10.02.2022, Moscow.
The chairman of the US investment fund BlackRock Laurence Fink, in his traditional annual letter to company executives, made a claim that large corporations, bypassing the media themselves, should become the main source of reliable information for their employees, the analyst of Rossa Primavera News Agency Lev Korovin noted on February 10.
The leading business media continue to comprehend Fink’s recent letter to CEOs, in which one of the most prominent proponents of the so-called “inclusive capitalism” explains his vision of the key changes in the world economy in the next year. Fink’s thesis of an energy transition, before the world should eventually switch to clean energy sources, has deservedly received much attention.
However, there is another thesis in this letter that finds much less attention but it can be compared to a conceptual bomb.
Fink writes, “COVID-19 has also deepened the erosion of trust in traditional institutions and exacerbated polarization in many Western societies. This polarization presents a host of new challenges for CEOs. Political activists, or the media, may politicize things your company does. They may hijack your brand to advance their own agendas. In this environment, facts themselves are frequently in dispute, but businesses have an opportunity to lead. Employees are increasingly looking to their employer as the most trusted, competent, and ethical source of information – more so than government, the media, and NGOs.”
Korovin explains, “The policy document states in plain language that big business can and must not only compete with governments, media and NGOs, but must also win in this information competition.”
The analyst believes that by making such claims, big business is trying to go beyond its traditional role and resemble a feudal lord.
“If medieval feudal lords exercised power over serfs because they guaranteed their physical security, the new ‘inclusive capitalists’, according to Fink, are extending their power through providing their workers with an information picture and a sustainable goal-setting. In a sense, this is more total power than under the old feudalism,” Korovin explained.
According to the concept of “inclusive capitalism”, big business should not only engage in generating profits for its shareholders but also actively act in the socio-political plane. ideologists of “inclusive capitalism” justify this expansion of the role of capital by arguing that the contemporary world of capitalism is unjust and that states and social institutions fail to cope with this challenge of injustice. Others see it as an attempt to ideologically justify the domination of so-called “inclusive capitalists” over the rest of humanity.
BlackRock is the largest investment fund in the world. The amount of assets under its management exceeds $10 trillion. The fund is among the three largest shareholders of more than 80% of the companies included in the S&P 500 Index. Lawrence Fink, the fund’s founder and CEO, serves on the board of such organisations like the World Economic Forum and the US Council on Foreign Relations.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
