Report: How to make Corporations Accountable
15 October 2008
How did corporations become so powerful and unaccountable? In a new report from the Institute of Employment Rights, Dr Dan Plesch and Dr Stephanie Blankenburg of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS investigate a headline issue of the day – corporate predation – and place the rise of shareholder limited liability at the heart of the current economic problems.
In their report, How to Make Corporations Accountable, Dr Plesch and Dr Blankenburg write:
"Society needs successful businesses, but today business is taking over society. It's as if an over-indulged child had taken more and more liberties until it is entirely out of control. Everyone wants the child to do well, no boundaries are set, and before you know it the family is under the thumb of a teenager gone wild."
The authors argue that while thousands of workers face losing their livelihoods and homes as a result of irresponsible and totally uncontrolled corporate decision-making, those at the helm hide behind a complex framework of law at the heart of which lies limited liability, a concept that together with the “separate corporate personality” gives shareholders and their directors all of the power and none of the responsibility. They suggest that legal accountability through statutory regulation has to be introduced if economic stability is to be restored.
Carolyn Jones, Director of the Institute of Employment Rights said:
"IER has been arguing for better regulation of company law and workplace practices for many years. This powerful and very timely report provides contemporary examples of how the current system protects those at the top while devastating the lives of the innocent. The range of policy proposals contained in this report aim not to bail out failing companies, but to bring economic stability based on fairness, justice and equality".
For further details on the publication, please see the full press release.
For further information, contact:
Kate Hodgson kh22@soas.ac.uk
