I routinely engage with corporate executives at pro-ESG institutions, including public companies, asset managers and proxy advisers. (“ESG” stands for environmental, social and governance, factors to be considered by corporations and investors when making business decisions.)
While objective in theory, in practice, you will find no light between the typical ESG platform and the governance wish list of Elizabeth Warren. ESG is, in practice, a Trojan horse for partisan policies for those unable to implement them via legislation.
There is a specific type of individual routinely found on these calls — distinctive in their ability to (1) filibuster in corporate-speak, (2) brazenly ignore compelling evidence of bias, and (3) throw handfuls of factually implausible explanations for that bias against the wall in hopes that some of it will stick, or at least distract until the call ends.
For example, over the years, a number of these actors have supported zero — as in not a single one — of our or our allies’ “anti-ESG” (or, more accurately, “pro-fiduciary-duty” or “pro-prosperity”) shareholder proposals despite supporting significant percentages of pro-ESG proposals, amounting to a vast amount of partisanship.
This is in the face of proposals mimicking pro-ESG proposals but for their viewpoint diversity. For example, proposals for a diversity, equity and inclusion audit to root out White supremacy or gender equity codes or catastrophizing that failure to abandon all oil and gas activities will result in stranded assets may generate 30 percent support. However, let someone submit the exact proposal only with a reverse discrimination viewpoint or green-stranded assets as the focal point, and, suddenly, no support can be found.
The explanations for this overt bias don’t hold up under the most basic scrutiny.
On a recent call, the following excuses were given: (1) “We are merely implementing our clients’ preferences.” (2) “There is no evidence your proposals address issues that are material to the bottom line.” (3) “Your language is incendiary.” (4) “The issues you raise do not constitute big issues or big problems or real controversies. You’re simply grabbing one-off headlines.” (5) “Your proposals don’t implicate reputational risk.”
Most of these are factually unsupportable because the issues are some of the most significant to corporations, including racial discrimination, transgenderism support and climate policies. As for client preferences, that could be a legitimate excuse. This could also signal that these institutions are running cover for fiduciaries to breach their duties in pursuit of ideological ends.
Finally, the language may be incendiary — to a leftist.
This leads to a recent book review of “The Total State: How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies,” by Auron MacIntyre. The review makes six points: (1) America is effectively run by a managerial elite. (2) This managerial power constantly seeks to expand and centralize its power. (3) “Naturally, managers have a material incentive to make alleging the virtues of control and top-down social engineering the locus of their moral and ideological beliefs.” (4) Having passed “through the same educational institutions … they are enculturated with the same language, cultural sensibilities, and ideological prejudices as their peers.” (5) “This unification means that competence in a given organization is of less importance to one’s career than an ability to demonstrate loyalty and acceptance within the managerial class. Refuse to hold the correct opinions and your professional future across the managerial world — now global — is permanently tarnished.” (6) “Faced with the need to maintain a façade of … legitimacy, the managerial regime’s solution has been … to seek to manage the will of the people. … Hence the belief in the need to tell ‘noble lies’ …; hence, the constant media gaslighting; hence, the vast … censorship-industrial complex.”
All of this explains a lot. These managerial types — the “VP of Corporate Diversity and Green Energy” et al. — are all in on ESG. There hasn’t been a more significant “brand” for centralizing power in the managerial elite since the New York Times praised Joseph Stalin’s five-year plans. These managerial elite are going to be black belts in corporate doublespeak. They are going to be all-in on the lies they must spout to maintain their status.
Now, if I can stop letting them get under my skin.
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