Studi Buku Mandiri
THE OWNERSHIP SOLUTION
Toward A Shared Capitalism For The Twenty-First Century
Jeff Gates
Nama Mahasiswa / NPM :
Mas Wigrantoro Roes Setiyadi / 8605210299
Program Doktor Strategic Management
Program Studi Ilmu Manajemen
Program Pascasarjana Fakultas Ilmu Ekonomi
Universitas Indonesia
Oktober 2006
Chapter 1: DISCONNECTED CAPITALISM
Untuk pertama kali dalam sejarah manusia, sistem ekonomi tunggal melingkari bola
bumi. Kapitalisme global ini merupakan berita gembira dan berita buruk. Berita
gembiranya adalah bahwa lebih dari yang pernah ada sebelumnya, kapitalisme telah
membuktikan kapasitasnya untuk menghasilkan kekayaan tak terhitung. Berita buruknya
adalah bahwa banyak orang-orang kini dijadikan korban dengan kekerasan yang
nampaknya di luar kendali mereka, mencakup suatu globalisasi keuangan yang
berkelanjutan yang bermanfaat hanya bagi sebagian kecil orang. Kekuatan yang sama itu
bisa dimanfaatkan untuk keuntungan semua orang, tetapi ini akan berakibat hanya jika,
ketika lebih banyak dari kita menjadi terhubung ke kapitalisme- sebagai kapitalis.
Sebagai pasar perekonomian yang terbesar di dunia, Amerika Serikat menyediakan
sebuah contoh yang dramatis mengenai bagaimana kapitalisme modern dengan cepat
menjadi “terputus” dari mereka yang hidup di tengah-tengahnya. Fidelity Management
dan Research Company mengatur lebih dari enam ratus milyar dollar dalam asset
(modal); Boston’s State Street Bank mangatur tiga ratus milyar dollar. Manajemen
keuangan yang terfokus pada memaksimalkan pengembalian keuangan bukanlah hal
yang baru. Yang baru adalah skala luas dan pertumbuhan yang meroket dari jaman
“terputusnya” modal. Yang juga baru adalah diberi penghormatan yang sangat besar,
informasi tercermin dalam pengembalian keuangan, khususnya ketika seseorang
menganggap bagaimana dramatisnya hidup manusia dipengaruhi oleh keputusankeputusan berdasar angka-angka tersebut. Itu meliputi struktur sosial bangsa, termasuk
luasnya jarak antara kaya dan miskin; lingkungan; dan angka pertumbuhan rumah tangga
yang tetap, menghilangkan proses akumulasi kekayaan seluruhnya yang pada gilirannya
menjadi tanggung jawab pada dukungan pemerintah. Terputusnya modal merupakan
perolehan daya gerak di seluruh dunia sebagai pemerintahan yang menjalankan rencana
pensiun dan meningkatkan dorongan untuk tabungan pensiun.
Pertumbuhan global dalam perbedaan ekonomi dan terputusnya modal menciptakan
barisan tantangan terhadap kesehatan seluruh bangsa dan tentu saja pada kapitalisme
global. Luasnya jarak antara miskin dan kaya ini dikenal dengan implikasi sosial dan
politik. Dua tingkat sosial dan dua tingkat pasar bukanlah lahan subur dimana demokrasi
secara sempurna berakar. Sejarawan memiliki dokumentasi panjang yang berisi sikap
ancaman untuk membuka sistem dengan perbedaan yang ekstrim pada kekayaan, seperti
pemilikan kekayaan yang besar dengan memberikan sedikit kekuatan mereka, yang mana
mereka mungkin tergoda untuk digunakan mencapai kesejahteraan umum.
Kekurangan “sistemik” yang utama pada kapitalisme saat ini adalah salahnya “umpan
balik” sistem. Sistem tidak terhubungan secara otomatis, jika menginginkan untuk
mendahului dan merespon keinginan dari populasi di dalamnya. Melainkan
mencerminkan modal keuangan yang ganjil. Hal ini bermanfaat untuk memanggil
kembali konsep bahwa perusahaan bebas (free enterprise) merupakan sebuah pikiran
umpan balik pada dua abad yang lalu ketika Adam Smith, mengeluarkan “The Wealth of
Nations” dengan cerita perumpamaannya mengenai bagaimana pasar “invisible hand”
dari pertukaran sukarela dan secara bebas menentukan kepastian harga bagi pesertanya.
Chapter 2: RECONSTRUCTING CAPITALISM
The Ownership Solution tidaklah diharapkan sebagai kritik kapitalisme. Hal tersebut
sangat berlawanan. Seperti peringatan presiden Czech, Vaclav Havel: “Manusia saat ini
mengetahui bahwa mereka hanya dapat terselamatkan oleh sebuah tipe baru dari
tanggung jawab global. Hanya satu penjelasan kecil yang menghilang: bahwa tanggung
jawab harus ditanggung dengan ikhlas.” Di lain hal, sebagian besar manusia tidak dapat
tinggal di bagian luar kesatuan perusahaan, terhubung hanya sebagai pelanggan dan
pemegang kerja, dan mengharapkan untuk ikut menanggung tanggung jawab atas
tindakannya. Hal itu memaksa arsitek perusahaan bebas (free enterprise), seperti
pemimpin bisnis, pembuat kebijakan, menanggung tanggung jawab untuk memastikan
bahwa penyelarasan, lokalisir, kepemilikan yang “up-close” menjadi kenyataan
keseharian dalam hidup. Benar bahwa penyertaan kepemilikan merupakan “pembayaran
masuk” yang diperlukan sebelum orang pantas menanggung tanggung jawab mereka.
