about employee ownership and for many it seems an odd kind of jump the positioning of words for many people in our society they tend to associate ownership of the means of production and employment in two different camps and it's hard to see the two things being able to be said in the same word and yet there are increasing movements within the united states to board employee ownership and in fact the movement toward employee ownership is really only part of a much larger movement a much larger philosophical view  that is known as binary economics which talks about not only employee ownership but citizens ownership or economic democracy and it's that that this program wants to address it many workers only urine one thing from their job their paycheck but eight million other workers now own something i'm not in addition to their paycheck these workers also weren't part ownership in their company the these people are part of an exciting new idea taking hold in american business the idea that employees should own stock in the companies where they work and employing stock ownership plan or encourages stock ownership by employees today most workers don't have a chance to own what they've helped build several studies show that just one percent of the population owns fifty percent of the individually held stock in the united states to more broadly share the vast ra economy produces the newest house or the founder of the essential concept reason that more people should only these machines and the buildings they work in we think we ought to live better we know that technology makes it easier and easier to produce goods and services and we think that everyone should be able to live better trouble is we've made a mistake as to how to do that we thought you could do that through labor what you can't i mean that's that simply distorts the system ideally an informed person would not work for any company that didn't have and he stopped employee use are natural shareholders for their employer's stock what it does of course is raise the earning power of generally we provide tax advantages to those companies or no the employers will put in plans that make it possible for them probably used to own stock in those companies that provides a tax advantage for the employer predict that one of every four u s workers will be with an aesop company since one thousand nine hundred and seventy four congress has passed numerous laws making sure they're properly regulated with every employee getting their fair share many individual states also have laws encouraging saabs to help achieve local ownership of business in jobs today employees of calm sonics one hundred percent of their company as envisioned by its founder and original owner warren brown originally and seventy five common sonic's has achieved an annual growth rate of between seventeen and twenty percent per year and continues to be recognized as a leader in the cable television industry a cat's communications employees with ten years of service often have six figures in their resolve account of course not every company with a nice salad is that successful there's no guarantee an employee owner's financial return from any use up will always depend on the performance and profits of the company in fact most aesop's are doing very well a study of one hundred and fifty dollars aesop's should ease up employer an eighteen thousand dollars will accumulate an average of thirty one thousand dollars in stock after ten years single owner who's retiring was quite helpful and i have tracked in qualified staff especially at the professional level if they're looking for long term professional careers when the company does better so do the people  study also found that companies generated forty five percent more jobs and forty percent more sales than their non competitors and these out companies are more likely to stay in business and have a higher annual ownership without giving up a wage increase working for any saudi's in many ways like working for yourself the contribution you make can directly benefit your company's performance and how much you among those who were at the city council meeting at the council were at that session relating to new york city with carolyn maloney who is now congressman congresswoman maloney and we had done an interview with her and we have excerpts so of her discussing some of the implications of the of the employee ownership movement as well as it relates to a new york city as you said earlier it's a capital idea and it's one that the great city of new york who has been at the forefront of major innovations should hopefully take from the i hope the pass this legislation and move forward as an example in a leader for this country that's appropriate mr rangle in the house is helping to lead the fight in the national federal level is appropriate to the new york city that it began to be taken over by the people who are again leading the nation in the financial stuff that be the city that sets the pattern for the rest of the nation perhaps and as a nation go opportunity to talk with let's go now to some the director i suppose it must be a pleasure for you to be here in new york city to encourage this development on the part of the city council to encourage aesop of course it would be you've been taking a national purview  terms of this development and it might be able to share with us there's been major legislative breakthroughs of the federal level maybe show a little of that and then we can bring that around talk about the relevancy here to the folks like you know i used to have fence thanks to congressman charles rangel from new york he took  time to retire it's going to become one of the most powerful estate planning tools for a closely held businesses and it's going to start making it much easier for employee owners to get a nd income from capital ownership because no dividends paid to any supper going to  legislative side of the movement toward expanding ownership was russell long was sent finance chairman and extremely powerful man in terms of the advocating became in a very real sense his champion in in the in the congress and we here now have some excerpts from an interview that was done with russell long again talking about the philosophy and the importance of the democratization of the ownership of capital assets and in our in our society so upcoming is russell long senate finance committee make it more attractive for the banks to make loans or this thought indicates that the government would like to see them make loans or that sought to them probably to acquire strike in the company but also make it more attractive for the banks to make it that like the whole  children let's say about same person inherited that same small