Wait, don't public corporations have an fiduciary duty to their shareholders, debt duty to their bond holders and payroll obligation to their employees. Sort o

Wait, don't public corporations have an fiduciary duty to their shareholders, debt duty to their bond holders and payroll obligation to their employees. Sort of. It sounds good on paper - in a perfect world perhaps the invisible hand of the market would make "greed is good" a functional philosophy. But that's not the world we live in - there will always be significant friction, imperfect knowledge, etc in the market such that insisting that one part of the entire system be "pure" in the economic liberal sense is really just denying the obvious in a way that encourages exploiting those imperfections. FWIW, the concept that corporations have no public duty beyond maximizing profits as a course of business is quite new. Here's some background: False Profits: Reviving the Corporation's Public Purpose http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=1056 http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=1056