Business Roundtable and ‘Stakeholder Equity’.
Dear Reader,
The Business Roundtable, on
August 19th, 2019, issued a substantially
revised “Statement on the Purpose of a
Corporation”, which
they characterized as follows -- “Updated
Statement Moves Away from Shareholder Primacy, Includes Commitment to All Stakeholders.” [emphases added by M.D.].
Their Press release opens with the following
preamble -- “Business Roundtable today announced
the release of a new Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation signed by 181
CEOs who commit to lead their companies for the benefit of all
stakeholders – customers,
employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders
.” [emphasis added by M.D.].
“Since 1978, Business Roundtable has periodically issued
Principles of Corporate Governance. Each version of the document issued since
1997 has endorsed principles of
shareholder primacy
– that corporations exist principally to serve shareholders. With today’s
announcement, the new Statement supersedes previous statements and outlines a
modern standard for corporate responsibility
.” [emphases added by M.D.].
The Statement asserts corporate commitments
to each of five “stakeholder” categories:
customers, employees, suppliers, communities, & stockholders
--
“While
each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose,
we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders.
We commit to:
·
Delivering value to our customers. ... .
- Investing in our employees. This starts with
compensating them fairly and providing important benefits. It also
includes supporting them through training and education that help develop
new skills for a rapidly changing world. We foster diversity and
inclusion, dignity and respect.
- Dealing fairly and ethically
with our suppliers.
... .
- Supporting the communities in which we work.
We respect the people in our communities and protect the environment by
embracing sustainable practices across our businesses.
·
Generating long-term value for shareholders, who provide the capital that allows companies to
invest, grow and innovate. We are committed to transparency and effective
engagement with shareholders.
Each of our
stakeholders is essential.
We commit to deliver value to all of them,
for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.
” [emphases added].
While this statement, which lacks
virtually all juridical enforceability, may amount to little more than lip
service to delivering “value” to “all” five stakeholder categories,
the fact that this prominent organization of the U. S. capitalist upper ruling
class bothered to publish this statement at all signals, we believe, a
collective psychohistorical “sea change” among the American people -- a sea
change which this capitalist ideology-engineering organ has detected, and
hopes, including via this statement, to “get out in front of”.
For their full official
statement on this re-conceptualization,
see --
We of F.E.D. have recently compiled what we hope will serve as far more than mere “lip service”
toward full elaboration of a concept of ‘‘‘socialist’’’ ‘‘‘STAKEHOLDER DEMOCRACY’’’, available via the following internet
locations --
For more
information regarding these
Seldonian insights, please see --
For partially pictographical, ‘poster-ized’ visualizations of many of these Seldonian insights -- specimens of ‘dialectical art’
-- see:
¡ENJOY!
Regards,
Miguel
Detonacciones,
Member, Foundation Encyclopedia
Dialectica [F.E.D.],
Participant, F.E.D.
Special Council for Public Liaison,
Officer, F.E.D.
Office of Public Liaison.
