Wilson, Waldo, Woke CEOs, and Ways Forward

The economics profession, in general, has been failing to educate the general public on basic economic principles. It has been failing for at least a century, as the ascendancy of the administrative state clearly shows. Progressive President Woodrow Wilson believed that an administrative state was better than a representative republic. Dwight Waldo took the Progressive vision a step further and argued that not only is it impossible for the experts to be value neutral, but that the experts should never be value neutral. The consequences of this authoritarian, constructivist-rationalist solution are visibly manifested in the form of wokeism: the adoption of diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) with social justice (JEDI); what is referred to as environmental, social, and governance “values” (ESG values); and the rejection of the free market. CEOs sign on to this belief system because wokeism provides the CEO, management team, and board of directors an excuse to loosen the profit leash that constrains them. Yet for all the woke victories in academia, media, and the corporate world, those who support individual liberty and the free market can hope for victory. This lecture offers suggestions for reversing the tide.