The Functions of the Stock Market and the Fallacies of Shareholder Value

Abstract

This chapter analyses the evolution of US stock markets in terms of five functions: ‘control’, ‘cash’, ‘creation’, ‘combination’, and ‘compensation’. I argue for the centrality of the control function in supporting innovative enterprise in the rise of US managerial capitalism. I then consider how each of the five functions can encourage value creation or, alternatively, empower value extraction, and trace the evolving roles of the five functions of the stock market in major US business corporations over the past century. Drawing upon this history, I conclude by critiquing the dominant ideology that, for the sake of superior economic performance, a company should be run to ‘maximize shareholder value’ (MSV). I indicate how MSV undermines the social conditions of innovative enterprise: strategic control, organizational integration, and financial commitment.