Corporate governance is on the verge of entering a new stage. After the managerialism that dominated the view of the corporation into the 1970s and the shareholderism that supplanted it, we are witnessing the emergence of a new paradigm: corporate governance welfarism. Welfarism rejects the faith that market forces will promote general welfare and lacks confidence in the government’s ability to set proper boundary constraints. By looking to corporations to internalize externalities directly, welfarism thus offers an alternative way to deal with social problems that the political system has failed to address. Welfarism comes in three strands—portfolio welfarism, shareholder welfarism, and direct social welfarism—two of which are consistent with shareholder primacy. The important distinction between welfarism and shareholderism, rather, is that welfarism, by embracing goals that are much broader than shareholder value as a means to promote overall welfare, reflects a departure from the classical liberal economic theory that underpins shareholderism. Welfarism, in turn, departs from managerialism in looking beyond the single firm, in relying on shareholder and stakeholder pressure rather than on managerial discretion to balance firm value maximization and broader objectives, and in embracing a wider set of potential stakeholders. Welfarism is on the rise ideologically. While it is unclear how much welfarism has already affected operations at individual firms, the underlying drivers of welfarism are likely to remain or grow. There are, therefore, good reasons to believe that the push towards welfarism will take hold, grow, and, over time, generate a welfarist turn in corporate governance. Welfarism, however, is subject to two inherent limitations. First, welfarism has its greatest traction for publicly traded companies with dispersed shareholders. By contrast, for companies with a single shareholder, a controlling shareholder, or a small group of shareholders, the welfarist prescriptions will have only a limited impact. Second, the very lack of consensus that impedes political solutions reemerges under and constrains welfarism by generating disagreements among shareholders, impugning its legitimacy, and imposing political barriers to its implementation.

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公司治理福利主义

公司治理即将进入新阶段。在 20 世纪 70 年代主导公司观点的管理主义和取代它的股东主义之后，我们正在见证一种新范式的出现：公司治理福利主义。福利主义拒绝相信市场力量将促进普遍福利，并且对政府设定适当边界约束的能力缺乏信心。通过寻求企业直接将外部性内部化，福利主义提供了另一种解决政治制度未能解决的社会问题的方法。福利主义分为三种：投资组合福利主义、股东福利主义和直接社会福利主义，其中两种与股东至上相一致。相反，福利主义和股东主义之间的重要区别是，福利主义通过将比股东价值更广泛的目标作为促进整体福利的手段，反映出与支撑股东主义的古典自由经济理论的背离。反过来，福利主义与管理主义的区别在于，它超越了单一公司，依靠股东和利益相关者的压力而不是管理层的自由裁量权来平衡公司价值最大化和更广泛的目标，并拥抱更广泛的潜在利益相关者。意识形态上的福利主义正在抬头。虽然目前尚不清楚福利主义对个别公司的运营产生了多大影响，但福利主义的根本驱动因素可能会继续存在或增长。因此，我们有充分的理由相信，福利主义的推动力将会扎根、发展，并且随着时间的推移，使公司治理转向福利主义。然而，福利主义有两个固有的局限性。首先，福利主义对于股东分散的上市公司具有最大的吸引力。相比之下，对于单一股东、控股股东或小股东的公司来说，福利主义处方的影响有限。其次，阻碍政治解决方案的共识的缺乏再次出现，并通过在股东之间产生分歧、质疑其合法性并对其实施施加政治障碍来限制福利主义。对于控股股东或一小群股东来说，福利主义的药方只会产生有限的影响。其次，阻碍政治解决方案的共识的缺乏再次出现，并通过在股东之间产生分歧、质疑其合法性并对其实施施加政治障碍来限制福利主义。对于控股股东或一小群股东来说，福利主义的药方只会产生有限的影响。其次，阻碍政治解决方案的共识的缺乏再次出现，并通过在股东之间产生分歧、质疑其合法性并对其实施施加政治障碍来限制福利主义。