Nice analogy…

Without a doubt, the idea has a great deal of merit…but it is not an idea for the willfully ignorant more concerned with getting rich now than with increasing real wealth over a generational timespan.

And consumer activism works too.  The EU has much stricter environmental laws because of consumer activism…not because its government is inherently more enlightened than ours.

The Left is foolish to abandon the “free” market to the Right, particularly because the Right doesn’t propose a free market.  Which market is more free: the one in which the GMO ingredients in your food are unknown or the one where packaging must be labeled as containing GMO’s and let the consumer make a choice?

There’s no outlawing or regulation in the latter, only information.

See Exxon’s profit go up up up.

See America go down, down down.

See people hold onto their foolish political beliefs despite billions of dollars worth of evidence to the contrary.

The efficacy can be argued, but it’s an idea that could have some merit if a large number of people were working for a single cause in certain industries. Of course, they’d have to be able to understand compromise and have a sound platform.

Shareholder activism is a really nice phrase, and in some cases it may, in fact, work.  Unfortunately, the way people structure their investments makes it difficult.

If you hold an IRA, 401K, or a mutual fund (or are lucky enough to have a pension) then you probably don’t even know which companies you’re a shareholder in.  The system takes “limited liability” to the extreme in that not only is the shareholder not liable, but they don’t even know to what end their capital is being used.

On another thread, i posted that the Oil and Gas Industry is running a new ad campaign telling people to shut up and quit bitching about Oil/Gas profits because so many of us collect dividends on those profits.

Warren Buffet and Jack Kerkorian can be activist shareholders because they’ll come along and buy big enough chunks that their voice must be listened to.  But when the shares are split up and tucked away the concept becomes more difficult to make reality.

Still, good luck with that.

“It is like the head-pounding noise of bad heavy metal music, but the subliminal message isn’t a satanic code—”

1) True Heavy Metal is NEVER bad music.
2) Satanic code isn’t as prominent as Satanic themes, which speak to the working class and rebellious spirit of people in touch with their humanity.

But, back to the point. I’m pretty happy this article showed up here because I really think activism should cross-over to the market place, so long as it doesn’t manipulate market pricing. Really, free-market is something of an untapped resource for Lefties because it is so hard to get people to stop BUYING CRAP, and force companies to employ pragmatic and humanistic practices. Maybe if there were a new wave of Green Investors, we could develop the corporate world while demanding, through significant dollar amounts, change to ensure profit and sustainability.

It would also have the benefit of familiarizing a lot of Lefties of what the market place is really like instead of allowing them to have blind hatred of Globalization and corporations, which is not productive at all. Know Your Enemy!

Shareholder democracy is an oxymoron. 

Can the sale of shares be similiar to the sale of indulgences in the middle ages so we can enter the consecrated ground of the corporate church, and in the end achieve salvation?  Maybe once we are blessed by his holiness (read CEO) and he consults the scripture (read Wealth of Nations) then we are able to exercise a modicum of control over the policies of the church (read corporation).

on the Stevens textile mills years ago with varying degrees of success…today Stevens is an overseas entrepreneur. Could Exxon-Mobile do the same? Shareholders,like customers, are no longer served, it is the greed of the CEO’s and CFO’s that are served.
However, if you are right, this could have a whole new meaning of capitalism. As of this writing I see that Exxon-Mobile is quietly buying back billions of shares of their stock.Never mind, David, still same ol same ol

Make some noise and ask for what you want from the people who can give it to you.

Everyone should click on Glenn Beck and sign the petition to chastise Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, and Bill o’reilly for their inaccurate hate mongering. If you’re going to monger hate, make sure you’ve got your facts straight.

i feel shareholder democracy at work already. Maybe Ayn Rand was right about capitalism all along….