Unfortunately, over the past few decades, the top executives of our major corporations have turned the productive power of the people into massive and concentrated financial wealth for themselves.
Indeed the very emergence of “the 1 percent” is largely the result of this usurpation of corporate power, and executives’ use of this power to benefit themselves often undermines investment in innovation and job creation.
These corporations do not belong to them. They belong to us. We need to confront some powerful myths of corporate governance as part of a movement to make corporations work for the 99 percent.
To start, we have to recognize these corporations for what they are not.
• They are not “private enterprise.”
• They should not be run to “maximize shareholder value.”
• The mega-millions in remuneration paid to top corporate executives are not determined by the “market forces” of supply and demand.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these myths.
1. Public corporations are not private enterprise.Here’s something you’ll rarely hear stated by today’s politicians and pundits: Publicly listed and traded corporations are not private enterprise.
2. Corporations should be run to benefit everyone who contributes to their success – not just shareholders. It’s a myth that corporations have a legal duty to maximize profits to shareholders at the expense of everyone else. Historically, the executives and directors of U.S. public corporations understood that they had a responsibility to other constituencies – customers, employees, suppliers, creditors, the communities in which they operate, and the nation.
3. Executive compensation is a rigged game, not the result of the laws of supply and demand.You often hear that stratospheric executive pay is the result of some inexorable law of supply and demand. If we don’t give top executives their multimillion dollar compensation, they won’t be willing to come to work and do their jobs. They are supposedly the bearers of “scarce talent” that demands a high price in the market place.
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/06/the_...ies/singleton/
The shareholders are allowing the CEOs to steal from them.
It is the responsibility of every American citizen to own a modern military rifle.
Bump for the right to try to refute LOL
It is the responsibility of every American citizen to own a modern military rifle.
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