Here’s how shareholder democracy works

Growing concern about climate change has forced the SEC to shift position, allowing more environmental and social proposals onto corporate ballots.

THE ambitious idea that companies can be run like democracies, with widely dispersed shareholders exerting influence over management, has long failed in practice.

Many people own shares, but very few bother to vote at company meetings – in part because they have other concerns, in part because systems of corporate governance have silenced their voices.