Havel menyerukan sebuah tipe baru dari tanggung jawab global yang hanya dapat
muncul dari kumpulan tenaga dari banyak individu yang dikuasakan menjadi tanggung
jawab setempat (locally responsible). Pemikiran tersebut tercermin dalam prinsip
“percabangan” yang secara sederhana menyatakan
bahwa masalah tersebut harus
terpecahkan tidak lebih dari tingkatan lokal yang memungkinkan. Selengkapnya dalam
prinsip tersebut adalah sebuah paradoks: negara harus menciptakan sebuah lingkungan
dimana tanggung jawab personal dapat diterima dengan benar.
Oleh karena jangkauan pasar uang yang global, kita berada di tengah-tengah penjualan
yang sangat besar dari aset milik negara. Itu menjadi tanda penyakit bagi mereka yang
percaya bahwa kapitalisme secara mati-matian menjadi lebih luas terpopulasi dengan
kapitalis. Hal itu dikarenakan dalam ekonomi pasar, yang kaya semakin kaya, sejak
investasi berdasaarkan uang. Itu akan menjadi sejarah yang ironis. Jalur menuju format
usaha bebas (free-enterprise), demokrasi yang sempurna dan bertahan lama berada dalam
perancangan strategi kepemilikan yang sangat partisipatif dan mampu beradaptasi
melintasi suatu jangkauan luas lingkungan ekonomi dan politik.
Vaclav Havel menangkap dengan baik waktu-waktu unik dimana kita hidup: “Saat ini,
lebih dari yang pernah ada sebelumnya dalam sejarah umat manusia, semua hal saling
berkaitan. Oleh karena itu, nilai-nilai dan prospek-prospek dari peradaban di jaman ini
dimana-mana diuji dengan baik.” Uji yang paling dalam saat ini – secara moral, secara
ekonomi, secara sosial – apakah kapitalisme global dapat dibujuk untuk menciptakan
orang kaya lebih banyak and sedikit orang miskin. Bahwasanya, pada gilirannya,
menentukan nasib demokrasi – yang mana tidak akan pernah menyadari potensi yang
sepenuhnya sampai didasarkan pada sebuah fondasi ekonomi dimana unsurnya adalah
sepenuhnya peserta, tidak hanya pemberi gaji dan pemberi suara.
Chapter 3: WHY DOES CAPITALISM CREATE SO FEW CAPITALISTS?
Kapitalisme telah lama terkenal sebagai pencipta yang buruk dari kapitalis. Apakah kita
memperhatikan negara-negara kapitalis yang berkedudukan kuat atau usaha mereka
untuk lepas dari sosialis masa lampau, fakta menunjukkan bahwa: kapitalisme tidak
dirancang untuk menciptakan kapitalis lebih; namun dirancang untuk lebih membiayai
modal untuk kapitalis yang ada. Ini karena pembiayaan terpenuhi di dalam sebuah
“sistem tertutup.”
Sebuah perusahaan hanya memiliki dua sumber dana, yaitu: menghasilkan secara internal
dan kenaikan secara eksternal. Dana secara internal dihasilkan dari dua komponen. Yang
pertama, diinvestasikan kembali dalam pendapatan dan laba – dana suatu perusahaan
berfungsi untuk mempertahankan pertumbuhan bisnis tersebut. Yang kedua adalah
cadangan penyusutan – dana itu untuk menggantikan aset fisik yang digunakan atau telah
usang. Sumber dana yang ketiga dan keempat adalah pertumbuhan uang diluar
perusahaan. Mengapa sebagian besar kepemilikan tertutup bagi orang diluar perusahaan?
Hal tersebut dikarenakan: pertama, laba dan pendapatan yang dihasilkan oleh suatu
perusahaan milik mereka yang pada saat ini memiliki perusahaan itu; kedua, aset yang
memenuhi syarat untuk penyusutan hanya setelah pemilik meletakkan aset untuk
digunakan, karena hanya mereka yang memiliki akses pada jaminan dan arus kas yang
diwajibkan untuk mengamankan dan melayani hutang.
Alfred D. Chandler Jr, sejarawan bisnis secara formal dari Harvard Business School,
menyimpulkan bahwa komponen dari tabungan yang benar-benar dihitung untuk
pertumbuhan ekonomi bukanlah tabungan pribadi sebanyak seperti tabungan usaha –
yang membiayai kebangkitan perusahaan secara internal. Hal ini merupakan sebuah
kritikan nyata karena tabungan usaha “muncul” dalam ekonomi kepunyaan pemilik saat
ini, sepenuhnya kepemilikan – memusat pada keuangan sistem tertutup. Sebagai
penggantian aset, aset tersebut menghasilkan pendapatan lebih dan penyusutan lebih yang
menciptakan tabungan usaha lebih – dan seterusnya dalam sebuah proses yang lebih
lanjut cukup untuk menjadi terobosan peristiwa ini.
