The popularity of index and other mutual funds, combined with the current rules for voting shares of stock, has had an unexpected ill effect: concentration of corporate voting power in the hands of a few giant asset management companies. Nobody did or would intend this outcome. Fortunately, the voting rules can be changed. A great way for the SEC to start 2019 would be to take on and then fix this threat.
The asset managers holding the concentrated voting power are, economically speaking, mere agents. They are not principals. One hundred percent of the risks and rewards of ownership belong to the beneficial owners of the funds: they are the economic owners. The agent asset managers simply pass through these risks and rewards (minus their fees, course). They have the stock registered in the fund name, but they are in no economic sense the owners.
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