Membership through stewardship.

Abstract

The problems of corporate governance, and particularly the relationships between investors and companies, seem intractable, despite decades of theorising and empirical research. This thought experiment asks us to look at the problem through a fresh lens. It draws on the British legal custom of calling shareholders “members”, and then uses the political philosopher Michael Walzer’s idea of membership in states, clubs, neighbourhoods, and families to draw lessons for the corporate world. Rethinking what membership of a company might mean points to a pragmatic escape from short-termism without the injustice of depriving shareholders of rights.