Dengan tanpa melihat apakah pembiayaan tersusun untuk membawa aset baru segaris,
untuk memindahkan kepemilikan dari aset yang ada atau untuk menggabungkan aset
tersebut dengan perusahaan lain, sasaran kepemilikan yang sama: tujuan dari pembiayaan
adalah untuk membolehkan orang mendapatkan aset sebelum mereka memiliki simpanan
dana untuk membayar mereka. Teknik self-financing secara luas lazimnya dapat
bermanfaat bagi warganegara. Sejarah terbaru mengkonfirmasikan bahwa, tanpa suatu
kombinasi kepemimpinan perusahaan dan kebijakan masukan, peristiwa ini akan
berlanjut untuk menciptakan beberapa kepemilikan.
Tantangan kepemilikan dapat ditanggulangi. Bagaimanapun, karena kapitalisme untuk
menciptakan kapitalis lebih, diperlukan suatu pengetahuan pembiayaan dan politik yang
bertautan dengan penduduk, kecerdasan pembiayaan pemimpin politik dan perhatian
pemimpin pada sektor perusahaan.
Pembaharuan dan regenerasi adalah pusat dari keuangan, terutama sekali melalui
penyusutan sebagai penengah dengan suatu generasi teknologi online. Teknologi
produktif modern (mekanis, kimia, informasi, organisasi) telah sukses luar biasa pada
penekanan jam kerja – yang secara berkesinambungan tidak memberi kuasa terhadap
siapa yang bekerja saat pemberian kuasa terhadap siapa yang memiliki. Sementara itu,
pasar tentu saja tetap acuh tak acuh. Ini secara sederhana menilai daya produksi,
mengarahkan pendapatan kepada siapa saja yang menghasilkan, dengan mengabaikan
apakah tenaga terampil atau aset tabungan pekerja.
Chapter 4: PUTTING THE “OWN” BACK IN OWNERSHIP
Lebih dari dua dekade yang lalu, kapitalisme menurut sejarah terpusat pada kepemilikan
pribadi (personal ownership) telah dihubungkan dengan suatu yang baru dan hingga kini
format pengertian sederhana dari kekayaan terpusat: konsentrasi di tangan lembaga
investor. Kelembagaan yang sama sedang dijalankan di negara lain ketika tiga faktor
pokok bertemu. Pertama, Perang Dunia II ledakan populasi yang sekarang mulai
memasuki tahun utamanya, mendekati periode ketika “siklus kehidupan uang tabungan”
menjangkau puncak mereka, seperti yang diramalkan ahli ekonomi, Franco Modigliani.
Kedua, pembuat kebijakan di dunia sibuk menetapkan kebijakan untuk tabungan pensiun
– baik sebagai alat untuk menghimpun dana investasi maupun sebagai jalan untuk
memajukan kepercayaan diri sebagai suatu alternatif menuju program pemerintah. Faktor
ketiga, sedang dalam pengerjaan.
Hukum warisan mendorong orang-orang kaya untuk meninggalkan sejumlah besar harta
untuk lembaga non-profit, terutama yayasan. Bill Gates telah mengumumkan tujuannya
untuk memindahkan sebagian besar keuntungannya untuk sebuah yayasan. Pertumbuhan
terus melaju, kelembagaan datang sebagai kejutan bagi yang menciptakan kebijakan
lingkungan yang mempengaruhi perubahan ini. Sebagai contoh, banyak ahli ekonomi dari
Timur dan Pusat Eropa menghimpun dana bersama sebagai komponen kunci dari strategi
privatisasi mereka, melaju dari kapitalis sebelumnya, era sosialis “pengkolektifan” secara
langsung menuju pos kapitalis “kelembagaan.”
Satu dari hal-hal penting yang dihadapi kapitalis modern adalah penentuan dari apa yang
dimaksud “kepunyaan” ketika kepemilikan dilembagakan. Berkomentar mengenai apa
yang disebut ahli ekonomi dilema “agency cost”, Professor Lester Thurow di M.I.T.
Sloan School of Management menyarankan: “jalan satu-satunya bagi kapitalisme untuk
dapat bekerja adalah pemilik harus ikut bertanggung jawab.” Di tahun 1996, Perusahaan
William M. Mercer mensurvei 608 perusahaan dan menemukan bahwa tipe perusahaan
besar (dengan pendapatan lebih dari seratus juta dollar) memiliki lima persen simpanan
bagian saham untuk eksekutif puncak. Secara khas pertimbangan untuk upah eksekutif
terkemas dalam beberapa varian pada “great man theory”, yang menyatakan bahwa
seorang pemimpin perusahaan yang baik diperlukan untuk memikat modal dari satu
investasi ke investasi lain – meningkatkan nilai saham.
Di dalam kombinasi, pengertian yang mendalam menunjukkan bahwa lembaga investor
fokus pada “struktur yang tidak terlihat” dari perusahaan, mencakup penentuan sikap dan
kumpulan informasi yang berhubungan dengan kelalaian perusahaan pada risiko mereka.
