On August 18, 2019, Liz Kiesche writes on SA News:
Serving shareholders is no longer the primary reason for a corporation’s existence, says Business Roundtable.
Some 181 CEOs signed a new statement of a corporation’s purpose to commit leading their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders — customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders, Business Roundtable said in a statement.
Since 1997, each version of Business Roundtable’s statement on the purpose of a corporation has endorsed the view that corporations exist principally to serve shareholders.
“Major employers are investing in their workers and communities because they know it is the only way to be successful over the long term,” said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase and Chairman of Business Roundtable.
Among other CEOs that signed the statement are Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, AT&T’s Randall Stephenson, BlackRock’s Laurence Fink, Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg, Coca-Cola’s James Quincey, Dow’s Jim Fitterling, Exxon Mobil’s Darren Woods, Johnson & Johnson’s Alex Gorsky, Oracle’s Safra Catz, Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, Procter & Gamble’s David Taylor, UPS’s David Abney, Vanguard’s Mortimer Buckley, and Walmart’s Doug McMillon.
Gary Reber Comments:
Since the 1970s, the prevailing ethos of corporate management has been that a company’s prime responsibility is to serve its shareholders, which in reality has meant those with controlling interests. Benefits for those other stakeholders follow but they’re not the prime concern.
“In the Business Roundtable’s view, the paramount duty of management and of boards of directors is to the corporation’s stockholders; the interest of other stakeholders are relevant as a derivative of the duty to stockholders,” the organization declared in 1997.
But now the lobbying group says: “We share a fundamental commitment to ALL of our shareholders.” Their statement mentions, in order, customers, employees, suppliers, communities and lastly shareholders.
As one of my Facebook friends noted, “Here is the catch 22′.. We The People can’t detach all the economics from politics.. ‘oh.. I mean.. ‘bought legislation’… now can we???'”)
When these kleptoligarch one percenters start talking about rectifying all the monetary and economic injustices and improprieties and start demanding to get the MONEY out of politics.. then we will know these deceivers are serious about rectifying inequities!
Don’t hold YOUR Breathe!
