The case for investing in employee ownership

For many years now, conventional solutions to income and wealth inequality—minimum wage, unions, progressive taxation, or guaranteed income—have failed to gain enough momentum to reverse the trend of greater and greater accumulation among the already well-off. What if we added a new approach, focusing on a primary source of wealth, business ownership, and how to transfer that wealth directly to the workers struggling today?

A promising vanguard of institutional investors is doing just that, using their resources to support business transitions to employee ownership. If this nascent movement were to grow, it has the potential to significantly reduce the wealth gap overall as well as the racial equity gap.

• Publication date: 2022-01-03

• Parent publication: Stanford Social Innovation Review

• Publisher: Stanford University

• Publication URL: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_case_for_investing_in_employee_ownership