Nancy Folbre: Shared Capitalism – NYTimes.com:
Legend has it that Bob Montgomery, a left-leaning economist at the University of Texas at Austin in the 1950s, was once asked if he believed in private property.
“I certainly do,” he said. “I believe in it so much I think everyone in the state of Texas should have some.”
It’s such an ecumenical line that President George W. Bush used it to good effect in a 2004 speech. The basic idea begs for extension: If capitalists are so great, shouldn’t everybody be one?
The term “shared capitalism” is a catchall for a variety of arrangements that businesses can make to share profits with a large number of employees, whether through stock ownership or incentive pay based on company performance.
(Via Economix.)