Shareholder activism and alienation

Current Anthropology

Volumn 52, Issue SUPPL. 3, 2011, Pages

  Welker, Marina ^a   Wood, David ^b  

^a 261 McGraw Hall ^*  (United States)

^b HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 79953139623     PISSN: 00113204     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/656796     Document Type: Article

References (9)

1. Bakan (2004:11) portrays this shift as a consequence of the rise of railways, as business leaders and politicians argued that middle-class stock investors-who were crucial for raising sufficient capital for rail projects- needed the protection of limited liability to attract them to the market.
2. Muslims have for centuries avoided investments related to pork products and usury; Methodists were counseled in the eighteenth century by the church's founder, John Wesley, that one should not profit from industries that would harm one's neighbor by polluting rivers or encouraging intemperance; and the Society of Friends, consistent with Quaker principles of nonviolence and human equality, opposed slaveryrelated investments.
3. For Muslim investors, Amana Funds complies with Sharia principles, avoiding interest (riba), alcohol, and pornography. For Catholic investors, Ave Maria Mutual Funds screens out companies involved in abortion or pornography and those with policies it deems to undermine the marriage sacrament. Another conservative Christian mutual fund, the Timothy Plan, avoids alcohol, tobacco, abortion, "antifamily" entertainment, and corporate recognition of gay marriage. The Women's Equity Fund invests in companies that advance women in the workplace, and the Meyers Pride Value Fund was created to invest in companies with progressive policies for the gay and lesbian community. Against the entire SRI concept, investors can select the Vice Fund, which invests predominantly in tobacco, alcohol, gambling, aerospace, and defense industries.
4. Bakan (2004) perpetuates the view that Dodge v. Ford established clear precedent for the profit-maximization interpretation of corporate obligations, while Paine's (2003) work shows that the legal obligations of corporations have been construed in multiple ways.
5. This corresponded with the view that corporations began, over the first half of the twentieth century, to actively promote themselves as socially embedded creatures endowed with souls (Marchand 1998).
6. Ho (2009) shows how the same investment banks reaped benefits from creating conglomerates and then, decades later, breaking them up.
7. http://www.socialinvest.org/projects (accessed January 20, 2011).
8. "Endowments for Climate Solutions" event, held at the Boston Foundation, October 3, 2007.
9. "Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United States," Social Investment Forum report, 2007.