Financial markets are today dominated by the liberal notion that companies exist solely for the benefit of their shareholders and investors. According to the liberal approach, if enterprises function optimally as machines for wealth accumulation, society as a whole benefits.

This approach is increasingly losing political and economic legitimacy. The time seems ripe for a new model for the era which will succeed shareholder capitalism. Participation will play a pathbreaking role in this. However, the trade unions cannot go back to the ideas and instruments of 'industrial democracy', the model of the 1970s and 1980s. Circumstances have changed: financial markets know no boundaries, and extremely demanding and enormously wealthy international investors and powerful multinational companies influence public life more than ever, including people?s working lives. European policy would be well advised to establish a counterforce if the idea of the European social model is not to continue to lose ground.

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