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Stakeholder capitalism: Difference between revisions
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=== About that return=== | === About that return=== | ||
Now you might argue that, since we are all shareholders in one way or another, stakeholder capitalism is no more than paying attention to shareholders’ ''wider'' interests and not just their monetary ones. This way, polar bears get a look in, but | Now you might argue that, since we are all shareholders in one way or another, stakeholder capitalism is no more than paying attention to shareholders’ ''wider'' interests and not just their monetary ones. This way, polar bears get a look in, but only if that is in the shareholders’ wider interest. | ||
But that isn’t ''stakeholder'' capitalism: that’s just a debased version of ''shareholder'' capitalism. It replaces shareholders’ ''monetary'' interests for their ''moral'' ones, along the way substituting the shareholders’ moral | But that isn’t ''stakeholder'' capitalism: that’s just a debased version of ''shareholder'' capitalism. It replaces shareholders’ ''monetary'' interests for their ''moral'' ones, along the way substituting the shareholders’ moral judgments — which are certain to conflict— with the Board’s. | ||
''That is not the deal''. The Board are the shareholders’ ''servants''. They don’t get to moralise on the shareholders’ behalves. | ''That is not the deal''. The Board are the shareholders’ ''servants''. They don’t get to moralise on the shareholders’ behalves. | ||
Besides, to ditch this narrow financial interest is to miss the single clinching insight. ''As long as it is all about return, there can be no arguments.'' | Besides, to ditch this narrow financial interest is to miss the single clinching insight. Shareholders may differ about how to prioritise polar bears. They probably do. They don’t differ about the value of [[cash]]. | ||
''As long as it is all about return, there can be no arguments.'' | |||
=== The abstraction of value and the important of cash=== | === The abstraction of value and the important of cash=== | ||
Long ago, our forebears in ancient Mesopotamia hit upon a way to abstract pure, disembodied ''[[value]]'' from the relativising commodities | Long ago, our forebears in ancient Mesopotamia hit upon a way to abstract pure, disembodied ''[[value]]'' from the relativising commodities and perishable plant, machinery and [[Substrate|substrates]] in which it is usually embedded: they called that abstracted value “''[[Cash|money]]''”. | ||
Cash does not go off, cannot be eaten, and does not depend for its value on anything else. Cash ''is'' abstract value. | Cash does not go off, cannot be eaten, and does not depend for its value on anything else. Cash ''is'' abstract value. | ||
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When shareholders hold the whip hand, an executive’s goal is simple. ''Make [[money]]''. That clarity of purpose evaporates the moment the executive’s remit expands. Multiple stakeholders means multiple interests, which ''must'' [[Conflict of interest|conflict]]. | When shareholders hold the whip hand, an executive’s goal is simple. ''Make [[money]]''. That clarity of purpose evaporates the moment the executive’s remit expands. Multiple stakeholders means multiple interests, which ''must'' [[Conflict of interest|conflict]]. | ||
How do you arbitrate between creditors and the local community? Between the environment and customers? Between penguins and polar bears? | How do you arbitrate between creditors and the local community? Between the environment and customers? Between penguins and polar bears? On whose say? | ||
And who ''are'' these stakeholders for whose wellbeing the corporation is suddenly guardian? | And who ''are'' these stakeholders for whose wellbeing the corporation is suddenly guardian? Shareholders’ names and interests, after all are set out on a register. There is no corresponding ranked list of constituents, interest groups, factions. The priorities, narratives and moral imperatives of “the world at large” are indeterminate.<ref>Those railing at this idea are invited to familiarise themselves with the works of Kant, Mill, Hobbes, Hume, Smith, Nietzsche, Nozick, Wollstonecraft, Warnock, Butler, Rawls, hooks and Marx and return with a concise summary. </ref> | ||
Even if you know ''who'' they are, how do you ''what'' — beyond having as much of your soda as you can make, as cheap as you can sell it — your stakeholders’ interests are?<ref>There is a hand-wavy argument that executives should have in mind the “best interests of the community” and not anyone’s selfish needs and wants. But who knows what that is? How does a moral agenda determined by the corporate executive class — mainly white, ageing, cis-gendered, post colonial men, in case it at slipped anyone’s attention — improve on no moral agenda at all? | Even if you know ''who'' they are, how do you ''what'' — beyond having as much of your soda as you can make, as cheap as you can sell it — your stakeholders’ interests are?<ref>There is a hand-wavy argument that executives should have in mind the “best interests of the community” and not anyone’s selfish needs and wants. But who knows what that is? How does a moral agenda determined by the corporate executive class — mainly white, ageing, cis-gendered, post colonial men, in case it at slipped anyone’s attention — improve on no moral agenda at all? | ||