[eru]

Shareholder capitalism is an aspiration. We have never really tried it.

In practice, companies are run for the benefit of management and other insiders.

> Whilst doing stock buybacks and dividends is best for the stockholders, it isn't best for the employees. Nor is it good for other stakeholders in the company.

Stockholders can invest the money returned to them again in more profitable ventures.

[blahbhthrow3748]

Financial capitalism where everything needs to be consolidated, bundled and sold as an investment vehicle seems like a pretty modern invention.

To go to an extreme, look at It's a Wonderful Life. Something like a community bank in the early 20th century was not run aggressively for the sole benefit of shareholders, there was a notion of community involvement. If anything financialization since the 70s has created the fiction that corporations are soulless machines designed to optimize profits at the expense of all others.

[eru]

I would be careful about citing a fictional example of an American bank.

I'm not even objecting to the fiction. But more that American unit banking was extremely weird. Basically, many states banned banks from having more than one branch. The result was the world's most fragile financial system.

See https://www.alt-m.org/2015/07/29/there-was-no-place-like-can... for a comparison of 19th / early 20th century Canadian and American practices.