IT IS popular to lament the growing gap between capitalists and workers. In one respect, however, the gap is shrinking: the number of workers who own shares in the business that employs them has never been higher. America leads the way: 32m Americans own stock in their companies through pension and profit-sharing plans, and share-ownership and share-option schemes. The idea continues to gain momentum. Hillary Clinton’s recent speeches suggest that she may make it an important plank in her plans to reform capitalism. And worker-capitalists are also on the march in Europe and Asia.
Conservatives like employee ownership because it gives workers a stake in the capitalist system. Left-wingers like it because it gives them a piece of the capitalist pie. And middle-of-the-roaders like it because it helps to close a potentially dangerous gap between capital and labour. David Cameron, Britain’s Conservative prime minister, praises John Lewis, a retailer entirely owned by its staff. Bernie Sanders, America’s only socialist senator and now a candidate for the Democratic nomination (see...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1PBEryo
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