Gates's proposal should be compared to current pension and retirement policies, which are largely oriented toward inducing savings through subsidy or fiat. The savings that these policies generate take the form of creditor claims. By contrast, Gates proposes subsidies and fiats to generate ownership claims. Ownership claims differ from creditor claims in two major respects. First, while creditor claims are senior and fixed, ownership claims are junior and residual.
Owners get what's left over after the creditors are paid off.
Second, while creditors get only limited control over the enterprise as long its is solvent, owners have major control rights. On average, ownership claims earn more than creditor claims. One of Gates's goals in equalizing ownership is to equalize these relatively large returns to ownership. However, these returns are functionally related to certain functions that owners perform. For ownership to perform its economic role, these functions have to accompany the rewards of ownership.