Input to the French Commission
Published March 2018
A report was published in March 2018 by the Ministre de la Transition écologique et solidaire, de la Justice, and de l'Economie et des Finances du Travail, which put forward the case that legislation should be altered to ensure that a company's objective be within the collective interest.
Bruno Roche, Jean-Christophe Flatin and Nathalie de Baudry d'Asson were invited to contribute to this report on the basis of the research conducted through Mars Catalyst and the development of the Economics of Mutuality model. The report makes a series of legislative and administrative recommendations that, if implemented, would ultimately result in the adjustment to the French Civil Code of 1804, which deals with the objective of a company.
It is both exciting and timely that at the highest levels of government the role of the corporation in society is not just being debated, but subjected to genuine legislative scrutiny. The corporation, and its profit-maximising purpose, was enshrined in law within the context of the needs of a specific era. There is no reason today that we should remain prisoners to the laws we create if such laws no longer serve the common good.
The report rightly concludes that, due to the extreme global challenges we face in this day and age, it is no longer viable for us to maintain the status quo.
