SEC Commissioner compares the ESG movement to Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

We are seeing a similar scarlet letter phenomenon in today’s modern, but no less flawed world. In these remarks, I will focus specifically on the way in which corporations are being assessed according to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors. Here too we see labeling based on incomplete information, public shaming, and shunning wrapped in moral rhetoric preached with cold-hearted, self-righteous oblivion to the consequences, which ultimately fall on real people. In our purportedly enlightened era, we pin scarlet letters on allegedly offending corporations without bothering much about facts and circumstances and seemingly without caring about the unwarranted harm such labeling can engender. After all, naming and shaming corporate villains is fun, trendy, and profitable.

~ Hester Peirce, SEC Commissioner, "Scarlet Letters: Remarks Before the American Enterprise Institute," June 18, 2019

Ron Paul on the Enron bankruptcy

It is a mistake for Congress view to the Enron collapse as a justification for more government regulation. Publicly held corporations already comply with massive amounts of SEC regulations, including the filing of quarterly reports that disclose minute details of assets and liabilities. If these disclosure rules failed to protect Enron investors, will more red tape really solve anything? The more we look to the government to protect us from investment mistakes, the less competition there is for truly independent evaluations of investment risk.

~ Congressman Ron Paul, "Enron, Bankruptcy, and Easy Credit," December 17, 2002