/Zcv2ZoChYE
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 9, 2023
“The people on top of the company have been bullied into silence by the ridiculous kind of legal architecture that’s been set up around HR,” he said. “And the people at the bottom, who just want to do their jobs, don’t care.”
Shapiro cited Disney and pre-Elon Musk Twitter as examples of woke middle management inmates running the asylum, and said he suspects the same principle was at play this week, when Airbnb found itself in a pickle. As reported in The Daily Wire, conservative Canadian YouTuber Lauren Southern revealed on Twitter that her parents had been banned from the vacation rental service simply because of their daughter’s politics. After The Daily Wire pressed Airbnb, the company claimed Southern’s parents had been banned by “mistake.”
Shapiro suspects the decision regarding Southern’s parents was carried out by a member of the middle management core “who make the decisions that shift the culture and turn corporations into woke corporations.”
The same thing happens in politics, he said.
“We talk about the deep state in the federal government, [and how when] Donald Trump takes over the presidency and there are a bunch of career bureaucrats existing in the executive branch, they just work against his interests because their interests are not his interests, for example,” Shapiro said.
Businesses that succeed inevitably end up bureaucratized, and that layer of management ends up with all the power, he said.
“You end up with middle managers in control of the company because the people at the top have basically delegated their way out of power,” Shapiro said, adding that those bureaucrats soon learn they can protect their jobs by imposing their Left-wing social beliefs on the company.
“And this is how things keep getting moved to the Left,” he said.
Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for kids entertainment content.