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Vivek Ramaswamy’s recent appearance on Forbes wasn’t the usual think-tank lecture; it was a wake-up call for anyone who still believes in free markets. He called out the rise of ESG and what he calls “woke capitalism” as the single greatest internal threat to American capitalism — a corrosive force that hijacks private enterprise and uses our savings to push political agendas. Ramaswamy’s warning is a blunt reminder that when commerce and politics fuse, liberty loses.
What makes this danger so real is the raw scale of concentrated financial power in the hands of a few firms. The modern money managers — the so-called Big Three and other giant asset houses — now steward tens of trillions of dollars, giving them the muscle to reshape corporate behavior nationwide rather than letting markets and consumers decide. That aggregation of capital turns what should be investment decisions into de facto policy edicts from unelected boardrooms.
Ramaswamy hasn’t just complained from the sidelines; he built a counterweight. He founded Strive Asset Management to offer investors an alternative that prioritizes shareholder returns over political virtue signaling, arguing that people’s retirement accounts shouldn’t be repurposed as left-wing social projects. That move from critique to competition shows conservatives how to fight back: build institutions that respect profit, accountability, and the rule of law.
Across the country, red states have begun to respond where federal action has failed, pulling public pension money and passing laws to block politically driven investment practices. Governors and legislatures in states like Oklahoma and Florida moved to protect taxpayers and pensioners from firms that favor narrow activist agendas over fiduciary duty, reflecting growing public outrage that our life savings are being weaponized. This is political muscle being flexed by people who still answer to voters, not to corporate technocrats.
That pushback has consequences — and the backlash proves Ramaswamy right about the stakes. Courts and business groups have pushed back against some state measures, and legal battles like the Oklahoma injunction show this fight will be long and messy, but necessary. The fact that judges are already forced to untangle these disputes underscores how far we’ve drifted: investment policy should be about returns, not cultural conformity.
Americans who love liberty should take Ramaswamy’s message seriously and act like citizens, not spectators. Elect leaders who will defend shareholder capitalism, support competitive alternatives to woke asset managers, and insist that public funds be managed solely for beneficiaries, not for political virtue. If we want to preserve the engine of American prosperity, we must stop letting a handful of unelected investment firms decide the country’s values and force a return to the market-first, freedom-first principles that made this nation great.
