Ginger posted an article on Ben & Jerry’s published statement supporting Unilever’s decision to cease ice cream operations in the West Bank, and the pushback on that statement by Bret Stephens who attacked it as being sanctimonious and a scam. This begs a question for Ginger: what at all does any discussion about ice cream, corporate behavior, the woke or unwoke corporate culture, the power of customers and stakeholders to affect corporate behavior have to do with music and the arts?

Ben & Jerry no longer own their eponymous ice cream company, the global products company Unilever does, but nevertheless these founders of the company they no longer own recently voiced their support of Unilever’s decision to cease ice cream operations in Israel’s occupied territories. Their position was simple; they wrote, “business is among the most powerful entities in society…[and as such companies] have a responsibility to use their power and influence to advance the wider common good.” (We’re Ben and Jerry. Men of Ice Cream, Men of Principle. NYTimes 7/28/21).

Those with wealth become apoplectic at the mere suggestion that the system is somehow skewered unfairly towards their interests. Wealth doesn’t equal virtue. The existence of wealth doesn’t equate to “deserved” wealth. Dick Cheney once said, “And I earned every penny of it.” Don’t we all?

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