Michael: Alright Kevin, quick role-play. You're the CEO of a massive bank that just got caught in a multi-billion dollar scandal. What's your next move? Kevin: Easy. Announce we're going carbon-neutral by 2030, put a rainbow flag on our logo, and issue a press release about our new "gender-inclusive internship program." Distraction is the best PR. Michael: That is frighteningly accurate. And it perfectly captures the core argument of the book we're diving into today: Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam by Vivek Ramaswamy. Kevin: "Social Justice Scam." That's a provocative title. I feel like this book probably didn't make a lot of friends in corporate boardrooms. Michael: Definitely not. And what makes this book so explosive is that Ramaswamy isn't an outsider throwing rocks. He's a Harvard and Yale Law grad, a biotech billionaire who became a CEO in his 20s. He calls himself a "traitor to his class," and he's here to expose the playbook from the inside. Kevin: A traitor to his class! Okay, I'm intrigued. So, this billionaire insider is pulling back the curtain. What's the fundamental secret he's revealing? What's the scam? Michael: The scam is a powerful, modern phenomenon he calls the "Woke-Industrial Complex." It's this bizarre fusion of corporate power and social justice language. And at its heart is a simple, cynical rule he learned early in his career. Kevin: A rule? I like rules. They're simple. What is it?

Michael: He calls it the "Goldman Rule." And it's brutally simple: "He who has the gold makes the rules." Not just the financial rules, but the moral ones, too. Kevin: That sounds like something a villain in a movie would say right before taking over the world. Michael: It's a real story from his internship at Goldman Sachs. They had this mandatory "service day" where all the young, ambitious analysts were supposed to go plant trees in Harlem. But instead of serving, they spent the day networking and gossiping. The managing director shows up late, wearing pristine Gucci boots, tells them to take a few photos for the corporate newsletter, and then takes everyone to a bar. Kevin: Wow. So the service was just for show? Michael: Completely. When a young Ramaswamy asked an associate what the point was, the guy just shrugged and said, "He who has the gold makes the rules." The lesson was clear: for the powerful, virtue is just another asset to be managed. It's about looking good, not being good. Kevin: Okay, that's a great story, but it was an internship years ago. How does that "Goldman Rule" play out today in this Woke-Industrial Complex? Michael: The perfect modern example is the "Fearless Girl" statue. Everyone knows it. That little bronze girl, hands on her hips, staring down the Charging Bull on Wall Street. It became an instant global icon of female empowerment. Kevin: Of course! A symbol of women taking on the boy's club of finance. It was inspiring. Michael: It was. Until you learn who paid for it. It was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors, one of the world's largest asset managers. They put it there to advertise a new investment fund they had, the "SHE" fund, which focused on companies with women in leadership. It was a brilliant marketing campaign. Kevin: Hold on. So it was an advertisement? Michael: It gets worse. At the exact same time that State Street was getting global praise for being a champion of women, they were quietly settling a lawsuit from their own female employees who alleged they were being systematically paid less than their male counterparts. Kevin: You're kidding me. The "Fearless Girl" company was in the middle of a gender pay-gap lawsuit? That is next-level audacity. Michael: That's the Goldman Rule in action. You use the appearance of caring about a social cause to gain profit and power, precisely to distract from things that might hurt your profit and power. It’s a feature, not a bug, of the system. And it's not a one-off. He points to Goldman Sachs again, announcing a new diversity edict—that they wouldn't take a company public without a "diverse" board member—right around the time they were paying over $5 billion in fines for their role in the 1MDB scandal, a scheme that looted billions from the people of Malaysia. Kevin: So, when you see a corporation waving a social justice flag, the first question shouldn't be "Is this right?" but "What are they trying to sell me, or what are they trying to hide?" Michael: Exactly. Ramaswamy argues that corporations have figured out they can launder their reputations through wokeness. They get moral legitimacy on the cheap. Kevin: Okay, I get the 'what'—it's a cynical game. But I still don't get the 'why.' Why would corporations, the supposed temples of capitalism, get in bed with social justice movements that are often anti-capitalist? It feels like a cat marrying a dog. It just doesn't make sense.

