Welcome back to Fraser Insight, the Fraser Institute’s U.S. newsletter. This springtime issue of Insight is highlighted by a number of new commentaries and reports taking a critical look at so-called ESG investing—a model of business administration and investing focused on environmental, social and governance issues.

Our In Focus section, which always showcases in-depth research and analysis, features six reports on various aspects of ESG. The In Focus section also includes studies on the terrible (and predictable) costs of COVID-19 lockdowns, as well as a report on the North American energy sector (Wyoming, Texas and Oklahoma lead the way).

The In Print section, which includes timely commentaries and op-eds, features essays covering everything from economic freedom at the state level, to the need to reform schools of education, to the worrisome embrace of socialism.

Finally, our In Context section highlights an exciting new chapter in our Essential Scholars series: a podcast dedicated to exploring the scholars and thinkers who have blazed the trail of free-market economics.

We encourage you to share Insight with friends and colleagues by inviting them to sign up for Insight here. Visit our website, which serves as a storehouse for cogent commentary and in-depth analysis—all from a free-market perspective. Follow us on Twitter. Join us on Facebook. And check out the In Touch section for more contact info.

Floridians have enjoyed high levels of economic freedom for decades. In fact, the state ranked first in economic freedom in the U.S. for the first time in 1994. If politicians everywhere took economic freedom more seriously, they’d all have more to brag about.

We should reject the misinformation police and instead allow the public the freedom, as Mill counseled, to hear arguments “from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them.” That was a dangerous thought in 1859, and judging by the current misinformation craze, an utter heresy today.

The United Kingdom—the birthplace of Adam Smith and cradle of markets and prosperity—seems to be leading the Western world in rejecting markets in favor of socialism and other alternatives.

Teachers and students deserve better than what they’re getting now. Schools of education are doing a poor job training teachers. Serious changes need to happen, and they need to happen soon.

As academics and activists began to preach the gospel of circularity, a few of them came to realize that “globally, businesses are already implementing a wide range of practices that incorporate circular economy principles, whether or not these practices are explicitly identified as circular, or part of a larger, company-wide greening strategy.” Could it be that most manufacturers never needed outsiders to tell them there was money to be made in eliminating waste?

While teachers have always had to be on the lookout for students gaming the system, ChatGPT makes it nearly impossible to catch cheaters. Not only can ChatGPT produce different answers to the same question, but it can also be told to write in a particular style or even incorporate factual errors in any answer it produces. So let’s not push traditional education aside. It is, in fact, more important than ever.

One of capitalism’s biggest proponents predicted it wouldn’t survive—and that socialism would replace it. Looking at the changes in the world today, it’s hard to argue this prognosis isn’t coming true.

The benefits of lockdowns were originally explained as mitigating the rush to hospitals and preventing the health system from being overrun. Later, many thought that the virus might actually be eliminated by lockdowns (so-called “zero-COVID”). Initial benefit estimates were based on simple models that predicted the number of hospitalizations and deaths without lockdowns. Initial estimates of the costs of the lockdowns were based only on lost GDP from reduced labor-force participation. This led to grossly inaccurate cost/benefit estimates. Widespread, economy-wide lockdown policies were a disaster.

Despite the surge of COVID-19 information, including the knowledge that, generally speaking, only a small subset of the population was especially vulnerable, government officials made no significant change to the lockdown policy. This was the result of a “double down” political equilibrium. For various reasons, governments around the world panicked in early 2020 and concluded that only a severe lockdown could isolate the virus and stop it from spreading. They quickly became aware of the failure and cost of this action and were faced with a choice: they could admit their terrible mistake or double down.

Corporate charitable giving, driven by ESG, can produce more harm than good when it comes to overall charitable donations. ESG is a growing movement designed to pressure businesses and investors to pursue larger social goals including philanthropy. ESG advocates argue that greater corporate philanthropy will increase public awareness of non-profit organizations and encourage donations of money and time. However, research suggests the opposite—that people choose to give less money to non-profits with corporate sponsors. Basically, corporate donations may replace, rather than add to, donations by individuals because people often choose to support other non-profit organizations not supported by corporations.

Although they are now often demonized, carbon fuels such as coal, refined petroleum products and natural gas, along with synthetic products such as plastics and composite materials, made it possible to meet the needs of growing and increasingly wealthier populations while gradually diminishing the human footprint on the landscape. The result has been a world increasingly more hospitable to humans and wildlife. Reverting back to biomass-based products on large scale can only undermine many advances humanity has made, including expanded habitat for wildlife and greater biodiversity.

The same institutions that promote economic growth also promote environmental quality. This is not to say that environmental mandates have no place, but the fact is that environmental markets align individual incentives with efficient resource use for land, minerals, water, fisheries, and air. The more that environmental markets can supplant environmental mandates, the better the chance for us to have both environmental quality and prosperity.

Competitive market forces are likely to be more effective and efficient than externally imposed “top-down” governance structures with catchy names like stakeholder capitalism, or ESG, which are rife with unintended consequences. In fact, ESG activism is likely to accomplish more by working through consumer tastes than investor tastes. Each consumer can react to each ESG action taken by a specific producer or manufacturer according to his or her tastes.

According to Milton Friedman, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” The ESG model of business administration operates on the opposite premise: that the responsibility of business is to achieve social good. Also known as “stakeholder capitalism” and “corporate social responsibility,” under ESG, companies must endorse and pursue progressive social and political objectives.

The circular economy describes practices that have been an integral part of market economies from their very beginning. What is truly new is the misrepresentation of the market economy as linear, wasteful and mismanaged, thus providing a pretext for new forms of central government control.

According to the latest survey of senior executives in the upstream oil and gas sector, Wyoming is the most attractive jurisdiction for oil and gas investment followed by Texas (2nd) and Oklahoma (3rd). Six other U.S. jurisdictions also ranked in the top 10: Kansas (4th), North Dakota (5th), Montana (7th), Mississippi (8th), U.S. Offshore–Gulf of Mexico (9th) and Louisiana (10th).

Our Essential Scholars project continues to expand its reach and deepen its impact. Essential Scholars books are rated a collective 4.6 out of 5.0 on Amazon.com. More than 210,000 copies have been distributed. The collection has been translated into 15 languages. Videos explaining the important ideas of the free-market canon have been viewed more than 4 million times on various digital platforms. And now, we are unveiling a new product of the Essential Scholars initiative: a dedicated podcast series. Building toward a library of 30 thought-provoking interviews, the Essential Scholars podcast is available at Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, Deezer, iHeart and Stitcher. Podcasts focusing on Mill and Hayek are already live. Find out more here.