A new debate has not only reignited the right of the political spectrum in America, but has completely shaken the acceptance of free market capitalism to its core.
The emergence of the World Economic Forum's newly minted economic philosophy of "stakeholder capitalism" has become the party line for academics who support a globalist worldview on America and the rest of the West.
Many Americans strongly believe that the goal of this cabal is nothing less than to bury the American free market system.
So must Americans, then, rediscover the economic values that built America into an economic superpower throughout the late 19th and entire 20th centuries?
Economist Samuel Gregg's latest book, "The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World," seeks to answer this question precisely.
The book speaks at length about the founding generation of Americans, namely Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who all contributed to a fundamental conversation of the trade and economic policies that would help thrust America into the marketplace of nations vying for economic growth.
Gregg also provides a historical and philosophical account of how economics has been traditionally understood by the founders and the generations that proceeded them. It powerfully uses these traditional sources from the American founding to refute the idealism of politicized investments through environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures (p.130).
The ESG tenets are directly related to the widely promoted stakeholder capitalism that came from the World Economic Forum. Stakeholder capitalism, as defined by World Economic Forum's website, is "a form of capitalism in which companies do not only optimize short-term profits for shareholders, but seek long-term value creation, by taking into account the needs of all their stakeholders and society at large."
Gregg makes a foreboding prediction: "[S]hould mandated ESG requirements become even more widespread and enforced by federal regulators, it will shift many companies' focus away from maximizing shareholder value and towards promoting the concerns of potentially endless numbers of self-identified stakeholders" (p. 130).
In essence, the WEF-sanctioned philosophy will make the marketplace kowtow to the unending edicts of the woke mob. Gregg confirms this conclusion that, "the interests of those who risk investing their capital in the firm would be considered equal to those who bore no such risks" (p. 147).
Thus, the conclusion that businesses will fully integrate with wokeism is cemented by "external social pressures or through legislative regulation" the political-economic system will force "the demands of particular groups into businesses internal functioning and decision-making processes" (p. 152).
In all, Gregg's book provides a timely rebuttal to the encroaching economic system that is emerging before our very eyes.
Michael Cozzi is a Ph.D candidate at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.