Corporations are often so focused on making short-term profits for their stockholders that they behave in ways that adversely affect their employees, the environment, consumers, American politics, and even the long-term well-being of the corporation, says Lawrence Mitchell in this provocative book. This is a significant issue not only in the United States but also in the world, for many countries are beginning to emulate the American model of corporate governance. Mitchell criticizes this emphasis on profit maximization and the corporate legal structure that encourages it, and he offers concrete proposals to bring about more socially responsible corporate behavior. Mitchell declares that managers should be freed from the legal and structural constraints that make it difficult for them to exercise ordinary moral judgment and be held accountable for their actions. He suggests, for example, that earnings reports be required annually rather than quarterly, that the capital gains tax be increased on stocks held for fewer than thirty days, and that elections of corporate boards of directors be held every five years rather than every year. Mitchell places the problem of corporate irresponsibility within the broader context of American life and demonstrates the extent to which contemporary corporate behavior represents a corruption of our cherished liberal values of personal freedom and individuality.

Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export

Business & Money

Mitchell, Lawrence E.

Biography & History

Yale University Press

Progressive Corporate Law

Reference

Routledge

Progressive Corporate Law (New Perspectives on Law, Culture, and Society)

Reflecting recent reexaminations of the nature and purpose of the modern publicly held corporation, Progressive Corporate Law introduces the reader to alternative perspectives within the field. The contributors to this volume are loosely bound both by their rejection of the prevailing paradigm of the corporation as a public good designed exclusively for the maximization of private profit and by their affirmative goal of designing corporate laws that accord better with the corporation's political and social realities. The resulting series of visions emphasizes communitarian themes of efficiency and morality of responsibility, altruism, and unity within the corporate form as well as between the corporation and the broader society. Progressive Corporate Law is important reading for business executives, lawyers, policymakers, and others who are concerned with the role of corporations in modern life. Designed to act as a springboard for stimulating discussion, it will be a valuable supplement to courses and seminars in corporate law and business ethics.

Westview Press

Book by Mitchell, Lawrence E., Diamond, Michael R.

Corporations: A Contemporary Approach: Cases and Materials for a Course in Corporate Law

Diamond, Michael R.

Business

Carolina Academic Press

This edition of the increasingly popular casebook retains the two organizing themes of the first edition: that an underlying theory of the corporation is necessary to resolve any difficult questions in corporate law and that those difficult questions revolve around the tension between fiduciary obligation and contract principles that form the basis of corporate law. A teacher's manual is available.

Corporate Finance and Governance: Cases, Materials, and Problems for an Advanced Course in Corporations (Law Casebook Series)

Solomon, Lewis D.

Cunningham, Lawrence A.

Carolina Academic Pr

American companies once focused exclusively on providing the best products and services. But today, most corporations are obsessed with maximizing their stock prices, resulting in short-term thinking and the kind of cook-the-books corruption seen in the Enron and WorldCom scandals. How did this happen? In this groundbreaking book, Lawrence E. Mitchell traces the origins of the problem to the first decade of the 20th century, when industrialists and bankers began merging existing companies into huge “combines”—today’s giant corporations—so they could profit by manufacturing and selling stock in these new entities. He describes and analyzes the legal changes that made this possible, the federal regulatory efforts that missed the significance of this transforming development, and the changes in American society and culture that led more and more Americans to enter the market, turning from relatively safe bonds to riskier common stock in the hopes of becoming rich. Financiers and the corporations they controlled encouraged this trend, but as stock ownership expanded and businesses were increasingly forced to cater to stockholders’ “get rich quick” expectations, a subtle but revolutionary shift in the nature of the American economy occurred: finance no longer served industry; instead, industry began to serve finance. The Speculation Economy analyzes the history behind the opening of this economic Pandora’s box, the root cause of so many modern acts of corporate malfeasance.

The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry

Economics

Berrett-Koehler Publishers

The consequences of even a modest decrease in a business’s stock price have become so dire that some executives would rather damage their corporation’s long-term health than allow quarterly returns to fall below projections. How did this situation come about? Lawrence E. Mitchell shows that the tipping point came in the first years of the 20th century. He explores the legal, financial, economic, and social transformations that led to the birth of the giant modern corporation and how this in turn spurred the rise of the stock market. Mitchell identifies what made traditionally cautious Americans become eager stock speculators, and why the federal government’s attempts to regulate finance completely missed the mark. By the dawn of the 1920s, the stock market had left behind its business origins to become the very reason for the creation of business itself.

This edition of the increasingly popular casebook retains the two organizing themes of the first edition: that an underlying theory of the corporation is necessary to resolve any difficult questions in corporate law and that those difficult questions revolve around the tension between fiduciary obligation and contract principles that form the basis of corporate law. A teacher's manual is available.

Corporate Finance and Governance: Cases, Materials, and Problems for an Advanced Course in Corporations

Haas, Jeffrey J.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mitchell, Lawrence E.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Mitchell, Lawrence E.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Mitchell, Lawrence E.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export

Progressive Corporate Law

Progressive Corporate Law (New Perspectives on Law, Culture, and Society)

Progressive Corporate Law (New Perspectives on Law, Culture, and Society)

Corporations: A Contemporary Approach: Cases and Materials for a Course in Corporate Law

Corporate Finance and Governance: Cases, Materials, and Problems for an Advanced Course in Corporations (Law Casebook Series)

The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry

The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry

Corporate Finance and Governance: Cases, Materials, and Problems for an Advanced Course in Corporations