Are boards of directors useful?

Economics Economics Questions
1

From WIkipedia:

Typical duties of boards of directors include:[4][5]

  • governing the organization by establishing broad policies and objectives;
  • selecting, appointing, supporting and reviewing the performance of the chief executive;
  • ensuring the availability of adequate financial resources;
  • approving annual budgets;
  • accounting to the stakeholders for the organization’s performance;
  • setting the salaries and compensation of company management.

Do you think in a free society boards of directors will be common? To me it seems more like a cumbersome bureucratic mechanism rather than something useful. Why don’t the assembly of shareholders appoint CEO directly?

What do you think?

2

Most boards of directors are already mainly comprised of the largest shareholders or their representatives.

3

this mechanism makes it possible to further divide labor, allowing people to invest capital in an enterprise with minimum amount of consequential time investment. It also allows active investors to shop their services about as good pickers of high level management types.

4

Boards will continue to exist. They work fine.