Is Joe Biden a moderate or a radical? He says businesses “have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country”—a truism. But he has also called for “an end to the era of shareholder capitalism.” He says it’s “untrue and a farce” that a company’s primary responsibility is to generate returns for shareholders.
I suppose it's possible that this is just another example of Biden running as fast as he can to the Sanders/AOC/Warren left, in which case one might hope it's just campaign blather that will fade away after he gets elected.
But it's also possible that he's serious about it. After all, this is a man who has boasted--misleadingly--that "I don't own a single stock or bond. ... I have no savings account."
Sigh. Where to begin? Go read Pudzer's article and then any of the following:
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, In Defense of the Shareholder Wealth Maximization Norm. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=303780 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.303780
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, Director Primacy: The Means and Ends of Corporate Governance (February 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=300860 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.300860
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, The Bishops and the Corporate Stakeholder Debate (April 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=308604 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.308604
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, Corporate Social Responsibility in the Night Watchman State: A Comment on Strine & Walker (September 9, 2014). UCLA School of Law, Law-Econ Research Paper No. 14-12, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2494003
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, Corporate Purpose in a Populist Era. UCLA School of Law, Law-Econ Research Paper No. 18-09, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3237107 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3237107
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, Christianity and Corporate Purpose (December 1, 2019). UCLA School of Law, Law-Econ Research Paper No. 19-10, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3496850 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3496850
Bainbridge, Stephen Mark, Making Sense of The Business Roundtable’s Reversal on Corporate Purpose (July 30, 2020). UCLA School of Law, Law-Econ Research Paper No. 20-03, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3664078
