[yummyfajitas]

If the management is not speaking in the interest of the shareholders, they are violating their fiduciary duty and should be fired by the board.

If the board does not fire them, the shareholders can fire the board.

As for the minority shareholders, they agreed that their property (their portion of the company) would be bound by the decision of the majority subject to the restrictions of the corporate charter.

[joubert]

For the majority of the S&P 500, the major shareholders are funds. The people who pay into these funds are employees, who, for practical purposes, don't have a meaningful range of choice or voting power.

[yummyfajitas]

When I signed up for my pension fund, I agreed that money would be spent as directed by the fund managers in a manner consistent with maximizing the size [1] of my investment in 2050.

This was my choice. If I disliked this, I could have made no contribution to the fund, or even quit my job.

[1] I oversimplify. They try to maximize an objective function which penalizes volatility, particularly volatility at the end of the life of the fund.