Michael: That's the most fascinating part of the book. He calls it an "arranged marriage" born of mutual desperation. To understand it, you have to go back to the 2008 financial crisis. Kevin: Right. The big bank bailouts. Everyone hated Wall Street. Michael: Exactly. For the first time in a long time, there was a real, populist anger directed at the heart of capitalism. The Occupy Wall Street movement springs up. Their slogan is "We are the 99%." It's a class-based argument. It's the poor and middle class versus the super-rich. And that was a genuine threat to corporate America. Kevin: So how did they defuse that threat? Michael: This is the genius, and cynical, part. The conversation got hijacked. Ramaswamy points to how movements like Occupy started implementing something called the "progressive stack" in their meetings. This meant that instead of just anyone speaking, people from marginalized identity groups—based on race, gender, sexuality—were given priority. The focus shifted from class and economic inequality to identity-based grievances. Kevin: Ah, so the conversation changed from "the rich are screwing us" to "the system is biased against certain groups." Michael: Precisely. And corporations saw a massive opportunity. They couldn't win the argument about class—they were the 1%. But they could easily join the conversation about identity. They could say, "You're right, the problem isn't capitalism, it's patriarchy! And we're here to help. Buy our 'fempowerment' razors." Or, "The problem is systemic racism, and we'll fix it with a Black Lives Matter-themed Pepsi ad." Kevin: So it's like the two unpopular kids at prom! Wall Street was the rich but hated jock after 2008, and the woke movement was the morally righteous but broke activist. They teamed up to rule the school. Michael: That's a perfect analogy. Wokeness needed money and a massive platform to spread its message. Capitalism, post-2008, desperately needed a new moral halo. It was a marriage of convenience. Each side got something it desperately needed. Kevin: But it feels so... empty. Ramaswamy contrasts this with his own parents' story, right? Michael: He does, and it's a beautiful part of the book. His parents had a traditional arranged marriage in India. It worked not because it was a cynical transaction, but because their families genuinely looked for deep compatibility—in values, in background, in life goals. It was built on trust. He uses that to show just how hollow this corporate-woke marriage is. It's not based on any shared values; it's a quid pro quo. Kevin: A "mutual prostitution," as he calls it. Michael: A harsh term, but it captures his argument. The result is this new Leviathan, this woke-industrial beast, that has the moral authority of a church and the financial power of a megacorporation. Kevin: Which brings up a scary question. If this alliance is so powerful, what happens to people who don't play along? What happens if you're an employee who doesn't want to, say, "be less white"?

Michael: And that's where Ramaswamy makes his most provocative claim: wokeness isn't like a religion, it is a religion. Legally and functionally. Kevin: Come on. That sounds like a stretch. A religion needs a god, scriptures, rituals... Michael: He argues it has all the equivalents. Think about it. Original Sin? That's "privilege." You're born with it, you can't get rid of it, and you must spend your life atoning for it. Blasphemy? Saying something that goes against the orthodoxy, like questioning a diversity initiative. Excommunication? That's cancellation. Kevin: Huh. When you put it that way... it's a bit eerie. Michael: It gets more concrete. He points to a diversity training course that was leaked from Coca-Cola. The slides, created by the anti-racism trainer Robin DiAngelo, literally instructed employees to "try to be less white." Kevin: To be less white? What does that even mean? Michael: The training defined "being white" as being oppressive, arrogant, and ignorant. So employees were being told, in a mandatory corporate training, to shed their inherent sinfulness. If that's not a religious-style moral instruction, what is? Kevin: That's just bizarre. But is there any legal basis for this "wokeness is a religion" idea? Michael: This is the brilliant part of his argument. He points to a real court case, EEOC v. United Health Programs. A company forced its employees into a self-help program called "Onionhead," which had its own spiritual-style teachings. Employees who refused were fired. The company claimed it was a secular wellness program, but the court ruled that "Onionhead" was, for legal purposes, a religion. The company couldn't force its employees to adhere to it. Kevin: So you could sue your company for religious discrimination if they force you to attend a woke training session? That's a wild legal judo move. Michael: It's his key proposal. He says we shouldn't try to ban wokeness. That's a losing battle. Instead, we should legally recognize it as a belief system. If we do that, then Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prevents religious discrimination, kicks in. A company can't fire you for being a Christian, and they also can't fire you for not being a Christian. By the same logic, if wokeness is a religion, a company can't fire you for not being woke. It protects freedom of conscience. Kevin: That is a genuinely clever, and unexpected, solution. It's not about fighting an ideology, but about using the existing system to create space for dissent. Michael: Exactly. And that's his ultimate point. The antidote to this whole mess isn't more division. It's not about creating an "anti-woke" movement to fight the "woke" movement. He argues the real solution is to dilute wokeness to irrelevance by rebuilding a shared American identity. Kevin: An identity that's bigger than our race or our politics. Michael: An identity based on shared ideals, like the American Dream and E Pluribus Unum—from many, one. He believes that if we have a strong, positive vision of what unites us, the power of corporations to divide us for their own gain will simply fade away.

Kevin: Wow. So this book, which starts with a critique of corporate greed, ends with a call for national unity. It's a much more hopeful message than I expected from the title. Michael: It really is. Ultimately, Ramaswamy's argument is that this isn't just about corporate hypocrisy or political correctness. It's a battle for the soul of America. When corporations, whose purpose is to make a profit, get to decide our social and moral values, democracy withers. The real power grab isn't for our wallets, but for our identity. Kevin: It leaves you with a really challenging question: Who gets to define our values? Is it us, as citizens in a democracy, or is it the marketing department at the company that sells us our soda and sneakers? Michael: That's the question at the heart of it all. And it's not a question with an easy answer. It's a huge question, and we'd love to know what you think. Drop a comment on our socials. What's your take on the 'Woke-Industrial Complex'? Kevin: We're genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on this one. It's a topic that touches everything, from the products we buy to the way we see ourselves and our country. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.