In a message dated 8/15/02 1:15:10 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< --- Robin Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "The corporate management would be given financial incentives to maximize the market value of these shares." Why? Convince me that the greatest leaders in history were in it for financial gain. Sun Tsu, Scipio Africanus, Cincinatus to name a few ancients, on through to modern leaders like Roosevelt and Churchill don't seem to give me the impression of being motivated by financial concerns. >> I'd wondered about that myself; did Professor Hanson mean to lay out the idea of corporate managers being given financial incentives to maximize shareholder profits as a given, like the notion of the whole country run as a corporation to be taken as a starting point, or did he assume that they would be given such incentives? I took it as a given, rather than as an assumption that he neglected to prove. I feel fairly confident in believing, however, that he did not mean that the financial incentives would produce CEOs with a militaristic or glory-seeking bent.