Bukti menunjukkan bahwa konsep dalam dan luar yang menyangkut perusahaan dapat
berhasil. Bagi mereka yang menyamakan kepemilikan dengan kendali, adalah jelas
bahwa kendali dalam dunia pengaturan-uang telah tercerai dari model sederhana yang
diimpikan oleh Adam Smith. The Ownership Solution menyarankan ketahanan, dengan
ukuran apapun, memerlukan lembaga investor untuk mendesak agar “kepunyaan”
diletakkan kembali pada kepemilikan. Hal itu dapat berhasil dengan menghubungkan
kembali manusia pada umpan balik dasar dari sistem, kita menyebutnya dengan
kapitalisme.
Chapter 5: UP-CLOSE CAPITALISM – THE EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP SOLUTION
ESOP (Enterprise Share Ownership Plans) merupakan solusi kepemilikan baru yang
tampak paling menyolok. Dalam sebuah “pengaruh” ESOP (dimana saham dibeli dengan
menggunakan dana pinjaman), empat bagian yang secara khusus terlibat: karyawan,
perusahaan sponsor, penjual, dan pemberi pinjaman. Insentif tersedia untuk masingmasing bagian. Bagi karyawan, hitungan saham tidak kena pajak sampai diterima. Bagi
perusahaan, potongan pajak dibolehkan bukan hanya untuk biaya bunga pada dana
pinjaman yang digunakan sebuah ESOP namun juga untuk biaya dari pembayaran
kembali pinjaman utama. Ditambah pengurangan pajak karyawan dibolehkan untuk
pembayaran dividen atas pemegang saham ESOP sebagai jalan untuk menghasilkan suatu
kepemilikan dasar “pendapatan kedua” – kunci Kelso – dasar pemikiran dari ESOP.
Kepemilikan karyawan bukanlah tanpa resiko. Selama pengumpan ragu-ragu bahwa
karyawan akan “meletakkan semua telur ke dalam keranjang,” para pendukung khawatir
bahwa karyawan tidak mempunyai sama sekali telur dalam keranjangnya. Ini hal kecil
yang menggambarkan bahwa kepemilikan karyawan itu sendiri dapat dilakukan untuk
membatasi perusahaan dari persaingan, perubahan teknologi, atau pergeseran pasar. Ada
hal “ajaib” tentang kepemilikan saham karyawan jika perusahaan melakukan kesalahan
bisnis. Dilain hal, beberapa perusahaan merengkuh kepemilikan karyawan sebagai
komponen dari strategi daya saing mereka, memberi gambaran bahwa berhadapan
dengan risiko kepemilikan karyawan jadi lebih mungkin untuk memperlihatkan arah yang
bersifat wirausaha dan fleksibilitas diperlukan untuk mengidentifikasi dan membuat
perubahan, diperlukan perubahan teknologi dan pergeseran pasar.
Mackin, pendiri Cambride, Massachusetts-based Ownership Associates, menemukan
bahwa manajer dan pekerja sering menduduki tempat yang berbeda, tidak seimbangnya
hak atau tanggung jawab. Manajemen secara khusus positif tentang tanggung jawab dan
risiko dari kepemilikan karyawan namun negatif tentang hak dan penghargaan. Pesan
mengenai kebingungan mereka kepada manajemen: “ hargai saya seperti seorang pemilik
namun perlakukan saya seperti seorang karyawan.” Mackin menyimpulkan bahwa
perbaikan akan mendorong percakapan kepemilikan ini semakin panjang sehingga kedua
dapat disimpulkan sebagai kultur tempat kerja yang secara tetap bergeser menjadi sebuah
kultur kepemilikan.
Terdapat salah satu kunci tantangan menghadapi kapitalisme. Berbagai format dari upclose kapitalime dengan baik menghadirkan harapan terbaik kapitalisme untuk mencapai
kesetiaan, motivasi, dedikasi, dan pengorbanan yang diperlukan oleh usaha bebas untuk
kesuksesan jangka panjang. Walaupun begitu tantangan belum dapat diukur.
Tantangan-tantangan lain: selama manajer menengah harus dipercayakan untuk membuat
perubahan, mereka boleh memiliki sedikit saham. Hal itu mendorong mereka untuk
melakukan apa yang memungkinkan suatu perubahan, termasuk perubahan yang
mungkin menurunkan peringkat manajemen dan mengubah otoritas manajer. Dan
kepemilikan karyawan merupakan suatu biaya efektif utama untuk mengarahkan sumber
kebijakan yang terbatas. Lingkungan kebijakan terbangun dengan baik sebelum up-close
kapitalisme mempertimbangkan tujuan yang diinginkan dan memungkinkan.
Chapter 6: NEW PROPERTY PARADIGMS
More than one hundred countries have an active interest in adapting ESOPs. Many are
well advanced. However, it is the growing use of ESOPs in multinational corporation that
offers potentially the most powerful short-term tool for spreading up-close ownership
worldwide. This trend is certain to accelerate as both capital and trade flow ever more
freely. An obvious ownership challenge accompanies this trend: how best to encourage
these cross-border firms to include indigenous employees as partial owners of parentcompany shares.
