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“Even more frustrating is why exactly so many companies are abandoning their consumers and their stockholders to endorse such nonsense. The answer, however, lies in something much more nefarious than simply jumping on a trendy bandwagon. Three little letters are responsible for the shift in what we once believed was a free market: ESG.”
–REAGAN ESCUDÉ SCOTT
Over the last decade, Americans have watched large corporations and companies become more radically progressive, or “woke.” Everything from Pop-Tarts to Disney to Lowe’s to Geico to Target to Family Dollar has become infected by the rainbow alphabet brigade, the black supremacy mob, and the bloodthirsty pro-aborts.
But it’s not just their “wokeness” that has given pause to the shopping habits of Christian and conservative Americans. It’s also their brazen political involvement by leveraging their billion-dollar corporatist power to usurp the voting power of “We the People” and infringe on the democratic process. It’s a frightening thing to watch, but it’s happening in real time.
Corporations are not just propagating secular, left-wing ideology in their marketing strategies, but they are influencing lawmakers to write it into state and federal legislation.
In 2021, at the height of a Georgia runoff race for the U.S. Senate, Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, and Major League Baseball partnered for a pressure campaign to force the state of Georgia to reverse a newly passed election law that required voters to present a government-issued ID to receive an absentee ballot. Mainstream media referred to the legislation as “Jim Crow 2.0” and “voter suppression,” despite the fact that voter ID has been required for in-person voting in Georgia since 2008, and much of the bill actually made voting much easier for Georgians.
In 2022, the Walt Disney Company vowed to help repeal Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, dubbed by the media as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The legislative proposal, eventually signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, R, did not ban the word “gay” from classrooms as Disney and the corporate media tried to make the public believe. Rather, the bill protected students from kindergarten through third grade from school personnel and teachers who push lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom.
And we can’t forget when GoFundMe yanked the fundraising page for the Canadian Freedom Convoy, or when these companies pledged to cover expenses for employees who wanted an abortion.
For the average American who desires to vote with his or her dollar, it’s nearly impossible to avoid financially contributing to companies like these that have embraced leftist values and intend to monopolize the public square. Even more frustrating is why exactly so many companies are abandoning their consumers and their stockholders to endorse such nonsense.
The answer, however, lies in something much more nefarious than simply jumping on a trendy bandwagon.
Three little letters are responsible for the shift in what we once believed was a free market: ESG.
It stands for “Environmental, Social, Governance.”
ESG is a social credit framework designed to impose universal standards on the global market. It is a score system whose purpose is to “incentivize ‘responsible investing’ by ‘screening out’ companies that do not possess high ESG scores while favorably rating those companies and funds that make positive contributions to ESG’s three overarching categories.”
In other words, companies who aren’t woke get cancelled, and companies who are will get investment dollars, loans, government grants, regulatory favor, and other benefits that allow them to not only continue to exist but also to thrive in the market — even if their bottom line is suffering.
Disney is a prime example of this. The Happiest Place on Earth is raising ticket prices and laying off employees to help overcome two years of dismal business performance, but it also continues to add LGBTQ characters into its movies and streaming shows and is planning this fall host (along with Apple, Pfizer, Bank of America, the State Department, and the CIA) the Out & Equal Workplace Summit, which bills itself as the “largest LGBTQ+ conference in the world.”
A commitment to ESG is a significant piece in the puzzle of The Great Reset, spearheaded by Klaus Schwab and global economic and political elites who are working to create a centralized, worldwide government.
The approach is also known as “stakeholder capitalism” or “sustainable investment.” The end goal, in collaboration with government officials, is to secure “vast amounts of wealth and influence” over society, corporations, bankers, and investors in a unified effort to impose ESG standards on corporations and governments worldwide.
In doing so, it will “revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions.” And central banks, governments, and wealthy investors have committed to advancing ESG, tying trillions of dollars to the approach.
The problem is that ESG is a Trojan Horse for economic fascism. This means that business owners do not actually “own” their businesses but must run them according to what a global cabal says. It means that there is no longer a “free” competitive market.
It means that the companies we rely on for basic goods and services are not beholden to consumers but to elites, many of them citizens of other countries. It means that these elites can control every aspect of these businesses, possibly even down to who is allowed to receive goods and services (something we saw an inkling of with the vaccine mandates).
It means that the quality of products we enjoy and the cost and availability of everything we need or want will be determined, not by the law of supply and demand, but by what Klaus Schwab and his unelected bourgeoisie demand.
It means that such arbitrary and subjective standards like “saving the planet,” “diversity,” “inclusiveness,” and “pride” will rule the marketplace, leaving the consumer subject to tyranny, poverty, and the loss of freedom to choose.
The easy answer is that some companies are run by very woke CEOs themselves, but not necessarily all of them. Many don’t believe any of it, but they are simply trying to compete and keep their business going. It is, quite simply, much easier for companies to survive and thrive in the global market if they adhere to ESG standards, effectively going along to get along.
Essentially, companies have been given an ultimatum by the wealthy elite (and their co-conspirators in government legislatures and agencies). Investors have guaranteed consistent success and cashflow into those companies that abide by ESG standards, putting anywhere from $30 trillion to over $100 trillion towards the effort. From a business perspective, it is much easier to be woke than it is to compete in the market by trying to provide better goods and services.
Money, policy, and regulation. A big reason why ESG has taken off is because U.S. and many state government agencies (not to mention foreign governing institutions) now demand it. Significantly, it’s become endemic to government operations and spending priorities. ESG scores, which the Biden administration (like the Obama administration before it) define as “ethical” standards that promote the greater societal good, have been written into budgetary and regulatory policy and are policed through financial incentives and punishments. As part of this, federal agencies themselves are also now required to adhere to ESG “morality.”
For just one example, let’s look at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In early 2021, this regulatory watchdog announced that its Climate and ESG Task Force “will develop initiatives to proactively identify ESG-related misconduct. The task force will also coordinate the effective use of Division resources, including through the use of sophisticated data analysis to mine and assess information across registrants, to identify potential violations.”
The subject of how the government is embracing and pushing ESG on everyone is far too vast to explore in this article, but suffice it to say that every business, non-profit organization, and individual in America now feels its trickle-down effects. And the bottom-line and societal impact of all this is going to be a lot more jarring than finding out that the U.S. Marines now celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month with rainbow bullets.
In the next article in this two-part series, we’ll remain focused on how the ESG push is driving business behavior including how ESG scores are measured to incentivize companies to go woke, how their ESG behavior is measured, who oversees it, and what Christians can do to mitigate its effects on society. You can read part 2 here.
Follow Reagan on Twitter! @thereaganscott
Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.
