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شركات جديدة لعصر جديد

Feb 12, 2020 Dani Rodrik

كمبريدج – تُعد الشركات أساس الاقتصاد الحديث. يحدث الجزء الأكبر من الإنتاج والاستثمار والابتكار وخلق فرص العمل داخلها. لا تحدد قراراتها الأداء الاقتصادي فحسب، بل أيضًا صحة ورفاهية المجتمع. ولكن من الذي ينبغي أن يحكم الشركات، ومن الذي يجب أن يتخذ تلك القرارات بالنيابة عنها؟

النظرية التقليدية التي تعمل بموجبها اقتصاداتنا الحديثة هي أن الشركات تُدار وتُمثل من قبل المستثمرين. تفصل هذه النظرية بشكل واضح بين المالكين والعمال - أي بين رأس المال والعمالة. يمتلك المستثمرون الشركة ويجب عليهم اتخاذ جميع القرارات المتعلقة بها. حتى عندما يكون ذلك غير عملي، كما هو الحال في الشركات الكبرى التي تضم مستثمرين متعددين، يعتقد الناس أن المديرين هم "وكلاء" المستثمرين -ويُمثلون المستثمرين فقط.

تعتمد نظرية الشركة على افتراضين. أولاً، المستثمرون هم الوحيدون الذين "يستثمرون" في الشركة، وبالتالي هم الوحيدون الذين يتحملون المخاطر. ثانياً، الأسواق تنافسية تماما وغير احتكاكية، بحيث يمكن للعمال (وغيرهم ممن تأثروا عن كثب بقرارات الشركات، مثل الموردين) المغادرة والعمل في مكان آخر إذا كانوا غير راضين عن الطريقة التي تعاملهم بها الشركة.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 19 in all 19 Comments on this article

Douglas Leyendecker Feb 17, 2020

What I'm saying is that it's a slippery slope from the capitalism that has freed billions from poverty to the "better managed" world that has not.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Ian Maitland Feb 16, 2020

Someone needs to remind Prof. Rodrik that the only reason that firms exist is because people choose them -- we choose to invest in them, choose work for them, choose to buy their goods and services, choose to lend money to them, and so on. Consequently firms are hyper-attuned to the needs and wants of their stakeholders because if they aren't they go out of business. We already have the vote. But Rodrik wants to disenfranchise us.

Only people breathing the rarefied air of Cambridge, Mass. can really believe that firms did not figure out a long time ago that "treating workers [and other stakeholders] better can be good for profits."

Firms clothe, shelter, feed, entertain us and much more. Does Rodrik really think that using the law to impose all sorts of additional responsibilities on them is not going to undermine their ability to perform these functions?

And where does Rodrik get the quaint idea that communities or "societies" are more effective at serving the public good than firms? Thanks to the discipline of the market, firms are far more responsive to us than political elites at the national or local level.

Rodrik's ideas have been darlings of the humanist left for centuries. To paraphrase Lincoln Steffens, I have seen the past and it doesn't work.
- Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venturi_effect
  apples and oranges
  And that little bit is a real clue. about why it's not really working.
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WmC Mantis Feb 16, 2020

Prof. Rodrik's sensible proposal does not differ substantially from the one offered by E. F. Schumacher in "Small is Beautiful" back in 1973.
- Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
  
  Interesting isn't it how the cloaks of concepts are used to conceal the real fundamental concept of basic theory and theoretical development? Changing colors and styles of narratives keep the money flowing through time. It takes real focus to discover the unchanging real message. The idealistic principles of the US Constitution is an administrative framework. It takes work to keep that framework functioning. Presently, most of the so-called work has been concerted efforts for personal gain to effectively destroy that framework. It has been deliberate by the elected politicians not doing their job, that they were elected to perform.
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John Sweeney Feb 16, 2020

The author is upfront about seizing the corporation for political purposes. The owners are not even to be allowed to "drive the discussion" about their property. It's to be be driven by the greedy and envious like Rodrik -- the failures who could not, on their own, create and deliver value to others but must seize the returns to that creation for their own power and glory.
- Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
  
