fiduciary

disambig see max profit<div>
</div><div> = =<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/study-reveals-how-stakeholder-capitalism-fails-to-live-up-to-promises-as-corporations-continue-putting-profits-over-people/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/study-reveals-how-stakeholder-capitalism-fails-to-live-up-to-promises-as-corporations-continue-putting-profits-over-people/</a>no linx twt
Study reveals how ‘stakeholder capitalism’ fails to live up to promises as corporations continue putting profits over peopleWritten by Kenny Stancil / Common Dreams September 23, 2020When the Business Roundtable issued a statement on corporate purpose and promised to “deliver value to all of… our stakeholders” in 2019, some applauded the attention paid to social and environmental concerns by 181 CEOs as a significant improvement from neoliberal economist Milton Friedman’s 1970 dictate that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits,” which marked the beginning of an era of shareholder primacy.But a study (pdf) published Tuesday by the Test of Corporate Purpose (TCP) initiative showed that amid 2020’s disastrous public health, economic, social, and environmental challenges—the coronavirus pandemic, massive unemployment and worsening inequality, persistent police violence and racial injustice, and intensified climate crisis—”stakeholder capitalism” has failed to follow through on its promises to do more to benefit workers and communities, continuing to “put profits ahead of people” instead.Joshua Bolten, president of the Business Roundtable (BRT), told the New York Times that he thinks corporations “have done exceptionally well” in supporting employees during the unprecedented crisis set in motion by Covid-19.But Times reporter Peter Goodman painted a different picture. When large technology company Salesforce “celebrated more than $5 billion in quarterly sales… in late August,” its chief executive, Marc Benioff—a self-styled “evangelist for stakeholder capitalism”—declared victory, explained Goodman. “The next day, in the midst of the pandemic, Salesforce informed 1,000 employees that their jobs were no longer needed.”In March, Arne Sorenson—president and CEO of Marriott International and co-chairman of a BRT task force convened to address Covid-19—”announced that he was furloughing tens of thousands of employees, asserting that his hand had been forced by the swift deterioration of the business,” wrote Goodman. “Less than two weeks later, Marriott paid out $160 million in dividends to shareholders.”TCP’s study, which was conducted with KKS Advisors and supported by the Ford Foundation, summarized the “conundrum” this way: “The interests of stockholders and other stakeholders will not always align.”The analysis showed that U.S. companies that signed the BRT statement “performed no better than their nonsignatory counterparts through the 2020 crises.”Researchers pointed to stock buybacks, political spending, tax evasion, and unchecked pollution as additional examples of practices reflecting the continued prioritization of shareholder interests despite pledges to pursue “inclusive prosperity” for all stakeholders.In the words of the report’s authors, many companies still “campaign for one world while publicly proclaiming a vision of another.”The report noted that only a handful of the signatories to the BRT statement even submitted it to their companies for approval, which is why some scholars have argued that the promises made by proponents of “stakeholder capitalism” are a public relations gimmick that will not improve social welfare.On social media, commentators such as Krystal Ball and Bharat Ramamurti concurred. Ramamurti, the managing director of the Roosevelt Institute’s Corporate Power Program, wrote: “The way to change corporate behavior is with new laws. Press releases won’t cut it.”According to Goodman, “The study enhances doubts that corporations can be depended upon to moderate their quest for profits to pursue solutions to challenges like climate change, racial injustice, and economic inequality.”Proponents of a genuinely just and sustainable society like Marjorie Kelly, executive vice president of The Democracy Collaborative, have criticized the BRT statement while arguing that what’s known as the triple-bottom-line approach to business—people, planet, and prosperity—is a step in the right direction.Kelly cautioned against viewing companies’ simultaneous pursuit of multiple interests as inherently disingenuous, pointing to “national brands as diverse as Ben & Jerry’s, Amalgamated Bank, and King Arthur Baking” that govern themselves according to formal commitments giving “social and environmental benefits equal standing with profit goals.”One key to differentiating the mission-driven enterprises truly committed to the creation of an equitable and ecological economy from those corporations for whom social responsibility is a marketing ploy is to analyze the gap between rhetoric and practice, Kelly argued.The study noted: “Given the enormous influence major corporations have over the trajectory of policy and regulation, no analysis of corporate purpose and its alignment with a stakeholder primacy model would be complete without incorporating an evaluation of companies’ lobbying and political spending activities,” which often contradict the information coming from marketing departments.Fidelity to progressive economic and environmental policies, or lack thereof, provides another clue. In addition to well-known instances of greenwashing and pinkwashing, political scientist Cedric Johnson has called attention to the ‘blackwashing‘ at play when, for example, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos adamantly pledged his support for Black Lives Matter even though “the company fired Chris Smalls, a black Amazon worker who led a walkout at the end of March demanding more protective gear and hazard pay.”Economists Emily Kawano, former director of the Center for Popular Economics, and Julie Matthaei, co-founder of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network, argued that profit-maximization is intrinsic to capitalism and the privately owned corporations that characterize it, so even the “stakeholder” variety is incapable of balancing moneymaking with competing objectives like greater equality and sustainability.According to Kawano, Matthaei, and other proponents of public goods and a cooperative model of social wealth-building, successfully prioritizing human and environmental well-being will require moving toward a non-capitalist economy based around democratic ownership.Now “would be a great time to push for real reforms,” Chuck Collins, director of the Institute for Policy Studies’ Program on Inequality, told Common Dreams. “Why shouldn’t Amazon or any of the hundreds of companies that are benefiting from pandemic conditions share their ownership with employees?”“Any talk of corporations being responsive to a broad spectrum of stakeholders is just that—talk—as long as stakeholders don’t have power,” said Kelly. “And power means ownership.”<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div>=819 art'l yesterday ceo ~ profit max, vs ceo$ max, //?<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/financial-journalist-explains-why-shareholder-democracy-and-milton-friedman-economics-have-failed-miserably/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/financial-journalist-explains-why-shareholder-democracy-and-milton-friedman-economics-have-failed-miserably/</a>no lnx
Financial journalist explains why ‘shareholder democracy’ and Milton Friedman economics have failed miserably Written by Alex Henderson August 20, 2019“Shareholder democracy” is an economic theory that was aggressively promoted by the late Milton Friedman, the conservative University of Chicago economist who served as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan as well as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. According to “shareholder democracy,” a corporation’s #1 responsibility is to its shareholders — not the good of society at large — and “shareholder democracy” as preached by Friedman influenced everything from Reaganomics to neoliberalism to the Libertarian Party. But Andrew Ross Sorkin (author of the 2009 book “Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System — and Themselves”) explains in a New York Times article that in 2019, more and more Americans are rethinking “shareholder democracy” and coming to view it as detrimental to the greater good.“For nearly a half-century,” Sorkin explains, “Corporate America has prioritized, almost maniacally, profits for its shareholders. That single-minded devotion overran nearly every other constituent, pushing aside the interests of customers, employees and communitiesFriedman, Sorkin notes, scoffed at the concept of corporate responsibility, asserting in 1970, “What does it mean to say that ‘business’ has responsibilities? Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.”But in 2019, according to Sorkin, one is seeing a resurgence of what used to be called “managerialism” — essentially, a belief that corporations need to be concerned about employees, communities and society’s greater good and not simply shareholders. There were hints of managerialism, Sorkin says, in a Business Roundtable statement released on Monday — when leaders of major companies ranging from Apple and Amazon to JPMorgan Chase issued a joint statement noting that employees and communities should matter to companies along with shareholders.
Sorkin attributes this statement in part to “public outrage” and a growing populism.
“Americans mistrust companies to such an extent that the very idea of capitalism is now being debated on the political stage,” Sorkin asserts. “Populism has been embraced on both ends of the political spectrum, whether in the trade protectionism of President Trump or the social-net supremacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders.”
Indeed, Sanders’ popularity shows a shift in the United States’ political landscape. The self-described “democratic socialist” has achieved much greater prominence in U.S. politics than he had in the 1990s or 2000s, and recent polls on the 2020 Democratic presidential primary have found him battling for the #2 position with the decidedly liberal/progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Reflecting on the effects of “shareholder democracy,” Sorkin explains that in the past, “Shareholders and, in turn, a new class of investors known as corporate raiders convinced executives to slash any and all fat from their budgets or risk being taken over or voted out. Layoffs increased, research and development budgets were cut, and pension programs were traded for 401(k)s. There was a rush of mergers driven by ‘cost savings’ that grabbed headlines while profits soared and dividends increased.”
The debate on “corporate democracy” versus “managerialism,” Sorkin stresses, will rage on — and not everyone in the business world agrees with the Business Roundtable statement issued on Monday.
“For whatever progress may have been made Monday, it is hardly clear the debate is over,” Sorkin explains. “In fact, the fight for corporate identity is just beginning.”<div>==</div></div>