All the Packers need under this ownership structure is a positive rate of return, not a maximum rate. Shares in the Green Bay Packers Corporation entitle owners to vote in elections of the board of directors, but not to annual dividends or capital gains upon resale. Nobody can own more than 20 shares. This ownership structure has made the Green Bay Packers essentially community property. He notes that most of the corporations chartered in the early days of the United States had residency restrictions on who could own shares, as well as restrictions limiting the proportion of shares any one individual could own.
Many states explicitly allow such restrictions in their corporate laws.
In other states without explicit statutes, the courts tend to hold as a matter of common law that such limits on share transfer rights are permissible. For example, many urban universities and hospitals, with self-perpetuating boards of directors, are notorious land speculators and slumlords. They often serve as little more than apprenticeships for staff who move on to private enterprise. Shuman finds fewer faults with public enterprise. The swiftness and ease with which neoliberal governments in Russia and Mexico are selling off at bargain prices assets built up over generations should give pause to even the most committed advocate of public ownership.