consideration to balancing the legitimate claims of all of its constituents, a corporation will best
serve the interests of its shareholders.’ In 1997 they changed this statement to : ‘The notion that
the Board must somehow balance the interests of stockholders against the interest of other
stakeholders fundamentally misconstrues the role of directors. It is, moreover, an unworkable
notion because it would leave the Board with no criteria for resolving conflicts between the
interests of stockholders and of other stakeholders.’(^2) This issue is currently much discussed in the USA, since there seems to be little if any correla-
tion between a company’s performance and the remuneration of its top executives.
(^3) See for example the work of Herman Daly, a former Senior Economist of the World Bank, which
critiques this economic logic.
(^4) See for examples : Daly, Herman E., Steady-State Economics, Washington, D.C. : Island Press,
1991 (2nd edition) ; and Daly, Herman E., Beyond Growth : The Economics of Sustainable Devel-
opment, Boston, MA : Beacon Press, 1996.
(^5) White, Allen, ‘The Grasshoppers and the Ants. Why CSR Needs Patient Capital’, in : Business
for Social Responsibility, Summer 2006.
(^6) The 2000 international Jubilee campaign is an example where religious people, many in the
business community, NGOs and other international organisations came together to work to alle-
viate Third World debt.
(^7) http://www.iccr.org.
(^8) Transparency in Investmentsand Socially Responsible Investing, Amersfoort 2005. The text can
be ordered at http://www.oikocredit.org
(^9) http://www.inaise.org.
(^10) The Presbyterian Church in the United States for example as well as some other denominations
around the world, has voted in the last several years for, and then reconsidered, divestment in
companies making products used by the Israelis to harm the Palestinians.
232 Responsible Leadership : Global Perspectives