THE CAPITALIST AND THE ACTIVIST

A legal scholar examines the growing phenomenon of corporate activism.

In this debut book, Lin—a law professor at Temple University and Academic Fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Law, Economics & Finance—suggests that “too often the stories of activists and capitalists are told as disparate, unrelated stories of distinct tribes.” With an expert’s grasp on current trends in corporate America, the author instead sees the “new reality of corporate social activism” and the “interplay between capitalists and activists” as an important 21st-century development. Nearly every major corporation, for instance, has formal “social responsibility programs,” and Fortune 500 companies have pumped billions of dollars into these campaigns since 2020 alone. The intertwining of grassroots and corporate activism can be seen in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida. At the same time, gun control activists, many of them students who survived the shooting, organized the “March for Our Lives” protest in Washington, D.C., and America’s largest banks cut their financial ties to gun manufacturers who made bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. Corporate influence on social issues comes as no surprise to Lin, who describes in an accessible and rigorous narrative how government policies in the 1970s and ’80s and Supreme Court cases like Citizens Unitedhave transformed companies into “private empires.” And though there is a “danger of corporate whitewashing” by using social justice campaigns to divert attention from “problematic business practices,” the author by and large sees the intersection of social consciousness and capitalism as a positive development that leads to “Better Activism” and “Better Business.” Thus, while recognizing corporate bad actors like former hedge fund manager Martin Shkreli, the engrossing book often gives entrepreneurs the benefit of the doubt. Many moderates and neoliberals will share the eloquent volume’s optimistic sentiments as well as embrace its support of both free market capitalism and social justice reforms. But those outside the ideological mainstream may find this work a frustrating read—from those on the right like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who rail against “corporate communism” to those on the left whose plans for systemic reform include dismantling corporations.

A well-researched, absorbing, and balanced case for corporate-activist partnerships.