Lorraine Talbot, Progressive Corporate Governance for the 21st Century, Oxford: Routledge, 2013, 250 pp, hb £90.00.
| Published date | 01 March 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12069 |
| Date | 01 March 2014 |
| Author | Michelle Welsh |
REVIEWS
Lorraine Talbot,Progressive Corporate Governance for the 21st Century,
Oxford: Routledge, 2013, 250 pp, hb £90.00.
The insightful argument advanced by Talbot in Progressive Corporate Governance
for the 21st Century is that rather than occurring naturally as a consequence of
inherent efficiencies, the shareholder oriented corporate governance model that
is pursued globally is in fact the product of political choice. While neoliberalism
promotes the value of the shareholder primacy model, to the point of making
any alterative unthinkable, the power of Talbot’s argument is that alternatives are
in fact possible and other, more progressive choices can be made.
This provocative book draws evidence from different historical periods to
demonstrate that corporate governance models are in fact determined by political
choice. For example, Talbot argues that in the late 18th to late 19th centuries in
both the United States and England political choices made to benefit substantial
investors influenced the nature of corporate governance and led to the emer-
gence of large companies with dispersed ownership. In addition, political choices
to meet social necessity and to promote the interests of labour made following
the Wall Street crash in the United States and in the post-war period in the UK
determined the nature of corporate governance during this period. At the time
policy makers did not see the emergence of large corporations with dispersed
shareholders as being determinative of shareholder centred corporate govern-
ance. Instead this development was welcomed as an opportunity for political
leaders to promote a radical reform agenda.
However, since the late 1970s neoliberal economic theory has been embraced
by scholars and global institutions and has been translated into normative and
political positions. As a consequence any notion of corporate governance models
being the result of political choice has been abandoned. Talbot argues that
neoliberalism negates choice and is reform resistant. This phenomenon is not
restricted to the United Kingdom, the United States and other common law
countries. Talbot explains that neoliberal prescriptions were followed in the
transition of post command economies after 1989, largely because there was an
acceptance of the view that any alternate way of organising society had, appar-
ently, failed. Talbot disputes this view.
The definition of progressive corporate governance adopted by the book
is one which promotes the interests of the public as a whole, rather than
being focused solely on the promotion of shareholder value. According to
Talbot progressive goals ‘[put] labour at the centre of corporate governance’
and enhance ‘substantive social equality, enabling all to share in economic
progress’ (xx). For Talbot the progressive project is a ‘humanist project’ (xx).
She is not concerned with arguing in favour of the labour theory of economic
value as a matter of micro-economic theory. Rather, she sees the fact that
bs_bs_banner
© 2014 The Authors. The Modern Law Review © 2014 The Modern Law Review Limited. (2014) 77(2) MLR 332–342
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
To continue reading
Request your trial