RESOPs (Related Enterprise Share Ownership Plans) provide an opportunity for
employees of smaller companies to gain an ownership stake in larger, more established
companies. From an ownership perspective, ESOP/RESOP solution enabled a broad base
of Jamaican workers to accumulate capital in a well-established Jamaican company.
Indeed, many of the micro enterprise employees would not be employed but for their
economic relationship with the larger firm. The RESOP also represents a natural
extension of the ESOP idea, expanding not only the definition of “employee” but also
utilizing the ESOP notion of “self-financing” to benefit a broader network of those who
add value to the firms’ operations.
Certain customer groups offer another potential “natural owner.” As investment bankers
know so well, practically any revenue stream can be used to “owner-ize” incomeproducing assets over time. From a financial perspective, the value of a company is to be
liquidated and its assets sold. Much as water moves through a whirlpool and creates it at
the same time, the cash flowing through an enterprise both creates and sustains its
financial value is based on its customers paying their bills for their access to energy or
water. Without their patronage, the company’s financial value as a going concern would
quickly disappear. The goal of the CSOP (Customer Stock Ownership Plan) is to craft a
capital structure that will capture some portion of that value for those whose patronage
maintains that value. The developing world offers rich opportunities for ESOP/CSOP
combinations particularly with the worldwide boom in infrastructure development, such
as power generation.
A variation of the CSOP is under consideration in conjunction with the politically
sensitive privatization of the British Broadcasting Corporation. In conjunction with the
former head of news and current affairs at the BBC, we proposed the “stake ownerization” of the BBC, using an ESOP and a VSOP (Viewer Share Ownership Plan) plus an
equity stake for the BBC’s independent producers. Applying my owner-ization credo
(“where the cash flows, ownership grows”), I proposed an obvious ownership strategy:
gradually convert that revenue stream into BBC shares for BBC viewers.
ESOP-like self-financing techniques can also be used to expand ownership beyond
economic relationships based either on employment or consumption. One such
mechanism is the GSOC (General Stock Ownership Corporation), in which ownership is
based on geography or citizenship. In the only version of the GSOC thus far enacted into
federal law (in 1978), a for-profit corporation chartered by a state prior to 1984 could
operate tax-free provided it complied with the ESOP’s three operational principles;
namely, a GSOC must
1. Include as a shareholder each citizen of the chartering state, reflecting the ESOP
concept’s “democratic” principle of widespread participation.
2. Limit individual ownership to ten shares, reflecting the ESOP “antimonopoly”
principle ensuring that limits are imposed on relative shareholdings.
3. Pay out 90 percent of the company’s earnings to shareholders on a current
distribution of income to the company’s owners.
DSOP (Depositor Share Ownership Plan) seems that depositors are often receptive to the
motion of owning shares where they bank. That makes sense. If someone has sufficient
confidence to trust a bank with his or her savings, the bank may be able to draw on that
goodwill to persuades those customers to buy its shares.
In Speakman view, a bank privatization that includes an ESOP/DSOP component could
create a positive outcome for everyone involved. The government would be seen as
supporting a privatization technique that advances broad-based ownership; banks would
gain an opportunity to strengthen both employee and customer loyalty; and the customers
would become more knowledgeable up-close capitalists – both as savers and as potential
borrowers, secure in the knowledge that their borrowing enhances the earning of a bank
in which they own a stake.
Each of these new property paradigms (ESOPs, GESOPs, RESOPs, CSOPs, VSOPs,
GSOPs, DSOPs, etc) share a common goal: the transformation of economic relationships
in a way that enhances performance and sustainability across a wide range of measures.
This combination requires a combination of financial creativity, committed corporate
leadership and sustained political will, along with a populace prepared to embrace
change, complexity and risk.
Chapter 7: TOWARD A WORKABLE WORK ETHIC
Reflecting a combination of both morality and the market, the work ethic is captured in
the Greek word compensation, meaning “a balancing of accounts,” suggesting that a
person is entitled to take out of the economy according to what he or she puts in. Usually
that input is labor. The ethics of balance embodied in the work ethic under gird economic
policy making worldwide, where “full employment” remains a key goal, regardless of
whether the economy is socialist, a capitalist, developed, underdeveloped or somewhere
in between. On the other hand, certain types of human capital are becoming more
valuable, particularly those associated with the development of information technology
(IT). In the early nineteenth century, the spread of labor-saving looms caused displaced
workers to respond by attempting to destroy that era’s technological advances. Today’s
Luddites, secretive rebels who followed Ned Ludd, point out that information technology
(computer software, networked computers, advanced telecom equipment) is different in
at least three significant ways. First, the impact of IT is not limited to one segment of
economy, such as Luddite weavers. Second, IT is being phased in much faster than were
mechanical looms, particularly as measured by the plummeting price of computer power
and its pervasive reach into the service sector. Lastly, IT makes work far more portable,
often negating the need for personal contact with customers or even with employers. The
impact is further amplified by the spread of new organizational systems.
In truth, the widespread prevalence of productive, labor-saving technologies, including
information technology, could provide a foundation of security as leisure for a broad base
of those living in developed economies. Today’s fixation on jobs continues to erode the
ability of people to orient themselves. In an age when the workplace reality is a twentyfirst-century world of capital-and knowledge-intensive, information-processing, laborsaving technology, policymakers in both the public and private sectors continue to rely on
outdated, outmoded nineteenth-century interpretation of how to participate effectively in
a market economy.
