What a row over sponsorship reveals about art and Mammon

The collective, Fossil Free Books (FFB), has set its sights on Baillie Gifford, a Scottish asset manager, which until recently sponsored ten literary festivals in Britain. The firm, charge the activists, invests in fossil-fuel producers and companies tied to Israeli security. (“Solidarity with Palestine and climate justice are inextricably linked,” FFB questionably maintains.) Their convoluted strategy involved pressuring the festivals and urging authors to withdraw from them, in the hope of pushing Baillie Gifford to divest from these holdings. “Disruption” and “escalation” were promised.