I pointed out that defining a “progressive” company isn’t as easy as you’d think. If you consider that “bizare,” you have a ridiculously simplistic view of economics.
One of my examples was based on an Austin-based company, Whole Foods Market. Local left-wingers generally love the place. After all, they have lots of organic foods grown on small , eco-friendly farms.
So, is Whole Foods a “progressive” company? Well, not necessarily. They don’t pay their employees very well and have crushed all attempts by employees to form unions.
So, if you’re a conscientious left-winger, is Whole Foods a place to be embraced or to be shunned? Do you buy your tofu and wheat germ there, or are their policies reason enough for a boycott?
It’s NOT immediately obvious!
What if you’re a left-wing investor. Do you sell off all the stocks you own in politically unsavory companies? Feel free to do so, but what’s the point? I mean, if you sell your Altria or Domino’s or Coors stock, that stock doesn’t cease to exist, and you’re not hurting the companies in question one whit! All you do is give away the stock to a less scrupulous person, probably at a bargain price.
Follow your conscience, but don’t delude yourself that…
You’re affecting company policy when you sell its stock
It’s easy to differentiate a virtuous firm from an evil firm
There is an entire niche of the investment industry that specializes in helping individual and institutional investors invest in ways that are consistent with their own values and/or missions. According to the independent research – much of which is available at www.sristudies.org – Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) strategies do not overall diminish returns performance, as compared to overall market benchmarks, and may, according to some studies, enhance performance. One company that specializes in serving SRI clients, mostly with portfolios of mutual funds, is First Affirmative Financial Network www.firstaffirmative.com Of course, you can still take your profits and donate them to an anti-smoking foundation, but the gains don’t have to be so ill-gotten as if you had invested in Altria.
And you believe Christ would be approving of your lifestyle…how rich are you? I bet you are well off by conventional standards. Much richer than Christ, I assume.
Well, yeah, and any Christian who equates Christ with Poverty or Socialism is just as much a heretic.
Christ is God, Lord & Savior- and His followers can be wealthy or impoverished or capitalists or (non-coercive) socialists.
And how rich are you? Do you own your computer? Or are you using someone else’s?
How rich was Christ? Well, His actual earthly possessions were part of His family estate which included a carpentry business which had supported at least nine people (himself, Joseph, Mary, and the four brothers and at least two sisters),
a house in Nazareth, and perhaps another in Capernaum. Of course, He then
took off on a three-year intinerant mission in which His ministry was supported
by people who gave money- some of them quite wealthy.
As a humorous footnote to the OP, it’s worth noting that the Carlyle Group, a conservative investment fund with prominent Beltway insiders at the helm, recently bought Dunkin’ Donuts.
Which would explain the conveeeeeeeeeeeeeenientcelebrity photo-op in Boston last week…
