Corporate Ordering: How Corporations Navigate Social Conflict with Stavros Gadinis

Corporations increasingly function as primary sites for resolving socioeconomic conflicts, necessitating a shift from traditional shareholder primacy to a structured process of "corporate ordering." This framework applies public law principles—rulemaking, executive decision-making, and monitoring—to internal corporate governance, allowing firms to navigate complex social issues like AI safety and ride-sharing regulations. Stavros Gadinis, a law professor at UC Berkeley, argues that this machinery provides a more rigorous, process-oriented approach than the indeterminate debates of ESG or shareholder value. By examining historical precedents like early traffic codes and modern case studies, the discussion highlights how firms can effectively institutionalize deliberation. This approach moves beyond simple profit maximization, suggesting that robust internal procedures can serve as a necessary, albeit non-exclusive, complement to democratic lawmaking, particularly when technology outpaces traditional regulatory capacity.