Buckminster Fuller, futurist, philosopher, engineer, and author, coined a term that aptly
describes what is happening to the world of work: he labeled this process
“comprehensive emphemeralization, the process of doing more with less.” As he
explained: “Since World War I, the world has turned from the wire to the wireless, the
track to the trackless, the visible structure. In each instance, man is able to do more with
less and less and less.” Information technology accelerates this trend so that, increasingly,
we are living in an intangible economy in which amusement, beauty, pleasure, beams and
cotton bales of an earlier era.
In a social and political environment firmly wedded both to the work ethic and political
equality the challenge lies in figuring out what a nation’s people are to do as the “doingness” of production is done lee and less with involvement of human power and more and
more with the productive power (and knowledge) embodied in their culture’s tools,
including its information and networking technologies and its remarkable array of
congealed knowledge. This steady decoupling of productive output from human input has
been ongoing at least since the dawn of the industrial revolution. However, even though
our systems for accomplishing work have evolved is astonishing ways, we have yet to
devise genuinely systems-wise means for connecting people to the work that is done.
While it is clearly time to focus on preparing people for a more global form of capitalism,
it is also clear that the time has arrived to prepare capitalism for people. Full employment
policies will continue to be essential, but they are no longer sufficient. The challenges lies
in how to update the work ethic to make it relevant to the realities of modern production.
A modern form of economic connectivity is long overdue.
Chapter 8: REINVENTING LABOR UNIONS
From the perspective of the unions’ attempt to regain robustness in setting the national
social agenda, one of the most intriguing aspects of this strategy is its potential to foster
an allegiance to the union movement that is much stronger than now exists with any
employer. In setting out what he calls the “New Rules for the New Economy,” Kevin
Kelly (editor of Wired) suggests: “We are headed into an era when both workers and
consumers will feel more loyalty to a network than to any ordinary firm.” Labor’s
challenge in this new economy is to help build an empowering network that earns the
loyalty of those now struggling to stay afloat in a turbulent sea of change and in a
workaday world comprised of what Kelly calls “patchworks of vocations.”
Arguably, workers of all stripes have never needed unions more than they do now. But
the need is not for yesterday’s job myopic labor agenda. The manufacturing sector, long
the bastion of trade unionists, is certain to continue its steady decline in employment – at
least absent some fundamental shift in the terms of trade and the pace of technological
change. We are witnesses to a century-long evolution in production and politics that is
finally fusing the forces of labor-saving technology, global capital markets and free trade.
That combination, long seen as threatening to the interests of labor, could yet become the
capstone of labor’s century-long struggle.
However, that requires a labor movement willing to get smarter about ownership,
including ensuring that its members gain a stake in those income-producing assets with
which they are being displaced. Full employment is no longer sufficient as a goal-not for
labor, not for business and certainly not for national policymakers. The need is for
leaders-in labor, business and politics-with a broader view of economic participation and
a more comprehensive vision of what solidarity really means. The consequences for
social cohesion could be grave if labor leadership fails to quickly fashion a vision and a
plan in response to this fast-emerging commercial world in which trade and finance are
reorganizing the globe into a unified marketplace. A vision is simply values projected
into the future. Labor challenge lies in ensuring that the future it envision is engineered to
reflect the values that it holds most dear.
The emerging global capitalism that confronts labor is still immature, animated by an
internal logic that has succeeded in identifying the greatest possible return precisely
because it fails to account for the multidimensional consequences incurred in generating
those returns. In evaluating its effect in certain areas, such as the environment, its
performance seems akin to an oblivious child playing with razor blades and badly in need
of parental guidance. A newly energized, owner-ized and visionary labor movement,
informed and motivated by a broader frame of reference, and empowered by the rights
and responsibilities attending ownership, may be just what needed to restore a measure of
prudence, care and foresight.
At present, the abstract and largely indifferent forces at work in the commercial domain
are on verge of creating a hierarchy of concentrated economic power that will define the
nature of global commerce for the next century. A failure to act now could prove fateful
as the atomizing nature of the marketplace further divorces people from responsibility for
their actions, and as financial self interest diverges ever more widely from the broader
moral purpose.
Chapter 9: MAKING MONEY
With increasing frequency, the possession of money requires possession of either (a)
high-value human capital (such as that residing in “symbolic analysts”) or (b) nonhuman
capital – machinery and equipment, chemical processes, computer software and such.
Nature takes care of the distribution of human capital valuable in the marketplace may
require decades of investment (for instance, my law degree culminated nineteen years of
continuous schooling). For access to nonhuman capital, nature is not nearly so democratic
. in that realm, wealth and poverty begets poverty because investments in either physical
or human capital depend on current income.
The creation of money is not some inscrutable mystery. Reserve banking retain its
original function: facilitating the availability of credit through member banks who (quite
literally) are granted a franchise to print money. Operating in coordination with the
Treasury and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (where money is physically made),
the politically independent Fed has enormous latitude and profound power. The twelve
member bank soon formed an investment committee so that the commercial banks could
purchase government bonds for their own portfolios. Initially, the impact of this
arrangement was not well understood, even though their bond purchases expanded the
amount of money in circulation as the federal government found it could easily money (to
build canals, levies, etc.) by selling its bonds to the banks.
