What he meant by that is that the regulatory powers of the state have grown so enormously (see the annual publication of the Competitive Enterprise Institute entitled “Ten-Thousand Commandments”) that business people are forced to spend a large portion of every work day following government rules and regulations instead of being productive, just as Mises warned of. Regulators are “the terrorists” and business people are “the hostages.” Moreover, wrote Reisman, “they are at the point where they attempt to anticipate the wishes of their masters and seek to gratify their masters without being ordered” by the regulatory “masters.” This is why the CEOs issued the declaration: To announce to the state that they will voluntarily adopt all of the socialist controls and regulations that the state would like to force on them. Call it de facto socialism.
I refused to teach anything to do with Stakeholder Capitalism when I was teaching business and economics. It is a raw fascist power grab of the company’s resources and productive powers, usually for off the wall looniness. Now it is the de rigor style of business due to the Fink’s diktat.
He who has the gold calls the tune! Perhaps limiting the powers of the hedge funds and aggregated funds to take board seats and dictate policy to companies would be a wise idea. Let the entrepreneurs handle the decisions for the companies.