A Stake in the Future

In A Stake in the Future John Plender argues that a powerful alternative does exist in the shape of the stakeholder concept, on which Britain's Labour leader Tony Blair has blown hot and cold. Stakeholding provides a resonant and flexible political language which stresses values of inclusion and community, but which is also based on hard economic reality. Stakeholding views the firm as a community in which the directors act as trustees. Their role is to balance the interests of the various stakeholders, who include customers, shareholders, employees and suppliers. Unlike the present rough-and-tumble style of Anglo-Saxon capitalism which sanctifies shareholder value at the expense of all else, stakeholder theory is in tune with a world where competitiveness stems increasingly from human capital and from the social capital created by fostering trust and loyalty between employees and other stakeholders. It makes competitiveness compatible with individual fulfilment at work.