Shares are the ticket to a microcosm, where power and money meet the hopes and desires of ordinary people. A rip-off mentality dominates both on stage and in the auditorium. However there is also tradition, dedication and fan-like devotion. The annual general meeting of shareholders is open to everyone, yet unkown to most.
In theory, it is about every single share, in practice it is the international major shareholders that rule the decisions, and these shareholders are not so much real people, rather they are economic legal entities. This world, this parallel existence is a grass-roots democracy only in principle, and it is all about appearance. What is left for the minor shareholder is the stage, attention – a currency that seems more valuable to some than power and money.
For more than a year Nadine Schmid and me visited the AGMs of large and small German stock corporations and mingled with the visitors there.
