Ownership Solution

* Book: The Ownership Solution. Jeff Gates.

Discussion

Pat Conaty:

"In the late 1980s, Jeff Gates, the US lawyer who drafted much of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan legislation wrote a very insightful book published by Penguin and called The Ownership Solution, a few years later about 2000 he wrote another prophetic book called Democracy at Risk - Rescuing Main Street from Wall Street. Having been involved in numerous stock transfer deals, Gates demonstrated the ins and outs practically of a wide range of what Shann Turnbull has called Ownership Transfer Solutions. These in the Gates analysis were aimed not to act as palliatives but as real honest to God emancipation plans along the lines of the Meidner Plan but broadly wide ranging over numerous productive assets. These mechanisms included democratic ESOPs, consumer stock ownership plans (CSOPs), Universal Stock Ownership Plans (USOPs) and Community Land Trusts and Co-operative Land Banks. Using equitable tax systems and through securing political will, Gates highlighted and laid out a solid programme for the evolutionary reconstruction of the political economy. In other words he highlighted a policy ready-made list for economic democracy, Big time." (email, January 2014)