The only way I know to combat corporate power as it now stands is for government to exercise its powers as owners of a preponderance of publicly traded stock. Self-regulation didn’t work and any attempts at government regulation are thwarted or circumnavigated. You can’t control a corporation from outside so owners must step into the breach. What do I mean by government owners? I mean the three categories of institutional ownership created by federal laws:
- Investment Company Act of 1940 for mutual funds;
- Employees’ Retirement Income Securities Act of 1974 for employee benefit plans;
- And various statutes involving the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the Comptroller, etc involving bank trusts.
Institutional ownership has fiduciary characteristics proscribed in the enabling laws, so I am stressing that the same standards of “stewardship of portfolio companies” should be expected of all institutions holding title pursuant to federal laws.
Nature didn’t create corporations and no god created corporations. People did, and so people have to solve this issue of corporations run amok. Corporations are creatures of man-made law and if they are more powerful that other creatures then people must address this. And, since corporations are really just groups of people, you can be certain the people who wield enormous corporate power will fight to hold onto that power.
More on this in the video….
