Churchill's Horses and the Myths of American Corporations: Power, Stakeholders, and Governance

Mord Bogie

feb 1998 · Greenwood Publishing Group

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The large public corporations powering the U.S. economy—Churchill's Horses, in Bogie's metaphor—are underachievers, and all of us are paying the price. Why? The reasons are shrouded in the myths that these corporations use to mask their great power and disguise the interests it serves. Myth: the shareholders who own a public corporation control it by electing the directors who govern it. Anti-Myth (fact): shareholders of a public corporation don't elect the directors, and the directors don't govern the corporation. Shareholders don't even own the corporation in any meaningful sense of the word. Yet Churchill's Horses spend billions propping up the current price of their shares rather than invest the money in their (and our) future prosperity. Using many voices from current and recent business literature, Bogie leads you through myths and anti-myths to understand how public corporations have lost focus and ignored their most important stakeholders. Few readers will emerge with all their assumptions and beliefs intact.