If we want more companies like Patagonia, we need laws to enforce it

A day after the August NBA strike in response to yet another police shooting—this time, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wisconsin—Uber’s head of diversity and inclusion, Bo Young Lee, tweeted out the company’s new billboard campaign. “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber,” the sign read. Lee added, “Now is the time for all people and organizations to stand up for what is right.”

Corporate America had already been examining its complicity in furthering systemic racism and inequality in the wake of a summer rife with police killings of Black people. Uber, for its part, was one of many companies standing up for what’s right—so long as it didn’t have to change too radically. Several weeks earlier, Uber had committed to anti-racism education for riders and drivers, established that it had no tolerance for discrimination, and pledged $1 million toward criminal justice reform. Even so, the company had committed more than $30 million to overturn AB5, the California law that requires its contract drivers be treated as full-time employees. In other words, Uber was arguing against the single biggest thing it could do to foster equity: give its drivers, which some estimates have put at two-thirds non-white, the stability of healthcare and benefits. (When asked for comment, Uber pointed to previous statements on how it’s fighting AB5 because its workers want flexibility.)

Uber’s moves embody what’s known as “woke capitalism,” where businesses respond to societal issues such as systemic racism with representational gestures, from sobering statements to strategic donations. For some people, this is enough. Or so executives hope.

But for others, society’s multiple, overlapping crises have created an opportunity to make companies more accountable—and, ideally, more innovative. “There’s basically no one arguing for shareholder primacy anymore,” says Julius Krein, founder of the public-policy journal American Affairs. “[Corporate leaders] don’t want to leave the current model because they don’t know what comes next, and they’re afraid.” A movement argues that they don’t have to be.