ESG doesn’t tame corporate profit-seeking, or impose social objectives on companies. It is only a name for risks that corporations will seek to manage in any case to protect the bottom line. Worse, it distracts investors and the public from demanding that governments stop depending on enlightened capitalism and start directly addressing the grave environmental and social problems that have brought us to the brink of global catastrophe.

Perhaps progressives should join the right in their determined attack on ESG. At least then the nakedness of the ESG promise would be apparent to all and we could stop pretending that corporations will ever put social values on a par with—much less ahead of—financial returns. The only way that will happen is if they are forced to—by changing the rules of the game.