Starting in the interwar period (between World Wars I and II) and rapidly accelerating in the 1970s, there were shifts to the global economy that radically increased the influence of the “symbolic industries” – science and technology, education, media, law, consulting, administration, finance, non-profits, NGOs and advocacy organizations, and so forth. People who work in these fields traffic primarily in data, ideas, rhetoric, images instead of physical goods or services. Drawing from Bourdieu, we can refer to these professionals as “symbolic capitalists.” One defining trait of symbolic capitalists is our commitment to social justice. We are the Americans most likely to self-identify as feminists, antiracists or allies to LGBTQ people. Politically, we’re overwhelming aligned with America’s primary ‘left’ party. Many of our professions are explicitly oriented around altruism, speaking truth to power, or serving as impartial adjudicators, knowledge producers, facilitators and advisors in order to advance the common good. Given the ways symbolic capitalists like to understand and describe ourselves and our professions, one might expect that as people like “us” have gained more power over society, longstanding social problems would be on the path to resolution and socioeconomic and cultural inequalities would be greatly diminished. In reality, the opposite has happened. In tandem with the transitions favoring the symbolic industries, we’ve seen increased polarization and social conflict. Public trust in institutions has been consistently plummeting. Many systems and institutions are growing increasingly dysfunctional and ineffective. Inequalities in the U.S. have grown increasingly pronounced as symbolic capitalists have risen in affluence and influence. Symbolic capitalists are, themselves, among the primary beneficiaries of these inequalities – and social justice discourse is increasingly mobilized to justify them. The ‘losers’ in the symbolic economy are portrayed as deserving their lot because they think, feel or say the ‘wrong’ things about race, gender and sexuality. Elites’ bids for more power and status, meanwhile, are increasingly bound up with their egalitarian bona fides. Understanding this state of affairs requires a deep and unflinching look into the history and political economy of symbolic capitalists. Although our professions have, from the outset, defined themselves as altruistic in nature — oriented towards higher principles or the greater good – the truth is, we have never been woke.
