ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to underline the tensions generated by the big employee-citizen-social being triangle and the variations produced by the small triangles of the client-employee-shareholder type. The impression that pressure groups representing big companies are controlling political power weakens faith in democracy and has reached dangerous levels in Europe and the United States. The chapter focuses on the small employee-consumer-shareholder triangle by reflecting on the current and potential effects of alternative modes of corporate governance. The path had been laid for the concept of governance to be mobilized by the supporters of New Public Management to justify the shrinking of the state, in all market economies and in many developing countries. Noncitizens are excluded from what is a sort of ‘census-like’ democracy, the processes of which effectively deprive them of any real participation in the governance of their organization.
