Nov. 22, 2019
As the coauthor, with Jan Traflet, of a major new biography of 20th century corporate activist Wilma Soss, I find the proposed increase in the shareholder proposal minimum requirement from $2,000 for one year to $15K/2 years or $25K/1 year repugnant to the republican ideals on which this nation’s corporate sector was founded by Alexander Hamilton in the late eighteenth century. What shareowners seek is not corporate democracy but sufficient checks on managerial power to render investments in equity equitable. The proposal weakens one of the few remaining checks on managerial expropriation of shareowner resources for no corresponding gain in corporate efficiency and hence should be rejected. When our biography of Soss appears, we will push to return the $2K/1 year limit to a one share/1 month limit. -- Robert E. Wright Nef Family Chair of Political Economy, Augustana University Treasurer, Historians Against Slavery FINANCIAL EXCLUSION: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1630691704 For more info. and c.v., see http://faculty.augie.edu/~rwright/