Who is behind the ‘war on woke’: an interview with Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola

Abstract

Manufactured, divisive and destructive outrage over supposed ‘woke’ issues has long been building in the UK, fomented by think-tanks, media and politicians. To understand the relationship between culture wars in the US and the UK, the interests that lie behind them, and what can be learnt from US resistances to corporate donor influence, Liz Fekete interviews Ralph Wilson and Isaac Kamola, authors of Free Speech and Koch Money: manufacturing a campus culture war (Pluto Press, 2021). Wilson and Kamola analyse the situation in terms of a plutocratic class’s counter-revolution against progressive gains in labour, civil rights and consumer and environmental protections. Though corporate leaders do not hesitate to make use of figures on the alt-Right and those who promote racial science, the authors argue that culture wars are ultimately related to the need to unchain wealth from any regulatory or other constraints.