Shareholders have limited rights. They can elect/remove directors but the director(s) as far as I'm aware can do anything and is limited only by the company's constitution and law of the land.

Which is called common sense.  Part ownership = part control.  You vote for a board that follows your interests.

And if the director does anything the shaerholders don't like, they can remove them.  Hence the power there.

A shareholder just can't remove a director, they need the support of at least half of the shareholders. Hence they have Very limited power. And Removing of the director is not an easy process as special/general meetings of shareholders has to be arranged and what not.

That's what I said.  Of course you need half the shareholders to remove someone... that's common sense, if anyone who owned .00001% of a company had 100% control it'd be pure anarchy.

Richard said that stocholders have no say in how a company runs, which is patently false.  Shareholders can vote for directors who fufill their self interests.  If these directors go against the majrority that voted for them, they are then removed.

Stockholders have plenty of say in how a company runs.  Espiecally if they own a lot of stock.

Most shareholders only own a small portion of company shares. Their say really depends on other shareholders hence why i emphasise LIMITED power. I was just putting things into perspective and how richard is not too far off with his Shareholders have no power notion.

Shareholders essentially hold all the power in a company.  It's just divided by what percentage of the company you own... which is just sensible.

He was suggesting no shareholders anywhere hold anypower over a company.

It is VERY limited.  Usually someone who has any chance to have power will buy up a large enough chunk of stock in a company to enable themselves to be voted into head of the corporation, if they want to have change.  Beyond do this, a company will end up hiring and firing the members of the board, based on what the market price of the stock is.  People can dump stock, which is primarily all they can do.

It is very different in a privately held company where the owner is also the one running the company.  The owner then ends up making the decisions.  In the case of a sole proprietorship, they are also legally liable for what the business they own does.

On a corporate level, with a large number of shareholders, do you believe that they really focus on how a company is run, and the decisions the make or do they sell the stock and move on?  For the average investor, their concern is maximizing returns on investments, not operating a company, so they primarily dump stock in a company if they feel it is overvalued.  In the American financial markets, this approach has led to very short sighted decision making my American corporations, who look to maximize quarterly results.   Jobs with Apple was a notable exception to the rule in what he did, because he saw farther, and did innovate.  Other corporations aren't like that.  They are merely revenue producing machines without any vision of the future at all.  You can see how Universal has handled the Start Trek IP as an example of this.

Except they aren't liable for what the buisness they own does.  Making a majority owner, or coalition majority owner not very different from a sole owner.

As for everything after that... there is an entire class of investor that focuses on how a company is run and picks up dieing and failing buisnesses to reform them.

Lots of brands that are "ethical" tend to get stockholders who buy it specifically because they're ethical.

You seem to be argueing what you consider a fault of the stockholders now.  Which is largely way off the topic at hand.