By Craig Crawford
Giving shareholders more power over corporate boards scares Wall Street about as much as anything else in the bank reform bill. It probably should. And its fate in this weeks Senate negotiations will say a lot about how much Democrats are willing to compromise.
Democrats have long yearned for so-called proxy access allowing holders of large quantities of shares to nominate their own candidates for a corporations board of directors. Although shareholders technically elect boards now the proxies they get in the mail offer no real choices - sort of like the old Communist elections with only one candidate on the ballot.
Democrats argue that this change would make corporations more democratic. Republicans say it would scuttle corporations by empowering labor union pension funds and other left-leaning interests to take over boards and make those companies less profitable for investors by giving more money to workers.
Whatever side youre on its one of the more fascinating and potentially transformational questions in this financial debate presenting a collision course between fundamental American ideals - Could democracy destroy capitalism?
