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> The whole meme that companies exist to maximize shareholder value is just that: a meme, and a recent one at that. Nah, stakeholder capitalism is a way more r
by NotYourLawyer 3y ago
> The whole meme that companies exist to maximize shareholder value is just that: a meme, and a recent one at that.
Nah, stakeholder capitalism is a way more recent idea than shareholder primacy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- llamaimperative 3y agoNope. The shareholder obsession can be traced back directly to the 70s/80s. It’s a memetic hiccup. A failed experiment. Immediately preceding that was managerial capitalism which explicitly included employees and local communities in their considerations. Prior to that, most businesses were owned and operated by the same people. Talk to any founder — especially familial legacy businesses - and you know they don’t run it purely to maximize “shareholder” value. Partly because it’s exceptionally hard to do without destroying the real company — the thing behind the spreadsheets.
- NotYourLawyer 3y agoWrong. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
- ethanbond 3y agoThe ideology has existed since shareholders have. Dodge v Ford Motor is the nucleation point for it going mainstream. But it took a generation of lawyers and business leaders getting trained as if a Michigan court decision is gospel for that view to become dogmatic (Milton Friedman’s essay being the nail in the proverbial coffin decades later). And it has never reached actual legal obligation to maximize profits, which is the extreme view you hear a lot of today.