Is ESG a threat to capitalism? Live with Samuel Gregg, Russ Greene, and Zach Weissmueller
Channel: ReasonTV
Date: 2022-12-29

"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 1pm 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 the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason.

Watch the stream above or by visiting Reason's Facebook page here.

Chapters
0:00:00 — Intro
0:01:00 — What is ESG and why is it a threat?
0:08:00 — Klaus Schwab and stakeholder capitalism
0:17:00 — The social responsibility of business
0:25:00 — Public vs. privately held corporations and the CrossFit model
0:31:00 — Mandating ESG and the difference between pro-business and pro-market
0:35:24 — China and ESG
0:44:00 — Why authoritarian countries get higher ESG scores
0:49:50 — The purpose of business
0:55:30 — The rise of unpopularity of corporations due to ESG
0:57:00 — Diversity initiatives of ESG
1:02:00 — Government is the barrier to innovation
1:05:48 — Viewer questions and comments
1:13:10 — Ways to combat ESG
1:17:35 — The future of the free market