Is ESG a Threat to Capitalism? Live with Samuel Gregg, Russ Greene, and Zach Weissmueller
Join Reason on YouTube and Facebook on Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a live discussion of "stakeholder capitalism" or Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing.
"The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits," proclaimed Milton Friedman in a famous 1970 New York Times essay.
The view that the primary aim of a business is to increase profits and shareholder value is one that's been challenged in business schools and by economists, politicians, and in the marketplace. The rise of the theory of "stakeholder capitalism," which posits that business should also aim to achieve certain environmental and social goals, has led to the increasingly widespread adoption of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing in the financial sector. The SEC has proposed regulating ESG standards, a move that would allow the federal government to further define what constitutes a "socially responsible" company.
Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday for a discussion of ESG and its effects on corporate America and the global economy with Samuel Gregg, a Distinguished Fellow in Political Economy at the American Institute for Economic Research and Contributing Editor at Law & Liberty as well as Russ Greene, a senior fellow for economic progress at Stand Together, which is a supporter of Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason.
Watch the stream above or by visiting Reason's Facebook page here.
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The rise of the theory of "stakeholder capitalism," which posits that business should also aim to achieve certain environmental and social goals...
As long as those work to increasing profit and actual value.
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They increase profit and value because government interferes in markets and punishes companies who don't follow the political dictates. That's a fascist economic system, not free market capitalism.
it's anti-science but most leftist garbage is so no surprise
>>The SEC has proposed regulating ESG standards
right here is exactly why esg is allowed to be a thing
It isn't just that they are proposing regulating ESG standards.
The problem is that Federal and State governments are loosening the standards of fiduciary responsibility to include ESG performance. And so pension fund managers for large states will be able to use the trillions of dollars in taxpayer and employee money to push decidedly leftist policies on corporations.
As [centrally] planned, comrade.
ESG is s subset of stakeholder capitalism, which itself is sheer bonkers.
Businesses have enough problems gauging markets and planning investments in future products, when the choices are fairly limited. You run a toy company -- what toys have been doing well, what new toys seem like good bets?
But then throw in unions, and now you have to wonder not just what the union leaders want, but in what categories, and what the rank and file want, and how all of that affects production and investments.
Then throw in customers' wants which are not product related. Do customers want you to raise prices with cleaner processes which use more energy? Who can tell? Are their polls showing what customers want, and are these of your customers, all toy customers, or all customers?
Then throw in ESG and try to guess what the fools are going to glue themselves to next week, next month, next year, or how that interacts with the customers who want cleaner processes using more energy.
On and on it goes. It's not just having too many known variables, or even an unknown number of unknown variables, it is that they all conflict.
Stakeholder capitalism is an oxymoron. ESG is so far beyond an oxymoron that it needs a new name. How about poxymoron?
ESG is also an added expense. There's meetings (drawing employees away from productive work), training (expensive), paperwork (wasted effort), and lack of focus (executives should be worried about profitability).
ESG is more than just stakeholder capitalism on woke steroid.
It is a backdoor to pure Stalinism.
Actually, it's pure fascism: private ownership of the means of production, but deployed under the direction of the state, supposedly "for the benefit of society". That's the way Nazi Germany and fascist Italy worked.
Under Stalinism, companies are put directly under state control with no private ownership.
What is it when they tell me I will own nothing and be happy?
Eat ze bugs, prol.
"The New Normal"
"That’s the way Nazi Germany"
EXACTLY.... ESG is just woke-terminology for National Sozialism(Nazism).
There's another term for it: corporatism. And the Democrats seem to have gone whole hog into it.
In corporatism, the power is with corporations; in fascism, the power is with politicians. I think we are more fascist than corporatist.
A threat to capitalism? No, at least not the collaborative fascist kind. But definitely a threat to anything like free markets.
ESG is a consequence of monetary debasement. When the markets are awash in liquidity, it’s easy for executives to ignore the fundamentals. Stock prices rise because investors will pay for mediocre or even poor performance. And executives decide they can leverage their position for their own benefit. In the case of ESG, pushing an agenda that will satisfy their political and social sensibilities with little concern over whether their companies are actually profitable. When that liquidity dries up, it’s not the case that they’re in the same position that they’d be in if that liquidity had never been there in the first place. They’re actually in a worse position. In flush times, they squandered their brand equity and degraded their value proposition.
Which is why they are pushing to use pension coffers to solidify ESGs before the easy money dries up. Once the trillions of dollars of pension funds, run by state employees, are demanding ESG attainment, it won't matter if ESGs are bad business. They will be table stakes required to get investment from 40% of the investment market.
