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page 166 chapter V
wise called upon to demand this legitimacy and, at the
same time, not to give contradictory signals, such as:
more profit, even more profit, it’s still not enough.
To put it pointedly, we could say that every shareholder
ultimately has the management he deserves. While
a small shareholder could object that his vote is a mere
drop in the ocean, he must in return accept being
asked whether he really has to continue being a shareholder
of that particular company.
And this, too, is where the banks come into the game
again. They accumulate incredible sums of money in
investment funds and other investment vehicles – and
thus squeeze themselves in between owner and ownership,
as it were – but rarely give any thought to the
consequences of this severing of ownership and responsibility.
A lot must change, and will change, in
this respect in the future. In Europe, for example, investors
with assets in excess of 2,000 billion euros today
already exercise their voting rights in accordance
with ethical, ecological and social principles. This also
implies sensitisation as regards corporate governance.
In view of the special function of banks in a national
economy, bank managers bear two kinds of responsibility.
First, for their own company. Second, however –
and this is what specifically distinguishes banks many
other business enterprises – bank managers are, as
mentioned earlier, often also on the boards of directors
of other companies, meaning that they assume
additional responsibility – or sometimes perhaps
don’t. The actions of banks thus have both a direct and
an indirect impact, both of which are subject to ethical