(Yesterday's posting somehow didn't make it up. Here it is again.) The Capital Homesteading concept is not limited to worker ownership. (See Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen, prepared for the William H. Donner Foundation by the Center for Economic and Social Justice in December 2002.) Other variations of the expanded capital ownership concepts that could be implemented in the Abraham Federation would build individual equity stakes in capital-intensive industries into the general population.
These include stock ownership plans for utility users and regular customers of enterprises (CSOPs), community investment corporations (CICs) for resident share ownership of local land development corporations and community infrastructure, and personal investment accounts or "Capital Homestead Accounts" for citizens to gain access to credit to choose among a variety of ownership options (CHAs). (These vehicles are described in the Capital Homestead Act, and in various papers at www.cesj.org. The "Capital Homestead Account" and its relationship to central banking policy is described in "Saving Social Security" on the CESJ web site.) The CIC provides an ideal vehicle for keeping profits, equity growth and land governance rights resulting from land and infrastructural planning and development in the hands of members of the local community, rather than government or outside private developers. (See various papers on the Community Investment Corporation as a for-profit citizen-owned land developer at www.cesj.org.)
Other significant developments indicating a growing world-wide interest in the expanded capital ownership approach, include:
Endorsement by President Reagan on August 3, 1987 of the work of the bipartisan Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice. This Congressionally-mandated task force issued a report, High Road to Economic Justice, which offered a bold strategy of expanded capital ownership for economic revitalization in Central America and the Caribbean.
The translation and publication into Polish of Every Worker An Owner [published by the Center for Economic and Social Justice], a compendium of writings by leading thinkers in the expanded capital ownership area. Prior to the demise of the Soviet Union, 15,000 copies of this Polish translation were distributed throughout Solidarity channels in Poland. In May 1988 USAID Administrator Alan Woods transmitted the English version of this compilation of writings to every USAID mission in the world.
The development of a "parallel legal system" for Costa Rica to foster system-wide experimentation based on economic democratization.21
ESOP laws established in the United Kingdom, Jamaica, Russia and a growing number of developing and transforming economies.
The Abraham Federation would have an historic opportunity to become the first nation to be launched with a comprehensive and workable program to provide each of its citizens the means to share in the private ownership of all its resources.
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