The impact of monetary policy is widely felt – on the affordability of home mortgages,
the feasibility of business expansion, job creation and so forth. This creates an ongoing
dilemma for central bankers who are in constant need of a supportive constituency,
particularly during times when credit constraint – never popular – is essential to longterm monetary stability. An ownership pattern-sensitive reserve-banking policy could
help build that constituency. That’s because, as a group, capital owners are the most
consistently vocal in their opposition to inflation, the bane of central bankers worldwide.
A reserve banking policy aimed at consciously broadening the base of those with a direct
stake in the conduct of monetary affairs could only help central bankers in their role of
insisting on prudence when others are pushing for expansion.
Communities is the purpose of politics. However, money and credit, with their
overarching influence, can undermine the best of community-building intentions. With
increasing frequency, globalization means that local, regional and even national
governments are under pressure to put aside policies designed for the common good – of
local people, local business, local cultures, and local environments.
To conclude where we began: money is a medium through which the economic system
communicates with its participants. With no will of its own, it simply responds to the
values of those who own or have access to it – or those to whom it is entrusted. Our
current money-dominated feedback mechanism is failing us because it fails to signal us
that something is fundamentally amiss. As well shall see in the next two chapters, in the
absence of a redesign of current financing techniques, the ever freer flow of financial
capital is unlikely to contribute to the building of community, either within or among
nations. And sustainability – by whatever measure – will continue to lie beyond our
grasp.
Chapter 10: CAPITALISM AS IF OUR CHILDREN MATTERED
Policy focus on two fronts. The first is how best to ensure that the market values
genuinely clean growth, particularly in a pricing environment (product pricing, share
pricing) that largely ignores environmental costs. The second is how to open free
enterprise to broader, more equitable participation.
Such company environments do not emerge spontaneously. That would be like expecting
an office building to construct itself without the aid of an architect, engineer or
construction company. Participative systems require ongoing organizational and financial
engineering, along with a leadership corps committed both to the goals (profitability and
sustainability) and to the means chosen to achieve those goals.
Cyclical production will need to be both a constituency for change and a constituency
empowered to effect that change. However, most people remain connected to their
economy by only the most tenuous of threads: a job. Imposing environmental chares on
corporations forces a difficult choice, particularly where the cost of labor may already be
the firm’s most controllable expense. The uncomfortable truth is that a new round of
environmental costs or regulations may be accompanied by yet another round of layoffs
and labor retrenchments.
It’s difficult to argue with the science suggesting that production systems must evolve
into “closed systems,” with a rigorous redesign of both inputs and outputs. That laudable
goal, I submit, is more likely to be achieved as our organizational systems become
increasingly “open” – incorporating feedback from those whose lives the firm affects. In
my ownership “systems” view of succeed in transforming a company stakeholders into
property-empowered shareowners. As a firm’s “natural owners” become genuine owners,
the needed “greening” of production will gain acceptability, adaptability, and hands-on
support.
The silver lining in the challenge of sustainability lies in the potential it holds for
awakening mankind to a more holistic way of thinking, and to the necessity of reflecting
this thinking in the reengineering of his laws and institutions. This awakening could come
remarkably quickly, particularly as communications reach ever more broadly into the
world community and shape the very image that man has of himself and his place in the
web of life. ecologists recommend a very simple personal standard for people to keep in
mind whenever contemplating an action that may have environmental consequences of
up-close ownership patterns: “what if everyone did it?”
Chapter 11:
A new synthesis is emerging, one that views ownership matter-of-factly as a social tool
for linking people not only to things but also to each other, to their community and to
their endangered environment. With the benefit of hindsight, policymakers in both the
public and private sector can sort through history’s dustbin of failed ownership solutions
and construct a political and commercial environment that evokes the best features of
those that flourished, while avoiding those that failed. Where successful, this ownership
engineering will succeed in incorporating the best features of capitalism while answering
the charges of capitalism’s harshest critics. This is not meant to suggest that other
components of a nation’s social capital are unimportant – families, civic associations and
such. However, I contend that a poorly conceived ownership policy is certain to
undermine attempts to strengthen civil society.
Corporate leader must be able to set out a broad vision and create a culture of
commitment. Today’s high-impact management practices include not only the standard,
contractual issues of pay and benefits but also how to create a workplace environment
where employees have an opportunity to develop their full human potential. Generation
X is particularly emphatic that interesting work, not just money and position, is a key
motivator.
The corporate entity is destined to become even more prevalent. Visionary corporate
leaders may yet emerge as our first true global leaders. The steady of this relatively new
organizational entity suggest the gradual emergence of a new notion of community, one
very different from its original connotation as a geographically specific “place.” Today’s
large companies often have production and service sites spread across the globe.
To create a sense of community around such a dispersed workforce suggests the need for
mechanisms capable of fostering a place-transcendent notion of belonging. Where
successful, the payoffs can be quite substantial.
