Ownership
Matters
by Ted
Howard
Yes! A Journal
of Positive Futures, Spring 1999
Page
2 of 6
Businesses
that don't get up and leave
The
Phelps County Bank is clearly different from most businesses
in America today, but it is far from unique. Indeed, beneath
the surface of what we normally think of as the U.S. economy
-- giant transnational corporations and banks, international
trade, stock markets, and individual business owners -- an
alternative approach to organizing economic activity is growing.
Some
businesses trying out this approach are like the Phelps County
Bank, owned by the people who work in them. Others are owned
by their customers, by the community at large, by the city
government or by locally based nonprofit groups. All share
in common one essential quality: they are "rooted" in the
community. Or to put it another way, unlike many businesses
today, these firms cannot get up and leave in the pursuit
of higher profits or less regulation. These real-life innovations
in cities large and small are creating enduring jobs, spreading
ownership of wealth, fostering democracy and participation,
and stabilizing their communities.
These
neighborhood and community-based economic institutions include
such models and innovations as community development corporations,
consumer and producer cooperatives, employee-owned firms,
municipal enterprises, for-profit subsidiaries of nonprofit
organizations, urban land trusts, local currency and barter
systems, and community supported agriculture programs.
In recent
years, these experiments have experienced tremendous growth:
30 years ago, there were a handful of community development
corporations; today, there are roughly 3,000 across the country.
Fifteen years ago, the first community supported agriculture
effort was launched; today there are some 700 such programs.
While
they comprise a small part of the total economy, these innovations
in ownership begin to point the way toward new possibilities
for organizing our economy and stabilizing our communities.
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