  The fact is that most corporate entities, especially the present FAANGS don't own much real property. The reality is the fact that the corporate structure of the corporate entity is being used to only leave debt that is owned by the corporate entity. Then, through continued sales of stock, the stockholders assume that debt. Any real value and assets that are accrued are diverted to the owner for only their ownership and personal gain. The total work effort for absolutely no real product is performed totally at the total loss, and at the total risk of all labor. This is totally contrary to the original design of the incorporated entity for business under original business principles for ethical business organization and activities. So, "a" system is being used as a means to produce personal profit, rather than any real product. These companies are NOT producing any finished product. That most basic reality is being distorted, and hashed into nothingness. At least mashed potatoes taste good, even without butter, salt and sour cream. There is some potato to digest. When you have no real product, then there is only labor. Labor then becomes the product. When you win at the game of fooling everyone that you don't have any real product, and you fool the laborers as to what their work effort is NOT, then you start selling the laborers to themselves. Do you know what cannabalism is? When any kind of shelter in the US has a minimum price of $500,000 based on the 2020USD, then maybe some people will open up their eyes. What will be really significant is the dependency factors of whether or not the 2020USD is even used for any legal transaction at that point in time.
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Douglas Leyendecker Feb 16, 2020

"If firms, as social and political actors, are to serve the public good, workers and local communities in particular should have a much bigger say in their decisions."

Sounds like something Lenin, Stalin and Mao would say.
- Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
  
  a good link with good definitions. I don't care who wrote it, their political leanings etc. The definitions cut right to the root. https://mises.org/wire/socialism-brief-taxonomy
  
  Of course it sure takes a lot of extras to get beyond just the theoretical definition. Those guys that you reference were militarist to the core. They were also nationalists, with that as their primary focus. It could help to look at the transitional process, as the transitional process, with good and bad from and to varying extremes. What's important today is to build from whatever good is still out there and approach good goals. Most of the present firms aren't firms at all, and don't have a leg to stand on, especially when it comes to talking about, let alone even contemplating producing any real product. What is being called product is an absolute misnomer. Same goes for profit!
  Power can be used for good and for bad. Power can be good and bad regardless how and why it is used. Laws control power.
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- Helen Clemens Feb 17, 2020
  
  So you're either saying the social good is as good as it's going to be right now and that's OK, or, there's another route to greater social good. I suspect there is, like instead of changing existing corporations/firms, build new participatory/cooperative firms/associations and walk away from the existing ones. The old might win some of the time but this would introduce competition not just of product but of production. And it might change consumption patterns in a proportion of society as well as promote social wellbeing locally. What have you got to offer?
  - Douglas Leyendecker Feb 17, 2020
    
    What I'm saying is that it's a slippery slope from the capitalism that has freed billions from poverty to the "better managed" world that has not.
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Elizabeth Pula Feb 14, 2020

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1627356/business-economy

Presently, in 2020, MNE are governing the states/nations globally. MNE corporate, and data surveillance control systems govern not only the states/nations globally, but most significantly the populations. Decisions are only being made on the "behalf" of the MNE corporate entities, rather than any of the global populations that in reality constitute the nations/states that have given extremely biased rights and controls of precedence without any regard to any consequences as those decisions have, may or will affect any of the populations, the real human beings that are the citizens of the nations/states globally. All options for business formation, right to access any options and ways to establish viable business groupings are being denied by and for only the rights of essentially less than 10 most powerful global MNE corporate structured systems for control of populations rather than acknowledgement of any right to access according to settled international secular laws, especially laws of the United States.
This totally unbalanced, prejudiced, and biased recognitions, and acknowledgements of access to rights only for these few corporate entities can only result in the further erosion of all right to access of the real human beings to a consequential result of increased enslavement and denial of any human rights, and further denial of any access to maintain any ownership of any land and other material property globally.
The predicaments of various populations, especially in Syria is a real display of this vicious cycle that we are all witnessing as human beings globally. Political leadership and corporate leadership globally is refusing, due to personal self-interests, to recognize and acknowledge their stewardship, obligation, and responsibility to NOT ACT only in their own individual self-interests but as leaders of other peoples in their states, and nations.
Most are only engaged in personal power, and personal personality conflicts to the detriment of reasonable laws and reasonable civil focused action globally.
Reap what you sow. If you sow nothing, if you sow hatred and division, you have nothing to reap.
The present digital platform entities are essentially sowing nothing, and therefore there is nothing to reap. The effects of the digital cycles of reap and sow do not function at the same repetitive cycles as mentioned in the Farmers Almanac. The crop and yield needs to be examined in reality, rather than the reflective reports of any defined reflective realities within varying spectrums of any of the real worlds.

