Commentary
To whom are corporations accountable? For most of our history, the answer was straightforward. Legally, corporations were accountable to ownership—that is, corporate officers had a fiduciary obligation to strive to earn profits for corporate shareholders. Economically, corporations were (and remain) accountable to their customers—that is, they need to serve customers well by providing good value to them or else lose revenue and go broke. Morally and prudently, they were and are accountable to their employees—that is, pay them and treat them sufficiently well to retain the personnel and skillsets needed to produce and deliver the goods and services that the corporation provides.