Yes, I understood your meaning. I was countering that, while the concerns about shareholder value and stock prices are often used as justification for suppressing wages or resisting unions, it's really just a circular argument. They essentially do it, reward themselves as shareholders and leadership, then justify it by claiming they had to do it because they demanded they do it.

But, there is no moral or legal obligation to put shareholder value above equitable treatment of workers, as they claim. In fact, I'd argue it's the other way around.

>Shareholder value = value for hedge funds = value for 401k accounts.

Bringing 401Ks into the equation is another bit of obfuscation which implies that their actions are lifting all boats and workers also benefit. But, in reality, it's just another form of compensation that is wildly inequtiable.

>unless you decide to reduce shareholder value...this means funds may no longer invest in your company

This is the crux of it. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that it would lead to divestiture, but that shouldn't be avoided at the expense of workers.

Why should the leadership get such outsized executive comp and massively disproportionate upside on the stock? Worse, why should they actually be incentivized to be hostile to their workers (e,g. suppress wages and implement layoffs to boost quarterly profits)?

In short, why do we accept that workers should come last? Part of the issue here is that we've accepted corporate personhood as a real thing, wherein we are somehow morally obligated to protect corporations at the expense of actual people.

>We need to cut the link between retirement funds and the stock market.

That's not the problem. Equity is. See above. ;)