How America’s Corporations Lost their Public Purpose, and How it Might be (Partially) Restored

Abstract In honor of Lynn Stout’s efforts to better suit the business corporation for the pursuit of long-term, publicly-beneficial purposes, the present essay reviews critically the historical process by which the corporation’s tie to public purposes—a precondition of the earliest grants of corporate powers to business enterprisers—was slowly severed. And it explores a form of corporate control, once widespread in the U.S. and easily revivable, that could partially restore corporate emphasis on public benefits—the foundation-controlled corporation.