The 18th-century Enlightenment liberated mind, soul, and
property. It established the world-changing principle that labor and capital
are private property, unleashing unprecedented explosions in work, thrift, and innovation
that lifted millions of people out of abject poverty.
But the modern-day phenomenon known as environmental,
social, and governance (ESG) investing threatens that prosperity.
The implicit promise of ESG investing is that you can do
well and do good at the same time. Investors presume they can make a market
return while lowering carbon emissions or reducing income inequality. However,
this seemingly noble pursuit does more harm than good.
In
Ending ESG and
Restoring the Economic Enlightenment, Sen. Phil Gramm and Terrence Keeley
bring together a collection of insightful essays considering the many problems
with ESG. The authors draw parallels between pre-Enlightenment practices and
ESG's mistaken attempt to enrich society by extracting rents from workers,
consumers, and capital owners. They explain the inefficiencies of ESG
investing, the flaws of ESG rating methodologies, and the conflict between ESG
and fiduciary standards. They also show how impact investing is a viable
alternative for those who genuinely want their capital to do well and do good.
Featuring the writing of Mike Edleson, Alex Edmans, Hester
Peirce, Andy Puzder, and Mike Solon, this insightful volume illustrates why ESG
is so ineffective and ultimately dangerous. ESG, at its root, is a return to
the pre-Enlightenment world, where a self-chosen elite use nondemocratic means
to extract the rewards that come from the sweat of the workers' brows and the
sacrifice of their thrift. We have seen this drama play out many times before. The
sooner we end the ESG experiment, the sooner we can restore the principles that
have always allowed humanity to flourish.
Phil
Gramm is a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and
a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Terrence
Keeley is the chairman and CEO of 1PointSix and the Impact
Evaluation Lab and the author of
Sustainable:
Moving Beyond ESG to Impact Investing (2023).
Mike
Edleson is a retired chief risk officer of the University of Chicago's
endowment and the former chief economist of Nasdaq and the National Association
of Securities Dealers.
Alex
Edmans is a professor of finance at London Business School and
the author of
Grow the Pie: How Great
Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit (2020).
Hester
Peirce is a Securities and Exchange Commission commissioner.
