Science vs. Ideology: A Comment on Lynn Stout's New Thinking on "Shareholder Primacy"

Robé Jean-Philippe
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Robé Jean-Philippe: Ecole de droit de Sciences Po, Paris

Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, 2012, vol. 2, issue 2, 13

Abstract: I have never met Lynn Stout. Of course, just like any person even remotely interested in corporate governance and US corporate law, I know her insightful writings. But I do not know her personally. I know for a fact, however, that Lynn Stout is a nice person. And an excessively nice person she must be. Her paper on New Thinking on “Shareholder Primacy” talks about the surge of a new paradigm in corporate law. This is an excessively generous thesis. For we are not witnessing the takeover of an old science by a new one explaining facts better than the old stuff. We are witnessing the surge of a scientific analysis of the legal structure of the firm -and of the role of corporations to structure firms- which is replacing an ideology; not a science. This comment will comment on this ideology and the insightful critique developed by Lynn Stout in her paper.

Keywords: shareholder primacy; shareholder value; corporate law; corporate governance; corporate social responsibility; agency theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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DOI: 10.1515/2152-2820.1060

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