When the New Right Meets the Old Left on ESG

Commentary
This month, conservative critics of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing had something of a surprise—an almost-simultaneous attack on their views from both Left and Right mounting remarkably similar arguments. Writing for CNBC last week, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Senate’s climate-denier-witch-finder-in-chief, together with Senators Brian Schatz and Martin Heinrich, denounced state Republican officials for their stand against financial institutions whose anti-fossil-fuel policies damage their states’ economies. These elected officials, the senators wrote, are engaged in a purely ideological, anti-capitalist crusade against free-market principles.
Ten days earlier, from the Right, American Affairs senior editor Julius Krein launched a 4,800-word broadside on ESG’s conservative critics. They don’t understand, Krein suggested, that ESG is an outgrowth of shareholder primacy, the very thing they believe in….