Ownership Matters
by Ted Howard
Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures, Spring 1999

Page 6 of 6
Economic democracy

What are we to make of these innovations in ownership? Judged by size and revenue, the Phelps County Banks, the Joseph Industries, the New Community Corporations and the Pioneer Human Services of the country are relatively small-scale enterprises. And CDCs, cooperatives, municipal enterprise, worker-owned companies are not perfect. As with more traditional businesses, some fail. Some employee-owned firms are more democratic than others; some CDCs more accountable to the community than others.

But these enterprises do focus attention on essential issues for the future of democracy: How do we revitalize and sustain community: How do we place wealth and assets into the hands of more people? How do we give average working people more control over their jobs and economic livelihood? After all, the primary rationale of Employee Stock Ownership Plans is that the ownership of capital matters, indeed it is absolutely central. By holding that issue up for consideration, the very existence of an economic alternative like worker-owned firms shows that it is feasible to organize the economy along new lines.

One thing is certain: the trajectory of growth for ownership innovations of many types is on the rise in the United States. In the end, each points toward new possibilities for America in the new century.

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