hi Everyone
Margie
Bushman just called and let me know she had just heard Jeff Gates speak
on New Demension Radio show and wanted to spread info on his work and his
book. Check out his full webpage
wes
http://www.sharedcapitalism.org/book.html
The newest book by Shared Capitalism Institute
President Jeff Gates, Democracy at Risk: Rescuing Main Street from
Wall Street -- A Populist Vision for the
21st
Century, will be released
by Perseus Books in April, 2000. More information about that book will
soon be available on this webpage.
Some of the early endorsements for Democracy at Risk
include:
We all know that in the transition to the 21st
century there are many paradigm shifts. Jeff Gates' book helps to
understand the new direction.
-- Professor Klaus Schwab, President, World Economic Forum/Davos
Jeff Gates’ new book -- Democracy at
Risk -- argues for widespread ownership of capital
resources in an era of massive disparities of wealth that subordinate
democracy to plutocracy. Gates is a practical man, which means he offers
politically practical and financially feasible ways toward a broad-based
prosperity around the world. His facts will enrage you into higher
expectation levels for what a modern economy should look like and be
for.
-- Ralph Nader
Jeff Gates is a new kind of populist. He makes some folks
uncomfortable by wanting to correct a capitalism in which the wealth of
the wealthiest 1% exceeds what 95% of Americans have to live on. But he
also wants to make capitalism worth conserving -- by making it more
civilized and more democratic, by making owners of all those who
contribute to its success. Democracy at
Risk is a tough diagnosis, with a fresh and
future-oriented prescription attached.
-- Harlan Cleveland, President, World Academy of Arts and Sciences;
author, The Global Commons and
Birth of a New World
At a time when the need is great, Jeff Gates offers us a Populist
vision for the 2lst century.
-- Lawrence Goodwyn, author, Democratic Promise: The
Populist Moment in America
With passion and precision, Jeff Gates reminds us that capitalism
does not have to be an exclusive system. We make the rules! Here, from
the man who helped bring us employee stock ownership is compelling
commonsense for how we can make capitalism work for all of us by
"ownerizing" it. Mind expanding. Hope inducing. And we need
both!
-- Frances Moore Lappé, author, Diet for a Small
Planet, co-author, The Quickening of
America
Democracy at Risk is a highly original, gutsy,
carefully thought through work that offers practical alternatives for a
new economics and politics - and in the process reclaims populism from
demagogues who have used it to divert people from the core issues Jeff
Gates so thoroughly documents. This is an important and timely
book.
-- Riane Eisler, author, The Chalice & The Blade,
Tomorrow’s Children, and Sacred
Pleasure
Democracy at Risk invites -- no, compels -- us to
open our eyes to what seems to be an ominous contrast between the
capitalism of today and the fundamental ideals of an inclusive democracy.
It is, at the very least, a wake-up call--if you can speak of an
exploding stick of dynamite as a wake-up call. Yet, the solutions offered
leave us gratefully optimistic that a truly democratic capitalism is in
fact attainable -- but that there is not a moment to
waste.
-- Jacob Needleman, author, Money and the Meaning of
Life
Written with uncommon clarity and candor,
Democracy At Risk is a book which should
be read by everyone who is concerned with liberty and equitable
distribution of power and wealth. The more prosperous and powerful you
might be, the more important it is to pay attention to what Jeff Gates
has to say.
-- Dee Hock, Founder and CEO Emeritus, VISA; author,
Birth of the Chaordic Age
Gives us hope that capitalism and humanism are not necessarily
mutually exclusive.
-- Paul Krassner, editor, The Realist
Meticulously documents the need for broadening capital ownership in
the USA -- not ony for overall efficiency and social development -- but
to fully release the talents and motivations of all our citizens in
growing a more prosperous, just and ecologically sustainable
society.
-- Hazel Henderson, author, Beyond
Globalization and Building a Win-Win
World
Jeff Gates is a phenomenon. He is turning the economics searchlight
on ownership and demanding to know why the morally unbearable
maldistribution of wealth and income is taboo in classical and
contemporary economics. Jeff has achieved this focus, in two books two
years apart, to the profound benefit of economics and democracy. He comes
straight from top-of-the-mark work on Capitol Hill for Russell Long and
the Senate Finance Committee to the crisis for democracy in which we
Americans are all now mired, whether we want to be or not. American
democracy is in great danger, if it's not already over the cliff, and
Jeff Gates is making his special heroic effort to help save it and free
enterprise. Can it be done? I don't know.
-- Ronnie Dugger, founder and co-chair, Alliance for Democracy
The Ownership Solution (1998)
Backed by a wide array of influential supporters
from the worlds of business, finance, government, non-profits, and
academia, The Ownership Solution
is nothing less than a new capitalist
manifesto -- a blueprint for making the system of free enterprise really
work.
To Jeff Gates, a pioneer in the field of employee ownership, the central
problem of capitalism is that it doesn't create enough capitalists. In
the United States, for example, despite rising living standards, full
employment, low inflation, and a bull market that can't stop setting
records, the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening. Feelings
of alienation and cynicism are being voiced in bitter labor disputes,
exposes of government overspending, and calls for campaign finance
reform, caps on executive compensation, and repeal of tax laws that favor
the wealthy. Concentration of wealth at the top results in what Gates
calls "disconnected capitalism," and it will cause the system
to implode, unless politicians, corporate executives, investors, social
activists, and common citizens come up with creative strategies to make
the system more inclusive. (See
Why
Is A Shared Capitalism Needed? for highlights of wealth
and income statistics.)
That is what The Ownership
Solution is all about-giving capitalism a human face
and and encouraging all participants in the economy to share the
responsibilities and reap the rewards of its success. Gates operates from
the fundamental assumption that people are likely to become better
stewards of all the systems of which they are part-social, political,
fiscal, cultural, and natural-as they gain a personal stake in the
economic system. The process is already underway, as Gates demonstrates
through his insider's recounting of the creation of employee stock
ownership plan (ESOP) legislation in the Unites States, as well as
descriptions of numerous private- and public-sector "ownership
engineering" intiatives around the world. From United Airlines to a
chicken-processing plant in Jamaica, corporations and nations are
experimenting with a variety of employee ownership programs designed to
make every worker not just a jobholder, but a stockholder. Drawing from
the experiences of over a dozen nations, Gates offers a set of strategy
and policy recommendations to reinforce this trend toward capitalism by
and for the people.
Already making its way onto both liberal and conservative
agendas, as well as the platforms of think tanks, philanthropic
foundations, environmental groups, and international banks, among many
other organizations, The Ownership
Solution charts a course for free enterprise well
into the twenty-first century, delivering a sincere expectation that the
future will be better -- and different -- for all.
Return to the top
"This book may save
capitalism."
-- Stephan Schmidheiny, Founder
World Business Council for Sustainable Development
You may order a copy of The Ownership
Solution at any on-line bookstore. At
amazon.com
search for the title "Ownership Solution."
Book jacket design by Suzanne Heiser
introduction | associates | activities | book info. | The Numbers