Either way, if the new stakeholder model is going to amount to more than the old charade of “shareholder democracy,” the principals themselves must be involved in setting up the new regime. If we leave it for the agents to decide for themselves, we will end up right back where we started.
Katharina Pistor is professor of comparative law at Columbia Law School and the author of "The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality" (Princeton University Press).