{"id":10674,"date":"2018-12-22T11:20:19","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T19:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=10674"},"modified":"2018-12-22T11:20:19","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T19:20:19","slug":"robert-reich-how-to-hold-corporations-accountable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/12\/22\/robert-reich-how-to-hold-corporations-accountable\/","title":{"rendered":"ROBERT REICH: HOW TO HOLD CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TUE, 12\/18\/2018 &#8211; BY\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.occupy.com\/author\/robert-reich\">ROBERT REICH<\/a>\u00a0(Occupy.com)<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-info\">\n<div id=\"content-partner\">THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON\u00a0<span class=\"content-partner-title\">ROBERTREICH.ORG<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"sharethis\">\n<div class=\"sharethis-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"fb-like fb_iframe_widget\" data-action=\"\" data-send=\"false\" data-layout=\"button_count\" data-show-faces=\"false\" data-href=\"http:\/\/www.occupy.com\/article\/robert-reich-how-hold-corporations-accountable-video\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed\">\n<div class=\"fluid-width-video-wrapper\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SxWWoGO1Y4A?wmode=opaque\" name=\"fitvid0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field-name-body\">\n<p>Charles E. Wilson, the CEO of General Motors in the middle part of the last century, reputedly once said that \u201cwhat was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The idea was that large corporations had a duty not just to their shareholders, but also to their employees, customers, and community. What was good for all of these stakeholders was inseparable from what was good for large corporations like GM.<\/p>\n<p>But in the 1980\u2019s, this shifted. The only goal of large corporations goal became maximizing profits and returns for shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>Corporate profits are now a higher share of the economy than they were for most of the past century, and workers\u2019 share of the total economy is the lowest.<\/p>\n<p>Corporations are now amassing huge control over our economy and fueling widening economic inequality.<\/p>\n<p>Workers must have more power.<\/p>\n<p>Elizabeth Warren\u2019s proposal, the Accountable Capitalism Act, is a good start at remaking the economic system so it works for all of us.<\/p>\n<p>It recognizes that large corporations, with revenues of $1 billion or more, are so big and powerful they should be held to a higher standard of conduct \u2013 chartered by the federal government to serve all their stakeholders, not just their shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>Under Warren\u2019s proposal, workers would elect at least 40 percent of big corporations\u2019 boards of directors. These corporations wouldn\u2019t be able to make political contributions without the approval of 75 percent of their directors and shareholders. And their legal right to exist could be revoked if they engaged in repeated and egregious lawbreaking.<\/p>\n<p>Effective action to hold corporations accountable needs to be federal because the states, left to their own devices, have to compete with one another for businesses to locate in their states. This has led to a race to the bottom for corporate cash. Two-thirds of big corporations in America are now officially headquartered in Delaware, because Delaware\u2019s corporate laws are weakest.<\/p>\n<p>This would be a huge change, bringing into better balance the voices of American workers with the overwhelming dominance of big corporations and their major investors.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to demand that the economic system work for all of us.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/robertreich.org\/post\/181146860275\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Originally published by RobertReich.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TUE, 12\/18\/2018 &#8211; BY\u00a0ROBERT REICH\u00a0(Occupy.com) THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED ON\u00a0ROBERTREICH.ORG Charles E. Wilson, the CEO of General Motors in the middle part of the last century, reputedly once said that \u201cwhat was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.\u201d The idea was that large corporations&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/12\/22\/robert-reich-how-to-hold-corporations-accountable\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10675,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10674\/revisions\/10675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}