I think you're right. But, of course, that has consequences for the pension funds, as well. They're already grossly underfunded and make ridiculous return assumptions. Restricting purchases to even more underperforming assets will only exacerbate the problems. So, we'll get an even larger round of federal bailouts for the pensions. And the funds behaving as a de facto branch of the government. All in a "capitalist" economy.
The states fully expect --- probably correctly --- that the Feds will cover all shortcomings.
Stakeholder capitalism is fine for marketing how your business directly influences the rest of the cultural ecosystem but when it becomes external demands unrelated to business purpose then you've wandered off into gulag territory.
What it becomes is affirmation of marxism or you're "harming" some pissant that is harmed solely by not getting their way.
Stop using marxist terminology.
Capital economies can take many forms, some bad. Cronyism, fascism, socialism, communism can all be called capitalism and disguised by how they're executed.
What we want is a free market.
ESG isn't a threat to capitalism because ESG is capitalism. It's bad capitalism.
ESG is a threat to FREE MARKETS. It's corruption of the market using capital allocation to distort it toward unnatural, political results.
The conflation of capitalism with free markets is so persistent by the writers here.
There are really two things wrong with the socialism-vs-capitalism terminology: Socialism is a term for a specific political ideology AND economic system, while capitalism is a generic term for the use of capital investments in an economy and does not refer to any specific political ideology.
What we have is a “republican form of government with a social market economy”.
What libertarians want is a “minarchist form of government with a free market economy”.
You could also have a “monarchy with a free market economy” or many other combinations.
Socialists want a "majoritarian form of totalitarian government with state capitalism."
Progressives want "oligarchy with fascist-style economics."
Reason doesn’t know what they stand for, but it is certainly not libertarianism.
I hate that conflation, but it’s hard to avoid. Every system relies on capital investments one way or another, even communism. It would be grand to come up with a new term for free marketism.
ETA but that horse has flown the coop, just as "liberal" used to mean liberty, and got co-opted by Progressives, which itself is counter-factual.
It's easy to avoid: when people use "capitalism", respond using the terms "free market capitalism" or "state capitalism", as appropriate.
The term "liberal" still means what it always meant and it used to be a reasonably descriptive terms for Democrats: moderately free market oriented and socially liberal. It's not that they "co-opted" the term, it's that Democrats have been taken over by radical left wingers. Bill Clinton's political positions were to the right of Trump's.
The solution there is the same: when people say "liberal", just clarify and say "progressive". Democrats themselves don't seem to insist on the "liberal" label anymore, in particular, since they don't like "neoliberalism".
This is a bizarre nitpicking. Capitalism has always meant the owners of capital (property, labor and wealth) get to determine how that capital gets deployed. This is synonymous with free markets.
The term "capitalism" has been created and used by socialists for a long time for any form of economic system in which the means of production are privately owned: free market economies, but also fascism, social market economies, and feudalism. Furthermore, they view "capitalism" as not just an economic system but an ideology.
If you generically defend "capitalism", you implicitly defend all those system. Don't fall into that trap.
If you want to defend free market economies, say so, or at least use the term "free market capitalism".
It's not a threat, just a dumb way to decide on investments, and a jobs program for grievance studies majors.
Reason's stance on ESG is a simple one: It doesn’t exist, but even if it did, it would be a good thing. That’s why they still insist that Twitter is a private company, even though it coordinates with the FBI to censor anons who question the state-approved narrative. David French, being the servile cuckold that he is, recently argued that it’s okay for the alphabet agencies to promote online censorship, so long as they ask Twitter nicely and don’t threaten them.
"Nice blue bird you have there. Would be a shame if it got plucked by someone. No threat intended."
ESG is not a threat to fascist-style capitalism or to state capitalism, it enables it.
ESG is a threat to free market capitalism.
But I see that Reason has joined the socialists in their equivocation over the term "capitalism".
Capitalism can do no wrong! Capitalism is always right!
Quit policing language. It's gay and makes you sound like a robot.
Stop propagandizing people with Marxist terminology.
I am gay.
That's as opposed to a confused little socialist soy boy like you.
ESG is also a threat to the populace to elect it's own government. ESG is corporate governance. I think the fortified elections (not just here) are for the benefit of Globalist corporations and not any particular party.
"ESG is corporate governance."
Which is the "camel's nose" of corporatism.
It's a threat to capitalism the way a bad business plan is a threat to opening a bowling alley.
ESG is, in and of itself, anticapitalist.
Incorrect.
It's perverted capitalism, but it is capitalism: the accumulation and wielding of capital to grow and achieve goals.
Profit/capital has no value in and of itself, but only as a means. Same as an undeveloped plot of land.
ESG isn't a bad business plan. It's a means.
ESG isn’t a bad business plan. It’s a means.
