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 {{a|devil|{{image|Water scarcity|png|Or you could spend more time managing your loan book? Just a thought.}}{{image|Stakeholder capitalism|png|}} }}=== Adam Smith’s Dangerous Idea ===
-Once upon a time, not long ago, a [[shareholder]] was an opaque yet sacred being, somewhat divine, to whose improving ends everyone engaged in a company’s operation twitched their every fibre.
+Once upon a time, not long ago, [[shareholder]]s were opaque, sacred beings. Ineffable, invisible, immortal and divine: to their improving ends the company’s mortal [[agent|stewards]] twitched their every fibre.
-This ''[[Shareholder capitalism|will to shareholder return]]'' sprang from the brow of [[Adam Smith]] and his [[invisible hand]]:
+This ''[[Shareholder capitalism|will to shareholder return]]'' sprang from [[Adam Smith]]’s brow and his [[invisible hand]]:
 {{quote|“...Though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements...They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, ''and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species''”<ref>''The Theory of Moral Sentiments'' (1759) Part IV, Chapter 1.</ref>}}
-This was, a ''breathtaking'' insight; no less [[Darwin’s Dangerous Idea|dangerous]] than [[Darwin’s Dangerous Idea|Charles Darwin]]’s: from collected, unfettered, selfish actions [[emerges]] optimised community welfare.
+This was, a ''breathtaking'' insight; no less [[Darwin’s Dangerous Idea|dangerous]] than [[Darwin’s Dangerous Idea|Charles Darwin]]’s: from collected, unconcerted, unfettered, selfish actions [[emerges]] optimised community welfare.
-The modern corporation is the philosophical embodiment of that idea. ''Look after the [[shareholder]]s, and society will look after itself.''
+It is, in fact, the same idea: a recurring, algorithmic process can ''reduce'' the [[entropy]] in a system. Creation out of chaos. This is is as “dangerous” to Newton as to God. Anyway, I digress.
-By pursuing only its shareholders’ enrichment the corporation, so the theory had it, was more nimble, more responsive to society’s demands, and could allocate capital wherever the community most needed it.
+The limited liability corporation is the philosophical embodiment of that idea.  ''Look after the [[shareholder]]s, and society will look after itself.''
-“Compare this,” declared gleeful proselytes, “with the disasters of central planning, five-year plans, great leaps forward and so on.”
+Pursuing only its shareholders’ enrichment would make the corporation preternaturally nimble, responsive to society’s demands: best incentivised, so the theory had it, to allocate capital where the community most needed it. This is a practical philosophy: here actions speak louder than words.
-[[Shareholder capitalism]] had its advantages, to be sure: not least of which was easy performance measurement: one could evaluate every impulse, every decision, every project, every transaction against a single yardstick: ''was this in the [[Shareholder|shareholders]]’ best interest?''
+“Compare this,” declared proselytes, “with the disasters of central planning, five-year plans, great leaps forward and so on.” These are theoretical philosophies. They are robust in concept, but flimsy upon contact with the grim realities of human behaviour.
-Shareholders’ interest, in turn, could be measured along a single dimension: ''profit''. Nothing else mattered. The [[professional-managerial class]], and their endemic [[agency problem]], were hemmed in: you can’t hide from after-tax profit.
+[[Shareholder capitalism]] had its advantages, to be sure: not least of which was easy performance measurement: one could evaluate every impulse, every decision, every project, every transaction against a single, simple yardstick: ''was this in the [[Shareholder|shareholders]]’ best interest?''
+Shareholders’ interest, in turn, could be measured along a single, simple dimension: ''profit''. Nothing else mattered. The [[professional-managerial class]], and their endemic [[agency problem]], were hemmed in: you can’t hide from after-tax profit.
 === Stakeholder capitalism ===
-Well, that was then. What was unarguable orthodoxy in 1985 has fallen from grace. The narrative has changed to fit our millennial world. Unalloyed selfishness<ref>This seems ironic, in a world so utterly self-obsessed, but it should be read as “unalloyed selfishness by someone other than me”.</ref> has become, to the modern conscience, intolerable.
+Well, that was then.
+Enlightenment orthodoxy has fallen from grace. Milton Friedman is out of fashion. The narrative has changed. Unalloyed selfishness<ref>This seems ironic, in so self-obsessed a time as this, but read it as “unalloyed selfishness by someone other than me” and it makes perfect sense.</ref> has become intolerable.
 Dangerous, even: in 2003, legal academic Joel Bakan put the argument that since a [[Legal person|corporation]]’s sole statutory motive is the short-term enrichment of its owners, it has the clinical characteristics of a ''psychopath''.<ref>Joel Bakan, ''The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power'' (2003)</ref>
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 This view seems so modern, so [[empathetic]] and so ''right'' — so ''fit for [[Twitter]]'' — that it is hard to see how anyone can ever have thought otherwise.
-But still, this is a striking reversal. Even the Business Roundtable is getting in on the act: in 2019, it “redefined the purpose of a corporation” away from ''the outright pursuit of profit'' towards ''promoting an economy that serves all Americans''.
+But still, this is a striking reversal.
+Even the Business Roundtable is getting in on the act: in 2019, it “redefined the purpose of a corporation” away from ''the outright pursuit of profit'' towards ''promoting an economy that serves all Americans''.
 {{Quote|“It affirms the essential role corporations can play in improving our society,” said Alex Gorsky,<ref>No relation to ''that'' [[Good luck, Mr. Gorsky|Mr. Gorsky]], as far as we know.</ref> Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson and Chair of the Roundtable’s Corporate Governance Committee,<ref>Not trying to be funny or anything, but is being Chairman ''and'' CEO really the best example for a chair of a corporate governance committee to set?</ref> “when [[CEO|CEOs]] are truly committed to meeting the needs of all [[stakeholder]]s.”}}
-But stakeholder capitalism ''codifies'' the [[agency problem]]. It diffuses the executive’s accountability for anything the corporation does, putting the [[professional-managerial class]] beyond the reproach of the one stakeholder group with the necessary means, justification and consensus to call it out: their [[Shareholder|shareholders]].
+But, first principles. There is theory and there is practice. Practical systems do not always make for good theoretical philosophy. Philosophical theories do not always yield practical systems.
+Stakeholder capitalism ''codifies'' the [[agency problem]]. It diffuses the executive’s accountability for anything the corporation does, putting the [[professional-managerial class]] beyond the reproach of the one stakeholder group with the necessary means, justification and consensus to call it out: their [[Shareholder|shareholders]].
 ===Stakeholder capitalism as disguised ''shareholder'' capitalism===