The Social Justice Investor: Advance Your Values While Building Wealth, Whether a Few Dollars or Millions

Financial analyst Longton debuts with a disappointing manual on “how to build an investment portfolio tailored for your self-defined social justice priorities.” Urging readers to consider ways in which they can use their wallets to effect change, Longton details how equity-minded investors divested from private prisons in the late 2010s, forcing “two of the country’s largest for-profit private prison companies to tighten their financial belts.” Unfortunately, guidance on how readers can follow this example is unhelpful. Much of the advice revolves around hiring a financial adviser to ensure one’s investments match one’s morals, but novices with relatively little to invest are unlikely to be convinced by Longton’s assurances that “yes, you can afford a financial advisor.” Other suggestions are similarly slight. For instance, Longton’s main recommendation for selecting individual financial products is to check whether they’re positively rated on the website Invest Your Values. The decision to illustrate the advice by following three fictional characters—representing “DIY investors, 401(k) investors, and investors with accumulated wealth”—as they consider what to do with their money results in a surfeit of narrative fluff, as when DIY investor Tom “made the mistake of inhaling near [his fiancée’s] freshly washed hair. He wasn’t sure what scents were in her new shampoo, but he found them intoxicating.” This misses the mark. (Apr.)