Socially Responsible Investment - SRI

Categories: Ethics/Morals

Before we go over what a socially responsible investment is, let’s look at what it’s not.

Investing in oil companies (if you love polar bears and love driving your car cheaply). Investing in alcohol, tobacco, or gambling. The vices of our time. Because those things are mostly run via the exploitation of people’s addictions. Kind of like how everyone’s addicted to social media, except it leads to more deaths (and bankruptcies and lung cancer).

A socially responsible investment is an investment that takes into account social impact, worker safety, environmental justice...all that rosy stuff.

If you feel guilty about investing in oil (hey, a lot us do), you can balance it out with a socially responsible mutual fund, ETF, or stock. Like carbon credits for the soul. And yes, we note that the whole notion of wanting to be socially responsible brings with it massive hypocrisy. If we really cared about our human brethren, we'd go one month without Hulu or Netflix or gobs of other things we don't really need, and for that 10 bucks in savings, we could literally save someone's life in Africa. But we don't. We love us some Netflix and chill. It'll take our mind off of being only notionally socially responsible.

Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Ooh! Friends reruns!

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is capitalism?7 Views

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And finance Allah shmoop What is capitalism Oh well there

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are really two faces of capitalism you know kind of

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like Aria on game of thrones Yeah or like any

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little kid trick or treating in Halloween or you know

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two face So let's start with what capitalism is not

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Hello Communism Yes your darkness our old friend Communism is

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all about the government being quote smarter than the market's

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unquote that is Communism believes that via central planning in

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estimating and bureaucratic controls the markets for pretty much anything

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can be run better fairer and more efficiently than by

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its polar opposite cousin capitalism That's the economic application to

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the political will that under a communist system politically everyone

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is equal fish you know two cellphones good for cellphones

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bad Something like that Whereas communism is a frank instant

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ian attempt at cloning in or reproducing life in a

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lab and then copying it market by market locale by

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locale capitalism is well financial Darwinism Survival of the financially

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fittest More or less Communism failed globally in hindsight that

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so much for its ideology of governments controlling things But

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for the one little element that was never addressed in

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the Soviet laboratories where communism was at that element Yes

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corruption Yeah When central planning happens enormous power is concentrated

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among a very small number of individuals usually individuals who

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came to power through Machiavellian means often military or other

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yes men Grey flannel suit wearers not through believers in

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a cause innovators visionaries or business runners So the very

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powerful became very corrupt and the ideology of political communism

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I'LL never really came to be tested on a global

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stage fairly and squarely where it has been tested and

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works has been in tiny enclaves with rare compositions Take

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the Kibbutz in Israel Well a kibbutz is a collective

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farm Everyone shares equally and well pretty much everything The

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farm produces one for all and all for one like

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Israeli Musketeers or something like that The big diff Well

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they're all equally well educated They're all from the same

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background same culture same unfortunate run ins with boils So

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it's easy to divvy things equally when you feel like

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the guy or gal across the table was truly equal

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to you In talent and drive and other natural gifts

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you get two cell phones and you get to cell

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phones and you get two cell phones Yeah all equal

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And yeah a kibbutz structure would never work in a

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large city where the disparity and talent is usually massive

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from top to bottom So where does that put capitalism

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Well structurally capitalism refers most directly to a frictionless set

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of transactions No controls no governing no government just perfect

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markets where supply and demand intersect here and prices live

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within nana meters of here There isn't the kind of

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one person can change everything kind of corruption that you

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get in a central bank or central allocation system The

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capital markets the brutal Darwinism of companies competing in the

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marketplace gives a kind of truth or honesty or really

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quote fair unquote price that applies more or less everywhere

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in the system At its most extreme we witness capitalism

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at work in the stock market At any given moment

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tens of thousands of investors are inspecting what Amazon is

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really worth and letting their investing dollars speak for themselves

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The trading of stocks is almost a perfect market with

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no central government dictating what it thinks Amazon should be

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Trading at two thirty p M On a Tuesday in

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a communist stock market While the government might dictate that

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well today Amazon should trade for fifteen hundred twelve dollars

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a share and for a ten dollar fee per share

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trade paid to the government trader you too can be

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a proud owner but that's the price Fifteen hundred twelve

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bucks Take it or leave it Communism in this sense

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runs is a kind of command economy That said the

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U S Is not a perfect capitalistic set of markets

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either It's just a relatively capitalistic approach to transacting in

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mark but when compared with other systems of commerce in

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the US we have laws they're actively in fourth and

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violators are punished severely and this has been going on

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for centuries The positive result Trust in general Investors around

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the world trust in the American capital market system They

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trust that accounting and financial disclosures are fair and full

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and honest Just remember that capitalism is financial Darwinism under

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the fair rubric of laws and structures analogous to what

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biology and physics and geographic location due to the evolution

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of species of animals cos that best fit their contemporaneously

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environment thrive and those that don't well don't and somewhere

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Toys R Us and the Dodo Bird are living happily

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ever after together you know along with Sears and soon

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target in a whole bunch of others that'LL be Amazon

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)