ESG is an alien imposition that threatens to kill capitalism

The narcoleptic boredom of “pride month”, the annual contrived jamboree when 3.1 per cent of the population (ONS statistic) pressure the remaining 96.9 per cent to spend 30 days “celebrating” the sexual preferences of this loud minority, has given place this year to genuine drama and entertainment, as the rainbow bubble bursts.

The contrast with previous years could not be more stark. After campaigning for decades to secure virtually axiomatic status, the rainbow cause is now fissiparously divided internally and robustly opposed externally. That was always going to be the inevitable outcome of three per cent of the population attempting to impose its culture on 97 per cent; yet, amid the hubris of rainbow entitlement, few of the zealots saw this coming.

The original long march whereby activities that were a criminal offence within the memory of many people were transformed into a celebratory carnival will surely be studied by historians and PR consultants for decades to come. Despite having access to large-scale funding, campaigners faced a mountain to climb, but did so successfully and planted their ubiquitous, though now variegated, flag on the commanding heights of public influence. As political exercises in manipulation of public opinion go, it was masterly. The LGB (as it then was) cause did not put a foot wrong.

Then, however, buoyed by success, it made a fatal misstep by adding the “T” to its acronym, in an effort to expand its constituency. In business terms, this was an acquisition too far: the LGB absorption of the transgender cause could be compared to the RBS, under Fred Goodwin, acquiring ABN Amro.

The business analogy is appropriate because, although the seething cultural confrontations around boycotts, schools and universities are what dominate the media, the ultimate battleground is the boardrooms of giant corporations, where the stakes have suddenly grown massive. Capitalism has had a shaky time since 2008, aggravated by the pandemic: it has never looked more fragile nor alienated more people. Now, in the medium to long term, it is no exaggeration to say that ESG, the CEI and all the other appurtenances of woke corporatism potentially pose an existential threat to the capitalist system.

On the principle “Follow the money”, the problem of woke corporations has shot up the agenda, in America and globally. Disney is in free-fall, having lost its core family audience, as the flop of its latest leftist didactic offering “The Little Mermaid” demonstrates.

But what has most captured the public imagination is the catastrophic consequences for its leading brand, Bud Light, of Anheuser Busch going woke. Its decision to feature a transgender “influencer” in its advertising of a beer notoriously the staple diet of blue-collar, conservative American truckers and similarly gender unconfused males, could hardly be described as sane. In the event, he influenced a 25.7 per cent drop in sales, a $26bn slump in stock value and an irrecoverable tarnishing of the brand.

The marketing vice-president who dreamed up this dramatic rebranding wheeze, Alissa Heinerscheid, is a Harvard graduate who lives in an $8m home in Central Park, New York. Just the sort of person to have an innate empathy with the classic Bud Light drinker. Anyone who thinks this whole scenario is unbelievable may well be right, as we shall see.

Meanwhile, another large corporation, Target, despite having been severely punished by a major boycott over its lavatories and changing rooms policies some years ago, set out to shoot itself in the other foot by laying on an aggressive display of rainbow-themed clothes, including some for babies invented by a Satanist designer, as well as children’s bathing costumes with “tucking” features (don’t ask). In the resulting boycott, Target’s market cap went down by almost $14bn and its stock price fell by 20 per cent this quarter.

A lot is going on here, some of it obvious, some of it obscure. The obvious change is more cultural than financial. Consumers have rebelled against woke corporations and parents have mutinied against school boards brainwashing their children with homosexual and transgender propaganda. Social media platforms such as Twitter are no longer entirely monopolist woke platforms, as Elon Musk’s lifting of the censorship of “What is a Woman?”, Matt Walsh’s devastating documentary exposing the transgender industry, to 165 million viewers demonstrated, though they are still largely so.

The backlash is not yet massive – though it undoubtedly will become so – but that is not the point. The point is that the LGBT hegemony has been smashed – initially by its own leadership, alienating the first initial in its acronym, lesbians, then women as a whole. The entire “pride” imposition depended on public consensus, even if partly achieved by coercive laws against free speech. Only monologue will serve its purpose: to be controverted is to be in retreat, as it clearly now is.

That is the visible tip of the iceberg: what lurks below the surface is infinitely more significant and challenging for all who cherish the family, traditional values and free markets. The crucial question is: why have large corporations, deeply damaged by boycotts, despite a few perfunctory concessions, stubbornly continued to defy the public and haemorrhage customers, sales and stock value?

