Gary, your piece has a nice ring to it to me…..”capital worker ownership” hmmm….so are we saying that with such a system, the government would insure (guarantee) more bank loans to more owners of smaller businesses? I just wonder why th…e banks would be willing to make these loans otherwis? also, how would these new smaller businesses compete with the mega-corporations that have been gobbling up the ma and pa operations for so many years? why would these “ownerships” succeed when others have failed? when I hear about “ownership” of companies by the employees or laborers, United Airlines comes to mind, like when the employees became owners of gigantic U.A….that type of concept didn’t seem to last very long…is that what we are talking about here? or are we talking about soumething else…i notice that the article calls such system “democratic capitalism”…are we sort of talking about social democracy here, but using a so-called more palatable term, democratic “captialism”, so the so-called lamentable word “socialism” is precluded?……or am i way off base thinking the system you speak of is some sort of social democracy…..lol, better take out the word “democratic” as well, or republicans won’t buy into it lol…lastly, is this what romney is supposbly trying to promote? i notice you are the author of those very interesting articles on the for economic justice site…have you tried to get any democratic political organizations or groups interested in your observations and ideas?
Gary Reber Comments: I am not advocating socialism, which is fundamentally founded on significant redistribution of income earned from those earning, either from their capital worker ownership of productive capital or their labor worker earnings. Such redistribution supports entitlement programs and dependency on government. Instead, I am advocating private, individual ownership expansion of productive capital simultaneously with investment growth with America mobilized to embrace a new era of superautomated factories, both new and refurbished, moderenized old factories, capable of pouring off assembly lines manufactured products in sufficient quantities to supply the demand of an increasingly prospering population of productive capital owners. The first step to achieving such economic growth is to make our institutions for productive capital financing and income distribution correspond more closely with the reality of modern, technology-driven production. Underscoring this step is the acknowledgment that the American society is based on the concept that private ownership of wealth-producing productive capital is a legitimate source of personal income, that Americans should have the right to supplement or replace their labor worker wages and salaries with capital workers earnings from productive capital ownership. If it is good for the 1 percent then it is surely good for the 99 percent. We the majority of Americans could derive the significant portion of our personal income from the ownership of capital, as do the 1 percent, then the benefits of productivity increases would be distributed primarily through dividends instead of through wages and salaries. Job displacing superautomation, industrial robots, automated factories, and other technologically efficient innovations would then be no threat to jobs and would simply become a means for just income distribution. Note that technology, in and of itself, will not entirely eliminate all work requiring human effort. Numerous vocations, especially in service industries, will be in demand, as well as opportunities for traditional employment and career employment. So both capital worker ownership of technological innovation assets and traditional employment would co-exist, but exponentially the output of products would be the result of a superautomated manufacturing capacity, which will become the greatest source of earnings for individual Americans. There are several ways to design a reformed “system” of income distribution in which the goal would be to ensure that every citizen would be a shareholder by virtue of his or her citizenship. Key will be the implementation of insured credit mechanisms that empower individuals to acquire productive capital ownership in corporate America, including small businesses, and pay for their acquisition out of the future earnings of the investments. The principal of insurance is to spread the risks so that any failures will be insignificant in comparison to the successes. The Federal Reserve Bank should play the role of loan insurer. As such, to be successful, insured investments should be focused on investments in areas of long-term productivity growth, the modernization of technically outdated industries, and new superautomated factories. Full dividend profit payouts to the new capitalist owners would be required of the companies benefiting from the insured loans for investment growth. Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) also should be used in conjunction, in both large and small businesses, to broaden productive capital ownership among employees of such businesses. Implementation of policies and programs to broaden ownership of productive capital would, over time, would transform America into a super technological powerhouse with a manufacturing sector capable of outpouring quality products and services to support affluence for every man, woman, child and family. The policies and programs need to result in fundamental improvements in basic technology for the long-term benefit to the society. The result also will be to realize a true political democracy along with a property-based market system of economic democracy, by decreasing, rather than increasing the existing concentration of productive capital ownership and thus economic power in the hands of the 1 percent. A most important benefit of such policies and programs to broaden ownership of productive capital is that competition between small and large businesses would be enhanced, driven by extensive utilization of the most modern and efficient technological innovations. The Center For Economic & Social Justice (CESJ.org) calls for a Just Third Way, which embraces and advocates these ideas and proposes a Capital Homestead Act, first proposed by my mentor, binary economist Louis Kelso. Also, see www.foreconomicjustice.org. I am working activity to promote these ideas among news commentators and democratic political organizations and groups. The slogan which best describes this movement is Own Or Be Owned!