business company yeah all of these are going to make a new you a national meal which is going to be encouraging the general proposition employee ownership which we begin to move the direction that will be very encouraging for yourself as a true pioneer in terms of understanding the significant structuring arse's system economic system to encourage ownership and so forth to find that so many people now are becoming in line with that idea and that there seems to have come a long way since nineteen they wanted to give me through that period and great deal more acceptance of this general proposition by decision makers business leadership d and perhaps not significant yet the by the general citizen must be encouraged by the majority of democrats the majority republicans saying that inclined to go now i don't want to move to rabbit if i do want to moving in that direction because it's the various good for the country and i just had to think and i believe most you begin to have people only had a labor wave relationship to the economy and an oldish in states that could really change the whole one million the psychology of the nation might help to alleviate a great deal of alienation to the degree that it doesn't exist among certain people about d the american system  so forth that this general movement of and banding ownership does in terms of the historical development of our politics if that issue might not be a more pointed one at a presidential level in the presidential debates as we come into a presidential election and i don't know what actually discussed with the federal reserve so they'll have more money to lend out and so that they that they make money in process they make a profit in doing all that but in doing so they are in the last analogy of lending you money from their own government that barring the taxpayer money to build their own private plants and understanding than them and they could argue that if it's good enough to do for the benefit of those who are already wealthy with him and him lending his general support to the notion of aesop's when he as chairman of westray corporation and that he generally has always improved approved of the idea of  simon is the chairman of course of the lay out commission report catholic delay commission report and mr simon bill some welcome once again to accomodate thank you it's been a long time and it's nice to be with you again well good advice real in this report that's been issued there's been one that's been very well put together you've had a great hand in helping to to shape it to form that report and it is important we have a kind of comprehensive view of our economy now because we're out of it's an overworked term and we really are deter a time of crucial new direction for our economy decision making goes to the people who are most affected by the decisions they're the ones who are best able to decide their future not the all powerful government will indeed and has has noble notions and  way in some traditional views of things in terms of the private sector activities available to open up private sector activities increasingly to them or to try to get past some of the problems that exist between what is seen the problems between labor and capital as the th we're employees when he becomes an owner absolutely everybody from the person who sweeps up at night through to the to the highest executive is going to have a piece of the action people time but that's what this system is all about  that's what i want to be able to do that we've been able to grow and we've been able to encourage that direction of increasing the ownership of the means of production in the right you know that that you know russell is such a remarkable a remarkable person and carried that very heavily and overruling bureaucrats usually not getting away with it they found some way to subvert and on the left we've created something over six thousand aesop's in this country we're going to do a lot more with the american people want it and they like it they like to participate it gives them a pride to go work in the morning you know not only try to go to work but it also opens up an alternative because if you're going to think of people like in terms of building a portfolio or building out a retirement in a private sector private property oriented economy they begin to have some sort a perspective that goes back to marxian roots and so forth but he also begins to see the implication as far as the labor and progressive elements are concerned as far as the displacement of labor and we talked to him about it and he offered some of his views dr stanley aronowitz and then of course people could be working other people with income could be doing a lot of the commodified things i think i think that  idea of sharing ownership is important let me make one point i went to a conference near stockholm three weeks ago in that conference somebody brought up a very old swedish plan which had been scrapped and that was to use union pension funds to buy out swedish capitalism it would not eliminate the market economy would not eliminate many features of capitalism but capital which  sweden now is holding the welfare state ransom for lower wages and lower benefit ok could be brought up bought out by pension plans i belong to the teachers insurance annuity association  is they have no strategy for addressing the economic problems of the society as a whole if pension plans like the teamsters and the teachers and a variety of other pension plans were deployed i'm using the military better for because that's what they'd have to be to actually develop a new regime a production a new regime of leisure a new regime of ownership we could have a very different kind of an a much more human spiritually satisfying society it makes sense doesn't have the labor take the van that because after all they're going to be affected by it and they've not been able as you say as we say in the recent series they've not been able to stand up to the market forces been directed against and the labor sad to say they've not because some of these issues have been collectively bargain a bill and they haven't been able to arrive at something that you know we would maybe because the they were not able there's such a stake in having the labor value of the labor we have a europe you had you've studied marxist theory the surplus value labor that is the value of the labor is what is the productive and capital is stolen or it's congealed labor they've got these traditional views so that they don't want to be associated with filthy lucre or something like that on the right or something and there's that and there's that idea always of having free human beings rather than people who are tied up in that kind of thing