CHAPTER EIGHT CONCLUSION AND PROPOSALS
“Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism – ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. … Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing”. —F.D. Roosevelt, 19381
8.1 – Summing up the Main Themes of the Research Despite coming from a rather remote past, the above quote, and the overall speech given by the American president before Congress, reflects certain issues that, eighty years down the line, have remained extremely pressing and perhaps unresolved. The concentration of economic power among an increasingly smaller number of people and, even more importantly in the context of the research, the control exerted by finance over industry, are in the wake of the global financial crisis issues that still need to be addressed.2 The book has attempted to analyse the broad and far-reaching implications of the above questions by looking at financial scandals that have occurred over the last decade and by providing an examination of specific legal issues in corporate and financial law. Beyond the more traditional legal enquiry, research in this field has also allowed an assessment of more theoretical aspects of the problems, which inevitably entailed reflections on their politico-economic underpinnings and on the rationale behind the regulatory architecture of corporate and financial law. Ultimately the book purported to contribute to current policy debates by
1
F.D. Roosevelt “Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies”, April 29 1938. Available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15637#axzz1Ze7GRv3W. 2 Ibid.