We'll see about that.
ESG is anti-free-market-capitalism; it is pro-fascist-style-capitalism.
Marxists refer to both of those as "capitalism", so you have to be careful to make a distinction.
Stakeholder. An opinionated and entitled individual who believes they know what others should believe and do, with absolutely nothing of their own capital [assuming they have any] invested.
So, just like voters then.
There is a reason only landowners were allowed to vote originally.
That also avoided pesky questions like citizenship.
You know who else campaigned on "Social Governance"?
Hint, hint;
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nazi
Etymology ---
German, by shortening & alteration from Nationalsozialist, from national national + Sozialist socialist
The National Socialist German Workers' Party
If folks want to invest in actual socially and environmentally conscious businesses, they can take a bath like everyone else who bets their money on intangibles instead of data and research.
Capitalists aren't stupid. Successful ones see the world clearly and adapt to changing circumstances. They will find a way to monetize ESG and embrace it.
As for the Milton Friedman quote, there are many family business which are run for the benefit of family, not to maximize profit.
"The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits,"
"The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits," proclaimed Milton Friedman in a famous 1970 New York Times essay.
I don't know much about economics or its history, but it seems that this is something that stems from an assumption that people make economic decisions according to what is in their "rational best interest." And I think that this is not an accurate description of human behavior. At least, not accurate enough to justify it being the basis of economic theory.
A business is made up of people. The business's customers are all people. Executives, managers, workers, and consumers are all people and will be motivated by more than their "rational best interest" as they make economic decisions just like they do in everything else. Arguing that it is the responsibility of business owners and their employees to act only in service of maximizing the profits of the business is to argue for them to act against their human nature.
Personally, I wouldn't want government to explicitly get involved in ESG. But I also don't want government to support there being a legal duty of a corporate entity to increase shareholder value by all legal means regardless of the moral implications of what it takes to accomplish that. As long as a company is transparent about its values and goals in how it will behave as a business, then shareholders are free to either vote for a different board of directors to change its direction or sell their shares. I don't like the idea of shareholders looking for other ways to punish a corporation for not being cutthroat enough to make them more money.
If I invest in a company, or a fund, the people who run that company or fund have a duty to me to attempt in good faith with a reasonable amount of diligence and competence, to increase or at least maintain the value of my investment.
ESG explicitly puts other goals ahead of, and often in direct conflict with, that duty.
If the company clearly has ESG as part of its business philosophy, then you are free to not invest in that company. I'm saying that I think that the government should neither encourage nor prohibit publicly traded companies from doing that if they choose to, as long as they are transparent about it.
Something else to consider though - Part of why I point out that people don't always act in their own rational best interest is that consumers will make some decisions about products or services at least partly based on their perception of the morals and ethics of the company that they would be buying from. Does a clothing or footwear company use sweatshop labor in poor countries? Some people won't want to buy their t-shirts or shoes because of that, even if those are the best products at the best price. A company that pollutes to the maximum allowed by local laws (perhaps even moving its manufacturing overseas to avoid environmental regulation as well as for cheap labor) might get a reputation that costs it customers.
For some companies, ESG might be a PR move as much as one driven by liberal political ideals. In that case, they would be fulfilling their financial duty to their investors by following ESG practices.
The largest problem with ESG is the fiduciary failure to shareholders. You CANNOT pursue an agenda where the Board + C level executives are beholden to interests outside those of shareholders. It is blatantly illegal and violates your rights as an owner.
There is a slim possibility of a public company pursuing ESG at the behest of its shareholders, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to prove intent. The best solution is to ban ESG in publicly traded companies. If you want to run your company like this, go private.
Try explaining that to JasonESG above.
Try explaining that to JasonESG above.
Why? Nothing awildseaking wrote addresses what I have been saying. It doesn't explain why shareholders can't elect a Board that won't pursue ESG and will only hire executives that won't. It doesn't explain why it is a violation of fiduciary duty to pursue ESG as part of a PR strategy to improve consumers' perceptions of the company and thus its profit potential.
It's like signing a contract to murder someone. It doesn't matter that all parties consented; you cannot create a legally binding agreement to violate the law.
The violation of fiduciary duty arises from the obligations of ESG. ESG principles are already a part of every business environment and should remain so. You want to consider how your operations affect the communities you operate in; the earth, people, and social structures.
You can already include these principles in your business, so what's the difference here? Modern ESG adherents invite the stakeholder into matters where the legal responsibility is exclusively to the shareholder. Publicly traded corporations putting their owners first is a basic social contract. There is no security in investing if the owners have limited rights and cannot hold the board to account.
Imagine if judges issued rulings based on public outcry and not the facts of a case and the law. That's what modern ESG has become.