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12. In the period following the Second World War, most Western countries adopted a more egalitarian, social democratic approach in which the notion of a social company was encapsulated. I refer to this period as ‘progressive’ in previous publications but I do not examine it in this paper.

13. There remains, of course, a majority who see shareholder value as an unproblematic and desirable goal. I am not addressing this paper to these arguments in any respect.

14. Bligh v Brent (1837) 2 Y & C 268.

15. That profit may not be enjoyed directly by shareholders in the form of dividend distributions, but it underpins the value of the shares in various ways. Warren Buffet, as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, for example, famously does not use profits for dividends, but to raise share value, which he believes creates more shareholder value. From 1965 to 2012, he estimates that this has enabled Hathaway to massively outperform other S & P 500 companies. He estimates the overall gain in these years for Hathaway to be 586,817%, while for the latter companies on average it was 7,433%. Chairman's letter to shareholders (2012); available at http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2012ltr.pdf (accessed 17 May 2015).

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70. Crosland, above n 57; Berle, above n 8; Galbraith, above n 57; Drucker, above n 57; Kaysen, above n 57.

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77. By the Federal Labor Relations Authority on 22 October 1981.

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102. Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd [2013] BCC 571 Supreme Court.

103. Ibid, at 585.

104. Ibid.

105. For example, in Jones v Lipman the defendant sought to avoid selling property that he was bound to sell by transferring it to a company. However, as he owned and controlled the company, he was in a position to perform his obligation to the plaintiffs by exercising his powers over the company; veil piercing was not required.

106. Talbot, above n 8, ch 3.

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109. Lazonick, above n 107, at 4.

110. Capita UK Dividend Monitor Issue 23, July 2015, at 3; available at http://www.capitaregistrars.co.uk/assets/media/Dividend_Monitor_July.pdf (accessed 27 July 2015). The upper echelons of these blue chip companies represent vast quantities of capital. The FTSE 100 had a net market capitalisation of £1,720,093 million calculated as of 31 March 2015, while the FTSE 250 had just under one tenth of that. The 2015 FTSE Factsheet is no longer available; the 2016 update is available at http://www.ftse.com/Analytics/FactSheets/temp/3cb593ab-ec2b-4d66-a8b4-7b36e98e8766.pdf (accessed 8 February 2016).

111. A campaign speech by Hillary Clinton condemned share buybacks and ‘quarterly capitalism’; see http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/24/us-usa-election-clinton-speech-idUSKCN0PY0AY20150724, 23 July 2015 (accessed 25 July 2015).

112. Healthcare has seen a huge rise in mergers, increasing the cost of healthcare provision; see http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/slideshow/healthcare-mergers-and-acquisitions-2015-running-list, 21 December 2015 (accessed 21 December 2015).

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116. M Marriage ‘Download University of Oxford doubles exposure to private equity’ Financial Times 19 July 2015; available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c47821e8-2bdd-11e5-acfb-cbd2e1c81cca.html#axzz3gZ4osEEl (accessed 20 July 2015).

117. Cotterill, above n 115.

118. ‘ Download First Data: second chance’ Financial Times 21 July 2015; available at http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/6f068118-2f62-11e5-8873-775ba7c2ea3d.html#axzz3gZ4osEEl (accessed 21 July 2015).

119. BIS Business Population Estimates For the UK and Regions, Statistical Release Reference (URN 14/92, 26 November 2014) p 2; available at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/377934/bpe_2014_statistical_release.pdf (accessed 7 May 2015).

120. Ibid, p 5.

121. See http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/aug/12/uk-self-employment-capital-western-europe-ippr-recovery (accessed 8 April 2015).

122. ONS ‘Analysis of employee contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours’ 25 February 2015; available at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_396885.pdf (accessed 4 June 2015).

123. ONS ‘UK wages over the past four decades’ 3 July 2014; available at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171776_368928.pdf (accessed 12 December 2014).

124. See http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html (accessed 22 July 2015).

125. For the latest decline as of writing this, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33619756 22 July 2015 (accessed 22 July 2015). Revised 30 October: see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/business-34617910 (accessed 30 October 2015).

126. On writing this in June 2015, the BBC yet again reported, ‘FTSE higher as manufacturing slows’; available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32545887, 1 May 2015 (accessed June 2015). During preparation of this paper for publication in early 2016, we are able to observe that the ‘disconnect’ or ‘bubble’ is starting to deflate.