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American corporations are becoming more and more partisan

Via Tyler Cowen, here's an interesting look at the American executive class. In "The Political Polarization of United States Firms" three researchers report that in large firms the share of Republican executives has grown from 63% in 2008 to 71% in 2018. That's a pretty big increase for ten years.

But there's more! The authors take those two numbers and run simulations to show how partisan individual companies should be. Then they compare that to reality:

In 2008, actual partisanship (the red line) is fairly close to what you'd expect. But by 2018 it's moved considerably. Executive teams are much more partisan than you'd expect based on random hirings and firings.

What this means is that executives are increasingly choosing to work for companies with compatible politics. Republicans are wary of joining, say, Silicon Valley firms, while Democrats are wary of joining energy companies. And if they do join companies dominated by the other party, they're more likely to leave.

This is the same dynamic we see in residential areas, where we increasingly sort ourselves geographically into regions and neighborhoods that are politically congenial. It's yet another sign that politics has gotten so toxic that we're doing more and more to avoid even associating with members of the other team.

40 thoughts on “American corporations are becoming more and more partisan

  1. middleoftheroaddem

    On a related topic, as someone who works at a large company, there is a huge increase in political sensitivity around communications. The cynical might say its a lot of greenwashing and whatever the equivalent term would be for BLM sensitive communication without substitutes changes...

    1. golack

      There's money to be made in window dressing!

      Systemic problems require hard changes. Easier to re-cast them as individual issues.

  2. Salamander

    In related news, here in Albuquerque, the Sandia National Laboratories, which turns Los Alamos's "physics packages" into nuclear weapon systems, has decided to stop requiring COVID vaccinations from its employees and contractors. Some of the many wingnuts employed there whined loudly, it's been reported, so there goes ... well, one hopes, its federal money, which is now some $4B per year.

    SNL pours a LOT of money into the local economy, as you might imagine, so it's probably unlikely that the administration will crack down, as it's entitled to do. But I hope they do.

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      Up the road at Los Alamos my friends are pleasantly surprised how things are trending a bit more blue. Of course they worked outside the fence on non-weapons related research.

        1. Spadesofgrey

          I could care less. Morons like you call anybody "wingnuts" who don't agree with you. Sick of your type. Your as bad as a Christian.

    2. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Lot of physicists think they are the hardest -- & maybe only real -- science, so of course they think they know better than the epidemiologists.

      1. ScentOfViolets

        Oh dear lord. I am familiar with the type, an obviously wrong-heaed lot.

        It's mathematicians that rule over all, of course. Now if we could only do something about those nasty number theorists putting on airs ...

  3. tzimiskes

    I thought there was supposed to be some kind of moral panic because corporations were all becoming woke? Go figure, actual data shows business becoming more right wing then ever.

    Or is this just indicating more conflict between employees and management/shareholders?

  4. Crissa

    When the rules and responsibilities are only for Democrats, while Republicans make rules, they don't believe they have to follow them.

  5. Gilgit

    This is very bad. You don’t have to be a historian to know that owners of rich corporations have a lot of power and they almost always use it to try and implement crony capitalism. A lot of coups have their roots in very rich business people.

    Crony Capitalists will do anything to prevent having to listen to their workers. Yet they never mind sucking up to moron dictators.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      The Business Plot of 1933 was a planned (though not executed) coup d'état by wealthy businessmen to overthrow the government of FDR and install a dictator. This is not the country's first brush with a fascist takeover.

      And the alleged liaison between the plotters and the new Nazi regime in Germany? Prescott Bush.

      No one was prosecuted.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

      1. Spadesofgrey

        That wasn't Fascist idiot. FDR had more ideological interest in Fascism than they did and it was very little. You need a finger snapped for this post. Understand and read in plutocracy moron.

      2. Spadesofgrey

        Prescott Bush Nazi relationship was overblown. Considering Wall Street financed both Bolshevik and Nazi revolutions, I would say it's about plutocracy and capitalizing on profit. Both the Bolsheviks and Nazis came from the darkest roots of the left hegelian movement.

          1. Spadesofgrey

            Absolutely. You are living a dialectical illusion what is left and right nonsense. The left hegelian movement were the skeptics of the day. You can see Bruno Bauer all over Nazi thought especially. The left hegelian movement was not all egalitarianism. But Fascism birthed from it as well. Socialism and Fascism: brothers. Classical Marxism definitely had Fascist elements. Why Nazi's had socialist elements. That liberal democracy and capitalism were not quite the end of history.

          2. Joel

            It's a semi-literate anti-semitic troll. It only leaves its droppings to get attention. Please don't feed the troll--starve it!

  6. KinersKorner

    I can tell you my workplace is filled with loud mouth Trumpilini a holes. Thank goodness my customers are normal
    Human Beings. Pretty much at the end of my rope here and battle constantly to get Faux off the TVs that are installed for News.
    Now I will crawl back into my hole.

    1. Salamander

      Thanks for briefly coming out! Years ago, when I was at SNL, the election of Bill Clinton brought a few of us Dems out of our closets to quietly high five in the hallways. Clinton actually spoke there during the campaign, but basically nobody was permitted to go hear him. (I tried; I really tried.)

    2. Gilgit

      I worked at a stock trading company in 2008. The people there never doubted anything they heard on Fox News. Even though the economy was imploding around the world, they still believed that they and Republicans in general were better than those nasty liberals in every way. No doubts that Obama was a joke. Absolutely no self reflection.

      1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

        Given Jim Cramer's Adventures in Dollar General & not understanding seasonal stocking changes, this is still true.

  7. KenSchulz

    KD: politics has gotten so toxic that we're doing more and more to avoid even associating with members of the other team.
    Yeah, no, they’re a cult, not a team; not members, fanatic devotees.

    1. ScentOfViolets

      I'd say that politics is just a proxy for people who embrace literacy, numeracy, logic, reason, education vs those who take a liking to none of those things.

      You know, the folks who whole-heartedly and full-thoatedly endorse the "I"ve got a gun and you don't" strategy as a way of life.

  8. Heysus

    So, this political partisanship has been going on for some time.
    And we are trying to see folks that are not white as the same as us...
    Not going to happen folks. We are way too biased and closed minded.
    There are two or three republicans that live in my retirement community.
    Funny, that they are my good friends and I am a dem. Do we mellow
    with age...

    1. cld

      Conservatives are really self-conscious that no one likes them and can be quite overwhelmed if you do.

      This somehow or other never translates into them actually doubting wingnuttism, or failing to swallow any amount of incredible horsecrap from their comforting and hectoring, approved sources.

  9. Spadesofgrey

    Ah, the continuing boring Conservative vs Liberals fight that has been going on since 1972. Basically 2 wings of the Right wing. It's boring, it's run its course. Time for a real political revolution that destroys it.

    Ah, how the financial crisis would have destroyed this dialectical nonsense for good. Decadence has its limits. Rand Paul is a joo.

  10. Justin

    I would never work for a tobacco company or a weapons maker. I would never join the military either. The people who do that are evil. So of course they are Republicans.

  11. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    These results will do nothing to quell the laments about "woke capital" (wokital? capiwakeful?) from the Unusual Gang of Idiots like Haw-Haw Hawley, Conor Friedersdork, Megan Mc Hardtotellifshetrolling, &, yes, Kevin Drum.

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