I watched the episode on the stock market on Explained by Vox a minute ago and I felt the message was clear. Since many companies these days only exist to increase the value of their stocks and in turn pump up the salary of the CEO, the more average people in the stock market could pose to counter this.
An average person might make an investment based on how they perceive the company. If it’s ethical, if it provides value to the community, and if it seems like a reliable investment. On the contrary, the upper class that now dominates the stock market might look at other things. They might invest in companies that are expected to artificially inflate their value and in turn generate profits for the shareholders. In reality however, nothing of value to the average person was created.
If there were more average people trading in the stock market based on their own convictions, this could change. As of now, CEOs are making more and more money at the expense of consumers, employees, and the society as a whole. It wasn’t always like this. In the past, there were more people involved in the stock market. More middle class people and more lower class people as well. Coincidentally, companies in the past cared more about their employees and communities. Now it seems their only interest is to increase the value of their stocks, which is untied to how they treat their employees or world around them because too many of the shareholders are people who don’t care for the employees, communities, or the environment.
Taking back the stock market could prove to change the direction companies have been taking when they are forced to care about what their average shareholder cares about – their families, their communities, their jobs, and their environment.