Shareholder: Difference between revisions

In a striking, sudden reversal, [[environmental, social, and corporate governance]] is the constant refrain. Even old boomer gammons like the business roundtable<ref>https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redefines-the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an-economy-that-serves-all-americans</ref> has redefined the purpose of a corporation away from the outright pursuit of profit to instead promote “an economy that serves all Americans”.

You might not be surprised to find your correspondent taking a contrarian view. This not an “a[[woke]]ning” so much as ''a kind of national concussion occasioned by a stout blow on the head''. For stakeholder capitalism is to ''codify'' the [[agency problem]]; to beautifully diffuse accountability for anything the corporation does.

Shareholders, as a class, are, in theory, infinitely [[diverse]] in every conceivable dimension ''bar one''. They don’t have to know each other, like each other or care less about each other. They can be young or old, rich or poor, left or right, tall or short, male or female, gay or straight, black or white or, in each case, any gradation in between. In all other walks of life, bar this one, their respective interests, aspirations and expectations might jar, clatter and undermine each other. If you put them in a room to discuss any topic ''but'' their shareholding, you might not be surprised if a fight broke out.

But on that one subject, they are utterly, magically aligned: “whatever else I care about in my life, members of the board, know this. ''I expect you to maximise my return''.”

And nor is there dispute about what counts as return, or how you measure it. Long ago, our forebears<ref>No, not enlightened, white, male, colonial oppressors: ancient Babylonians.</ref> figured out how to distil pure, abstract, immaterial [[value]] from the relativising commodities or perishable [[substrate]]s in which it is usually embedded:<ref>Granted, it is imperfect: until recently much cash did have a substrate (paper send coins), and its value is still coloured by the credit consensus of its issuing bank, which can control its supply and demand, but the substrate issues are largely resolved, and consensus in the bona fides of the [[Federal Reserve]], [[ECB]] and [[Bank of England]] has proven a lot more robust then that of crypto currencies. Don’t @ me, [[bitcoin]] maximalists.</ref> [[cash]].

In discharging that sacred quest, a corporation’s agents could not have clearer instructions. Should return not pass muster, there are no excuses. There is no dog who can eat a chief executive’s homework, no looking on the bright side because employee engagement numbers are up, of the company had a popular float in the annual May Day parade. If the annual return disappoints, you get shot.

All that clarity of purpose evaporates the moment you expand your list of stakeholders beyond that single class. Now a failure to generate a return can be blamed on your success in reducing the number of smokers in the accounts department, or your community outreach team spent all your excess cash on beautifying a local park, or you chose a buildings manager who was twice the going rate but had a better anti-modern slavery policy.