Omari Scott Simmons argues:
The embrace of shareholder activism as a tool to bring about broad social change is a welcome development. It reflects a trend of outsourcing public functions and values to private actors and stems in part from a frustration with interest group politics and existing democratic processes in the public context. However, overreliance on shareholder activism and similar private tactics may lead to an expectations gap; they are not an effective surrogate for persistent, organized, mobilized social movements that employ diverse tactics in traditional democratic venues.
What we are seeing these days is yet another attempt by the left to by pass democracy and achieve social changes they prefer without getting approval from a majority of citizens. The left used the courts to bypass democracy for years (See, e.g., Roe v. Wade). Now that the Supreme Court has a fairly solid conservative majority, the left is shifting to corporate governance to coerce corporate leaders--some of whom themselves are social justice warriors eager to cooperate--into adopting leftist policy preferences.
There's a law review article here.