Because they dare not do otherwise, is the alarming explanation. Just as wider society has been subjected to the tyranny of LGBT prescriptions, business has succumbed to the dictatorship of ESG. When this acronym first gained currency, it rang few alarm bells: why would anyone object to businesses regulating themselves in accordance with Environment, Social and Governance principles, designed to make capitalism socially responsible and contributory to the common good?

Of these three, the rainbow cause, along with race obsessions, comes under the Social rubric, fetishising diversity, equity and inclusion. The other pillar of the ESG ideology is climate alarmism, the core creed headlined under Environment. Behind all the pious declarations and Davosguff, the ESG discipline is a protection racket: large corporations constantly need to borrow money, no matter how well they are prospering they need lines of credit in the short term.

If they do not fulfil the demands of the ESG ideology, they will find it very difficult to get loans. The yardstick that determines whether they qualify as faithful adherents of the ESG cult is the assessment system known as CEI – the Corporate Equality Index. Since company scoring (100 is the ideal rating) on the CEI is supervised by the Human Rights Campaign, the biggest LGBTQ+ lobbying group in the world, ostentatious deference to the rainbow agenda is mandatory for corporations.

The CEI awards a potential 5 points for workforce protections (no discrimination in employment for “sexual orientation” or “gender identity”); inclusive benefits (50 points), including health care for same-sex couples; 25 points are available for supporting an inclusive culture, including “gender-neutral dress codes” and “trans-inclusive restroom/facilities policy”; 20 points are up for grabs for corporate social responsibility, by “marketing or advertising to LGBTQ consumers” – hence Bud Light and Nike’s hiring of Dylan Mulvaney.

More punitively, under the heading “responsible citizenship”, up to 25 points can be deducted if a company gives money “to organizations whose primary mission includes advocacy against LGBTQ equality”, which the New York Post has suggested “could include Christian groups”.

The CEI represents the total, compulsory politicisation of companies and business, depriving them of cultural autonomy. It is as if every major company had been nationalised by a world government and straitjacketed into an agenda that is the reverse of free-enterprise capitalism. Vivek Ramaswamy, author of “Woke Inc.: Inside America’s Social Justice Scam” and currently an aspiring US presidential candidate, gave his views on this to the New York Post.

“The big fund managers like BlackRock all embrace this ESG orthodoxy in how they apply pressure to top corporate management teams and boards, and they determine, in many cases, executive compensation and bonuses, and who gets re-elected or reappointed to boards. They can make it very difficult for you if you don’t abide by their agendas.”

At the apex of this pyramid is BlackRock, with $10 trillion under management. Its CEO Larry Fink, in the context of environmental issues, said on 9 November 2017: “Behaviours are going to have to change and this is one thing we’re asking companies. You have to force behaviours and at BlackRock we are forcing behaviours.”

That is the voice of coercion, backed by formidable wealth. Such woke control freakery depends on consensual participation by peers; but Warren Buffet, of Berkshire Hathaway, has frequently expressed scepticism about ESG. Elsewhere, there is growing resistance to ESG. Florida, under Ron DeSantis’ governorship, has divested $2bn of BlackRock investments. Even that large sum looks like a fleabite in comparison with BlackRock’s $10 trillion; but if others were to follow suit, even that seemingly unassailable brand could be diminished.

This intolerable situation is the outcome of “stakeholder capitalism” ousting conventional shareholder capitalism, prioritising returns for investors. It surely cannot be long before major shareholders of some woke corporation launch a class action against the board for failing in its fiduciary responsibility to maximise shareholder returns, by prioritising a political agenda.

The current problem is that companies that are not woke by conviction follow that agenda, on the miserable calculation that they can survive the loss of 20 per cent of their customer base, but not exclusion from credit lines. Under that Hobson’s choice, Anheuser-Busch’s appointment of a woke airhead (and later scapegoat) to produce a transgender advertising campaign designed to gain CEI points is comprehensible. Such submission, however, means drastic financial results, potentially leading to a spiral of investor withdrawal. In that context, the woke cartel controlling lending is starving capitalism of profit and institutional autonomy, which is not capitalism at all.

Can it be lawful for political and ideological impositions to distort the formerly free market? Can the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which has received millions from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and similarly minded organisations, be allowed to cripple markets in the interests of a lunatic transgender ideology?

Against a background of American public indebtedness of $31.4 trillion, bank failures already occurring this year, the uncertainties and precariousness of China’s $19.3 trillion economy, war in Ukraine and post-pandemic supply-chain disruption, is it tolerable that billionaire plutocrats should distort the market with their infantile prejudices? Is there a crock of gold at the end of the rainbow – or is it just a crock?

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