This week, the World Economic Forum planned to hold its annual meeting in Davos, but thanks to Omicron, we’ve received another six-month reprieve from lectures by elite “global leaders” and the collectivist policies they promulgate. This year’s meeting, now deferred to mid-2022, will focus on how to accelerate “stakeholder capitalism” and its cousin ESG (short for environmental, social and governance), two related movements that diminish economic freedom, the key to prosperity, and push us closer towards a new brand of socialism.
What do these two terms actually mean? The definitions are fluid by design, but broadly speaking, according to stakeholder capitalism, businesses should not purely focus on maximizing returns to owners but rather use the resources of companies to solve social problems, thus maximizing benefits to various “stakeholders” (i.e. their employees, customers, suppliers, communities and countries). ESG remains a subjective concept used for a wide range of causes from climate policies to “diversity” initiatives. There are more than
