Paul Fitzpatrick, president of the 1792 Exchange, said on Breitbart News Daily that the left has exploited “stakeholder capitalism” to advance their agenda by using corporations.
The 1792 Exchange is a nonprofit dedicated to providing resources and developing policies to help educate Americans about “woke” corporations, as well as the dangers of Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing. The 1792 Exchange publishes a database by which Americans can see how likely a corporation is to “cancel” its clients based on the degree the corporation holds leftist views.
Fitzpatrick discussed how increasingly woke corporations such as Budweiser and Ben & Jerry’s are owned by parent companies such as Anheuser-Bush InBev and Unilever. He said that large conglomerate companies have increasingly crept leftward to appease asset managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard as well as proxy advisers, who use their substantial financial influence to push corporations to adopt leftist positions.
“Why would AB-InBev, this large company, allow a woke brand manager at Bud Light to destroy their brand,” Fitzpatrick asked rhetorically.
“If you put BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard together they are going to own 25 percent of the voting shares for the board of a company of an S&P 500 company, about 90 percent of them. So, about 90 percent of the S&P 500, 25 percent of the voting shares of the board members, is controlled by three big companies,” he explained. Fitzpatrick said that BlackRock and other asset managers can use their shares to vote for progressive goals for the company.
The 1792 Exchange leader said even if the CEO of Unilever wanted to be politically neutral, proxy advisers and asset managers would push these companies to adopt leftist positions on diversity, abortion, and anti-climate change programs.
In the 1792 Exchange’s summary of Unilever, it labels the company as “high risk”:
Unilever is a defendant in two lawsuits for unlawful firings: one in Israel from the maker & distributor of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and another from a former U.S. employee fired for observing Rosh Hashanah. It does not contribute politically but does actively work to promote/denounce specific ideological policy. Unilever vets vendors according to LGBTQ policies, is part of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, and does not provide its employees with protections against viewpoint discrimination. The company advocates for the Equality Act and denounced multiple “anti-LGBTQ” laws. Unilever donated to Planned Parenthood and funds multiple LGBTQ organizations. For these reasons, Unilever receives a “High Risk” rating.
Despite the increasing leftward march of some megacorporations, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he is no longer using the term “ESG,” lamenting it has become politicized. One report suggested that many S&P 500 executives are no longer using ESG during corporate conference calls during the first quarter earnings season.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
