Two recent news stories, seemingly unrelated, point to a question we must increasingly ask: How many institutions are controlled by the people they’re supposed to serve?
The first is that Republican state attorneys general are going after investment fund BlackRock for misbehavior. Instead of managing money from state pension funds and other investors to earn the greatest return, BlackRock, they say, is investing to advance its management’s social and political goals. Under the rubric of environmental, social and governance (or ESG) policies, the fund managers are rating companies not on money-making criteria but on, well, environmental and social ones.
The money belongs to someone else, but the control of the money effectively belongs to them.
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