Criticism
The Business Roundtable has been identified by advocates for shareholder democracy and owners' rights as a primary inhibitor of progress in corporate governance. They claim that through its lobbying of the SEC, the NYSE, and other regulatory and self-regulatory institutions, the Business Roundtable has sought to limit shareholders proxy rights and the power to nominate directors. The critics of the Business Roundtable contend that, rather than fighting on behalf of stockholders in companies, it has focussed purely on increasing executive power and compensation, thereby diminishing return to the owners (shareholders) of these firms.
- Corporate governance pioneer Robert A.G. Monks, in his 2007 book Corpocracy: How CEOs and the Business Roundtable Hijacked the World's Greatest Wealth Machine -- And How to Get It Back, argues that the Business Roundtable has been a key player in the steady dilution of shareholder access to the boardroom and that this has contributed to the skyrocketing rates of CEO compensation.
- G. William Domhoff in Who Rules America? Domhoff argues that the Business Roundtable supports the network of corporate control, and influence over the economy, politics, and media.
- In The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, John C. Bogle, the founder of the Vanguard Group and author of investing classic Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor, argues that the Business Roundtable is to blame for the failure of recent corporate governance initiatives.
- The University of Hawaii's John R. Locke identifies the Business Roundtable as a major contributor to what he calls "Managerialism", the shift in power from owner/shareholders to those who are the manager/agents of firms. His 2011 work Confronting Managerialism: How the Business Elite and Their Schools Threw Our Lives Out of Balance explores several cases in which the Business Roundtable has opposed changes to corporate governance rules that would have empowered shareholders at the expense of CEOs.
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