So asserts Ending ESG, a collection of essays edited by Phil Gramm and Terrence Keeley. Gramm, a former Republican senator and economics professor, and Keeley, a former managing director at Blackrock, are well-suited to make the case. The book's lengthy introduction is co-authored by Gramm and Keeley. It traces the Environmental, Social and Government (ESG) investment movement back to the United Nations. Not to the Kofi Annan era of the late 90s and early 2000s, that is, but all the way back to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The authors do not dwell upon this early history, but it is worth briefly unpacking. Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the drafting committee of the UN Declaration. She explained that many of its members "thought that lack of standards for human rights the world over was one of the greatest causes of friction among the nations, and that recognition of human rights might become one of the cornerstones on which peace could eventually be based." This was a pressing priority in the wake of World War II.

Jacques Maritain, a French Philosopher who provided intellectual inspiration for the document, explained how consensus was achieved: "we agree on these rights provided we are not asked why. With the 'why' the dispute begins." History has since tested the stability of agreeing not to ask why.

Over the next 75 years, the UN's declaration of rights eventually led to ESG. Inspired by the declaration, the UN launched development goals (eradicating poverty, gender equality, environmental sustainability, etc.). Then, the UN released investment principles based on these goals, to be adopted by major asset managers, banks, public pensions, and regulatory bodies. To the shock of anyone familiar with other UN efforts, the UN's work on ESG has paid off.

ESG has been adopted by major institutions over the world, in word if not always in deed. The result is that "the private economy is increasingly being coerced into meeting a growing number of environmental and social goals that Congress never mandated."

The cost of such coercion is high. For one, it undermines the legal and ethical basis of economic progress. Whereas the economic Enlightenment was "founded on the principle that people own the fruits of their own labor and thrift," ESG is a "throwback to the medieval concept of communal property." Throughout 14 essays, mostly penned by Gramm and/or Keeley, Ending ESG argues against such an ESG-inspired return to medieval economics.