Saturday, March 25, 2017

Ken Jacobson — Whose Corporations? Our Corporations!

Historically, corporations were understood to be responsible to a complex web of constituencies, including employees, communities, society at large, suppliers, and shareholders. But in the era of deregulation, the interests of shareholders began to trump all the others. How can we get corporations to recognize their responsibilities beyond this narrow focus? It begins in remembering that the philosophy of putting shareholder profits over all else is a matter of ideology which is not grounded in American law or tradition. In fact, it is no more than a dangerous fad. 
AlterNet
Whose Corporations? Our Corporations!
Ken Jacobson | senior editor for the newsletter Manufacturing & Technology News

also

3 Corporate Myths that Threaten the Wealth of the Nation



4 comments:

Noah Way said...

Myth #4: Corporations have constitutional rights.

Tom Hickey said...

Citizens United was a monumentally bad decision that is going to backfire on both capitalism and also the Supreme Court.

Andrew Anderson said...

A company is owned by its shareholders minus its liabilities. Hence Equity = Assets - Liabilities. So the shareholders are the owners of a corporation.

The problem is not shared ownership of companies but special privileges for depository institutions which allow corporations, among the most so-called "creditworthy" of what is, in essence, the public's credit but for private gain, to legally steal the purchasing power of their workers and the general population.

It's special privileges for the banks that's the problem.

Schofield said...

False dichotomy - that there are only two forms of ownership of resources possible:-

1. All resources should be available for the good of all.

2. Resources should be owned as property by a person or persons (corporations as a person, Citizens United ruling)

Historical origin of false dichotomy would appear to lie with 17th Englishman John Locke who had supported the overthrow of absolute monarchism (a form of war-lordism)in favour of a rising merchant and industrialist class).