Anti-woke capitalism: the radical right attack on green finance and corporate diversity regimes

From 2021 onwards, the US radical right attacked ‘woke capitalism’ across two domains: environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing; and corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) regimes. What historical conditions permitted capitalism itself to become a target of significant right-wing contention in the US? Drawing on a political economy approach that reconstructs the sequence through which these two counter-movements developed and scaled, this article analyses how these counter-movements went further than intellectual sparring through action that included boycotting, legislating, lobbying, divesting, infrastructure building, and alternative market-making. The article argues that these counter-movements were part of a radical right attack against progressive neoliberalism – the bloc uniting Democratic Party elites, asset managers, and major corporations around a vision of green capitalism and meritocratic diversity – which represented a potentially existential threat to the Make America Great Again (MAGA) political project. Their opposition materialised in ‘culture war’ politics that turned relatively technocratic programmes of ESG and DEI into sites of visible political struggle. The article contributes a theoretical and empirical account of the attack on ‘woke capitalism’ and furthers debates regarding the radical right’s relationship to capitalism and neoliberalism.