Here is the portion of President Obama's inauguration speech most obviously relevant to business law:
Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.
However, I was more intrigued by a portion of the speech that preceded this, wherein President Obama referenced "the ideals of our forebearers" and the necessity to remain "true to our founding documents":
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebearers, and true to our founding documents.
How do these ideals and documents relate to the burning questions of corporate law and corporate governance that we face today? Not wanting to miss an opportunity to plug a scholarly project of mine, I thought the following excerpt from my current research project, "Finding State Action When Corporations Govern," might provide some food for thought:
"While James Madison located the threat of abuse of government power in the majority of the community, today he might well express the same concern vis-à-vis the corporation:"
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents. This is a truth of great importance, but not yet sufficiently attended to . . . . (5 Writings of James Madison 272 (Hunt ed. 1904).)
Many will argue that whatever the ability of corporations to influence government and act as the modern equivalent of Madison's feared "factions" may have been, the current financial crisis has sapped any power they may have had to unduly influence our government. But I believe that the current financial crisis will lead to consolidation, rather than mitigation, of corporate power. And, when the government makes its inevitable exit from the "bailout ownership" of these private entities, we will be left with corporate actors more powerful than ever. How Madison's "republican remedy" will deal with these factions — in some ways perhaps more powerful than any he ever envisioned — will be interesting to watch. Perhaps we are seeing one small part of the answer in one of President Obama's first acts in office, slowing down the revolving door between government and lobbyists.
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The old fear of corporate control needs to be restated. The old corporate power base eminating from the industrial base as been vanquished by the financial sector. The ruling elite has become an unholy alliance of the money barons(worldwide) and our governing elite. Regardles of the direction unbridled capitalism or socialsm those on the top and creating the rules will continue to expand their wealth and power at the expense of the citizens at large and most negativley impacted will be the productive members outside the rulig elite(read middle class).
In addition, I think it needs to be mentioned that government aided and abetted the current financial crisis every step of the way, not just during the Bush administration, but for several decades. The shared goal may have been noble – to increase home ownership – but the methods used to advance it were ignoble and ultimately proven to be extremely irresponsible. The era of the conservative banker is gone, thrown over in favor of the era of the maximized shareholder return. Consolidation of the private sector will surely take place. That has already been observed in the banking system. Government, the creator of this problem via politically driven policy, and already poised by it's nature to grow ever larger, will encroach on even more of the private sector. Not a good omen for capitalism, which is still the best system for wealth creation, in spite of it's flaws.