I agree that Diamonds factlet is likely bogus. But his point was that a corporation that didn't actively seek profits could be sued by the stockholders (who could win). I think that's right, though I'm no lawyer.
On 8/12/06, Shane Mage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Jim Devine wrote: > >3. According to Jared Diamond (in his COLLAPSE), stockholders sued >Henry Ford for paying his workers $5 per day -- and won. Is this true? >if so, why do historians make such a big thing about the $5 day? >(Diamond refers to this payscale as charity, but that's crap. It >lowered turnover.) If I recall correctly, old Ford had bought out his minority stockholders lomg before he introduced the $5 day. In any case Diamond's claim is scarcely believable, because if that had been the case it would have created a legal precedent that minority stockholders could interfere with a corporation's ordinary business decisions--which is anything but the case. Shane Mage "Thunderbolt steers all things...It consents and does not consent to be called Zeus." Herakleitos of Ephesos
-- Jim Devine / "It is however always important to remember that the ability to see things in their correct perspective may be, and often is, divorced from the ability to reason correctly and vice versa. That is why an economist may be a very good theorist and yet talk absolute nonsense...." -- Joseph Schumpeter [edited]