"The opportunity to build businesses is a privilege" per eldridge.com. Think about it from a global perspective.
Who has the opportunity to build any kind of business in your local community, or on the street where you live?
Who has the right/s to empire on your block?
More importantly, who really owns the latest vertical, defined, retail investment fund, that's just been marketed to you?
- Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
  
  RE: line four, should read- "that have been given extremely biased rights"....
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Joseph Zorzin Feb 13, 2020

"But societies should not allow investors and their agents to drive the discussion about reforming corporate governance. If firms, as social and political actors, are to serve the public good, workers and local communities in particular should have a much bigger say in their decisions."

Sounds great in theory but don't push it too far because corporate owners just might pull up stakes and find a friendlier environment. Heavy interference with how a corporation functions by "workers and local communities" will cause any company to lose competitiveness. Certainly corporations can't be abusive to workers and communities- but the people who invest in corporations will require that their interests are paramount.
- Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
  
  The granting of legal accommodation to define incorporated entities as a "person", was in my mind, the first extremely bad move. (Note, that person is not necessarily equivalent to a citizen.) The granting of permission to fund politicians, especially secretly, was the second extremely bad move. Both of these moves are the essential moves, done only by elected representatives, for and by their corporate associations, and lobbyists are essentially destroying all rights to access for any other business activities at local community levels for individual citizens. State law and all functional community level transactional activities is being decimated by corporate supremacy and financial power. The control of access to any thing and any right will become the most significant struggle for this next generation. The "struggle" is a deliberate manufactured struggle as a technique to allow supremacy for specific corporate groups. The US constitution was designed on principles to prevent this type of manufactured struggle. If the majority of citizens lose the ability to "press" against this struggle, the constitution as a legal framework will only become a worthless piece of paper, and the words written on that paper, will become more meaningless than they already are.
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Elizabeth Pula Feb 13, 2020

https://www.sec.gov/comments/sr-finra-2019-022/srfinra2019022-6434391-198609.pdf
I've attached a link to some comments that I posted to the SEC. Especially some of the other links that I included in the comments, are probably more than appropriate to uncover a bit of the delusions, and misconceptions about the issue of power, and incorporation today. Most of us do not understand what the "firm" really is. Also, I had posted a link referencing Cabot's permission letter from the King, way back in the 15th century, on one of these PS articles. That little link also does a lot to undisguise just what monopoly refers to, what imperialism refers to, and again what any workers' rights are confined to.

AND, here's a little line from the eldridge.com investment funds website that really sums up the 2020 vision for workers globally: "The opportunity to build businesses is a privilege.". So depending how you view that line, it may be positive. Again it may be quite negative. Welcome to 2020.
- Helen Clemens Feb 17, 2020
  
  Neat links. I guess, following Why Nations Fail, those early expansionist centuries that led to colonialism allowed a level of skilled new entrants to participate in wealth accrual and as then, that opportunity is highly selective for skills, context and bravura. We thought, sometime last century, that everyone else deserved a better life, but not so much in the end stages of our culture. Back to absolute rule and occasional patronage?
  - Elizabeth Pula Feb 17, 2020
    
    RE:"Back to absolute rule and occasional patronage?" Most definitely. Corporate rule overtaking any state based rule. Corporate power that is a rotational power structure, cycled only among specific layers within the vertical hierarchies. Minimal and minimally occasional patronage to only satisfy personally focused financial income streams, at the total risk of any of those seeking patronage.Increasing violence and conflict among the many, increasing controls limiting all freedom of the many, profit vertical channels expand to only the top few that own any of the structural filters, and flows.
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