The Governance Library curated by Matthew Doyle
Strategy Room · Note 14
Shareholder Primacy vs Stakeholder Capitalism
00:00 / 11:00
mæd partners
Scene 1
Hero
H1: Whose company is this?
Sub: The oldest question in corporate governance.
Scene 2
Frame
Eyebrow: `STRATEGY ROOM · NOTE 14 OF 15`
H1: Shareholder Primacy vs Stakeholder Capitalism.
Scene 3
Friedman 1970
Date plate: 13 September 1970.
Caption: Milton Friedman · NYT Magazine.
Pulled fragment: "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits."
Scene 4
The legal architecture (Path-2)
Eyebrow: `THE PRIMACY DOCTRINE IN THE CASE LAW`
Three rows:
Dodge v Ford (1919) · "primarily for the profit of the stockholders".
Revlon v MacAndrews (1986) · maximise the price.
eBay v Craigslist (2010) · purpose must be rationally related to shareholder value.
Scene 5
The counter-tradition
Three rows:
Freeman · 1984 · Strategic Management.
Stout · 2012 · The Shareholder Value Myth.
Mayer · 2018 · Prosperity.
Scene 6
The wave
Date plate: 19 August 2019.
Caption: Business Roundtable · 181 signatories.
Pulled fragment: "The purpose of the corporation runs to all stakeholders."
Date plate: January 2020.
Caption: World Economic Forum · Stakeholder Capitalism Manifesto.
Scene 7
The wave breaks
Date plate: March 2021.
H2: Danone · Faber removed.
Caption: Bluebell Capital · Artisan Partners.
Scene 8
The Bebchuk-Tallarita verdict
Pulled quote: "Business Roundtable signatories made no observable governance changes consistent with the statement."
Citation: Bebchuk & Tallarita, Cornell Law Review, 2020.
Scene 9
The return of primacy
Eyebrow: `WHAT BROKE THE WAVE`
Five rows:
Inflation.
Rising rates.
PE liquidity pressure.
Activist campaigns at scale.
US political backlash · Texas, Florida, West Virginia divestment of BlackRock.
Scene 10
Case anchor
H1: BP plc.
Sub: The clearest major-company test of the decade.
Scene 11
BP under Looney
Date plate: February 2020.
Caption: Stakeholder-capitalism language.
Three lines: Net zero · transition coalition · Roundtable signatory via US subsidiary.
Scene 12
BP under Auchincloss
Date plate: February 2025.
Caption: Primacy language returns.
Pulled phrase: "Back to basics."
Scene 13
Positive contrast · Patagonia
Date plate: 14 September 2022.
H1: Patagonia Inc.
Sub: Yvon Chouinard · ownership transfer.
Scene 14
The structure (Path-2)
Eyebrow: `THE PATAGONIA STRUCTURE`
Two-row diagram:
2% · voting · Patagonia Purpose Trust (perpetual mission entity).
98% · non-voting · Holdfast Collective (501(c)(4) climate / environmental).
Caption: No residual claimant in Friedman's sense. Estimated cost: $3bn+ in foregone family wealth.
Scene 15
The applicability test
Hero card.
Patagonia is an existence proof, not a model that scales.
The test for your board: name the structural features that would have to change for a stakeholder-capitalism claim to be honest, and explain why they have not.
Scene 16
Closing card
The position held at the moment of the trade-off is the position the firm holds.
Everything else is a press release.
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Credit
Curated by Matthew Doyle · mæd partners.
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Educational material · not legal, regulatory, or investment advice · see `00 - Disclaimers.md` for the full notice · © 2026 mæd partners limited.