One of the more insidious tools of the corporate order is the minority shareholder lawsuit. Anyone who tells you that you can buy shares and vote if you want to change things is wrong. Minority shareholder lawsuits (MSLs) permit shareholders who don't have a controlling interest in the corporation to sue the board for mismanaging their capital if they make any decision that reduces profits.
What makes MSLs so insidious is that, in theory, it only takes one borderline sociopathic greedy bastard to force the entire company to behave the same way. The effect gets multiplied by the fact that companies can hold stocks in other companies. With the right ownership pattern it would be possible for a single psychotic bastard to corrupt the entire system, in theory.
The problematic MSL also presents us with a unique opportunity: using such lawsuits to discourage corporate interference in politics.
More below the fold.
The basic premise is simple: publicly traded corporations spend millions in campaign donations and on lobbyists to buy influence in the political process. This obviously reduces the amount of money available as profits for the shareholders. So, you buy just enough shares to sue and then do so. In order to justify the expenses they have to demonstrate that the money was effective at increasing their profits by more than the expenditure. Put in other words, the corporation will have to, on the record in open court, prove that the politicians they have bought have indeed been bought. It's a classic double bind: if they don't prove that their allies in government are corrupt the court should grant an injunction forcing the corporation to cease the "non-profitable" activity, if they turn on their political pets by demonstrating their corruption then money from publicly traded corporations becomes toxic. Either way the desired result is achieved.
If you can get the money from publicly traded corporations out, at least temporarily, it should be possible to effect changes in government that would not be possible with their interference. Labor laws, environmental laws, tort "reform", bankruptcy reform, campaign finance reform, and reforms to the corporate system as a whole are all important policies that are blocked and even reversed largely by monied corporate interests. Granted, it would still be a fight to get these things done, but at least it would be possible.
Sadly, I'm not a lawyer so I can't say for sure whether this would work. The potential benefit is enormous if it could, though, so we should at least consider it seriously.