Rectenwald mentions a socialist argument:

Curiously, Campbell ended his argument rather undogmatically by stating that if Friedman was right and “if these comparisons [between shareholder and stakeholder capitalism] tend to show exclusive maximization of shareholder value to be the optimal way of maximizing welfare,” then “one should give up being a socialist.”

If, after all, the maximization of human welfare is really the object, and “shareholder capitalism” (or “neoliberalism”) proves to be the best way to achieve it, then socialism, including stakeholder capitalism, must necessarily be abandoned.

It is bizarre today to cling to socialism on, of all things, utilitarian grounds. All utilitarian arguments favor not just capitalism but laissez faire as producing the highest rate of economic growth and hence long-run prosperity. Socialists very long ago lost all rights to the defense of socialism from that point of view.

Campbell is well behind the times. At one point socialist intellectuals sought to improve the standard of living of the workers and the peasants. They used collectivism and tyranny to achieve this aim. The result was famines, chaos, impoverishment, war.

Today the intellectuals want famines, chaos, impoverishment, war. They want to kill the workers and the peasants. They use the same means to this end. There is no longer a pretense of good intentions, and there is true knowledge of causes and effects. I think that’s a kind of progress.