is that meant for people on the progressive side of things i think that it is a thought everybody's afraid say we have this we have this idea and i had harold yeah i mean the the left has this idea this by which i mean done all the rest of the depressives either the labor people somewhat and the idea has been we have to stay away from this from business we have to have an antagonistic other side of the table relationship well in many cases that makes sense yeah increasingly it doesn't make sense to not use our resources to make the fight for jobs and make the fight for income and make the fight for a decent life there are very few there have been some individual unions and some individual groups of workers who've seen that they either will invest their resources or else they're going to be out of business but a very few one of the is that but there is that question of whether or not and you said that you said that they can bargain for jobs and income now is it possible to be arguing for ownership as a source of income for the mass rather than ninety five percent of the people our population would probably think only of getting income for life purposes by having what you call a job or by transfer payment i mean that's the way they think and yet the technology is increasingly an automated process as your book points out is what's really responsible for the production that's right so if they own a robot the somebody who own a robot have a legitimate claim to have income coming to them and if it's good for the five percent who own it all or one percent on forty three percent of the capital now it was good for them would it be good for all to democratize that as a way of having income  free them with that income to do what they wanted in non commodity sized kinds of activities and could we try to move toward that kind or is that violating some sort of economic principle that would not work oh i think it worked perfectly well i don't think it's an lot to invest in a particular industry communications or automobiles or whatever it wanted to do it could have pretty rapidly controlling interest and it would have to make kinds of alliances with other groups of capital it might even have to develop a program for takeovers in one case and not take over another case but it would be able to make certain kinds of demands on said discount that by using the instrumentality of the employee stock ownership plan yeah aesop right they can go to banks and other finance standard finance years borrow money by the farmer have it held in the hands of trustees while the unit group has an increasing share of operation so we've now got a handsome list of firms that have been it be economically viable for the next quarter but for the long term that's right if they're becoming the owners exactly also they have a stake in maintaining appointments for the long term because their interest peter and we've got lord keynes and we have col marx and all of these different kinds of systems of economic analysis and so i want to try and understand and most of these would have said that as the for instance agricultural workers were displaced by cotton picking machines the onerous task of picking the cotton they then went into the factories that henry ford built in detroit and provided the labor and found more labor opportunity in the factory making automobiles and as the labor agriculture was displaced in the american economy then they say as we begin to have these things applied to industrial manufacturing development that these people who are displaced by the technology will go into service right as common and always there will be more jobs and always as the productivity went up the wages would go up and we can just distribute what wages to everybody just let's get everyone employed now everyone is employed then everything's going to be fine now this is the view that most people have of the world you take exception to that or that we're running into a new kind of condition unfortunately passed on in one thousand nine hundred and one and his wife and long term coworker shown here patricia had a kelso we're setting that bold new course of thinking with their aesop for employees stock ownership plans and more importantly perhaps the whole concept of binary economics of which the aesop is but the tip of the iceberg she is shown here in a couple of remark a brief remarks which s that paradigm roll for views of economics that she and louis had pioneered and is followed by some remarks by a long term associate of both patricia and louis go also decades long yet to realize if the great new economic downturn all the workers all they also have done all the work and laid the groundwork that could be considered by policy decision makers if they could begin to start thinking in terms of this alternative so but you've got to get over the idea that looking at the faces but you have to but you have to get up in the notion that if you can't rationalize it in terms of productivity analysis that we're talking about yeah what has to suspend that belief and on long enough and unfortunately that a good deal for people who watch the program but james joyce at one time said had a character say history is a nightmare from which we're attempting to awaken and this might be an economic financial organization that would permit us to be able to awaken from a nightmare of scarcity laden principles that have kept us in the unhappy situation we've been on throughout history and are the basis of many of the problems that we confront today if we look at the current situation and say i think it's a new idea it's susceptible  way the question is will it work better or worse than our present system and credit never got a hearing in his lifetime it ought to get a hearing now yeah and the important thing you know as you say it ought to at least have as you say a hearing rather than be just ignored by the economics  so well and try to look at the base in the middle we would like to thank all those who helped in the technical aspects of production of the many pieces that went into the construction of this documentary particular thanks would like to be sent to stephen bell who has helped over the long haul charles fernandez jeffrey street bomb will produce a good deal of this program ed fabray and of course particularly the manhattan neighborhood network who made this possible we also want to thank the many members of the community of companies and government agencies which have helped in the encouragement of them the association of america as well as the national association of employee ownership philosophically we are particularly inspired beyondblue is kelso's long inspiration by robert ashford and particularly by patricia hatter kelso thank you very much