With the corporate entity now the world’s most prevalent organizational tool, it is
essential that this tool become as convivial as possible. The evidence suggest that efforts
to enhance conviviality can have dramatic payoffs, not only in enhanced performance but
also in protecting the natural world while nurturing the human spirit. Though that may
not be nirvana, surely it reflects a major advancement in human condition.
Such ambiguity is also likely to blur the comfortable certainty of today’s financially dominated
corporate decision-making. Longer time horizons and financially dominated corporate decisionmaking. Longer time horizons and broader return criteria, including nonfinancial returns, will
become commonplace. Consciously engineered, highly participative ownership strategiesincluding a steady growth in insider ownership – will continue to make corporate agendas more
complex. A certain element of fuzziness should be expected while the search continues for how
best to strike a proper balance between those responsibilities that should reside with government
and those that rightly belong to the individual, the family, the community or the enterprise.
The search is on for an ownership solution that is equiable and efficient, market
responsive and consumer empowering, and an economic system in which power (both
political and economic is more proximate and personal. The answer lies in a design
solution. This need not mean a solution to emerge uncoaxed from the unbridled
operations of current capitalism.
What’s missing is an appropriately scaled sense of personal “connectivity.” A nationstate is simply too vast and too abstract. Citizenship is a fine start, even an essential
prerequisite. But that connectivity-ized fashion. The opportunities for such connections
are widespread. Through doing more with less labor is the hallmark of industrial-and
information-age development, it is labor that is most needed to do much of the most
important work required at the community level, including restoring the environment,
teaching basic skills (and values), caring for the sick and the infirm, retaining those
whose skills have been made technologically obsolete-in short, creating, rejuvenating and
preserving local communities and their resources.
A more sustanaible balance must be struck among the diverse needs that underlie human
motivation. People want to give to each other-to their spouses, their children, to others in
their community. Commentators point to the dearth of great art as a sign that people can
no longer afford to create. Others suggest that fragmentationof the amily is due to the fact
that people cannot afford to spend more time on relationship. Still others sugest that the
fragmentation of the family is due to the fact that people cannot afford to spend more
time on relationships. Still others worry that those lacking a relatively secure situation in
the present often a little motivated to care for their longer-term future, including the
environement. The Ownership Solution is a call to the financial leaders of this financedominant era to devise ways to finance the future in such a way that a steadily broadening
best of Americans can afford to participate in what has long been hailed as the uniquely
“human work” of mankind: caring for others, literature, music, the arts, politics, spiritual
practies, raising children and so forth. The very human need for such participation, for a
sense of being in community, is a primarily thene underlying this work. Fundamentally, it
is this need to which attention must be directed if national leaders hope to contribute to
the restoration of civil society and the strengthening of community.
Similar in tone to the ESOP notion of up-close capitalism, community-sensitive
“bioregionalism” seeks to create systems in which wealth generated in a region is
retained for the benefit of those who live there. Bioregionalism resists the tendency of
national currencies to concentrate investment (and wealth) in urban financial centers,
draining outlying areas of needed financial resources and undermining their capacity to
respond to changing economic conditions.
THE POLITICS OF OWNERSHIP
Despite the many flaws of the neoclasical model (which replaced a flawed neoliberal
model), American politics still seems to require a major dilemma to force political
realignment. I see at least three such possibilities. The first stems from capitalism’s
proven ability to push aside the old in the process of embracing the new. The second
dilemma emerges in the environmental area. Third is the entitlement dilemma. These
three dilemmas, in turn, suggest four key challenges-one conceptual and three that raise
very practical political concerns. The first political challenge finds its roots in the fact
that democracies are intended to be feedback-intensive, people-responsive systems. The
second political challenge arises from the fact that policies advancing long-term change
can be difficult for those who run for office on a short-term basis. Lastly, today’s leaders
and wanna-be leaders must be willing to advance a yet broken manner.
The Ownership Solution is not a panacea. Ownership is simply one component of the
social contract that can be written either to divide or to unite. Properly engineered,
ownership is simply one component of the social cohesion. The challenge lies in how
best to ensure that capitalism gains in strength and robustness from an ever widening
circle of independent yet self-sufficient capitalist. History offers ample proff that where
societies encourage free enterprise, people become more prosperous and where they
don’t, people don’t.
Modern man (particularly in the more developed countries) is increasingly uprooted and
cut off from traditional means for weving past and future into each day’s work. Along
with a commitment to constantly update those channels of communication and persuasion
through which we cope with and manage change, overcoming this uniquely modern lack
of place requires continuous innovation.
Today’s complex political challenge calls for a combination of both forecasting and
“backcasting.” Politically, we need to envision a societal design that starts from where we
want to be and then design our way back to what must be done today to get us
there.potential policy initiatives meant to take us in the direction of a more fully
connected populace. Nature historian and biologist, Jay Gould, document that natural
systems tend to change slowly, interspersed with periodic bursts of “punctuated
equilibrium” during which dramatic change occurs before the system settles back into a
more familiar state of gradual evolution. With the proper vision, committed leadership
and popular support, it would be quite possible to enact a sweeping legislative scheme
that could quickly put the U.S. economy (or practically any economy) on the road toward
an ownership solution.