Back at the dawn of the 20th century, Judge Peter Stengar Grosscup (one of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Trust Busters”) published a series of articles on the importance of ordinary Americans becoming owners of the commercial, industrial, and agricultural productive wealth. One of these articles was titled “Who Shall Own America?”, published in the December 1905 issue of The American Magazine.
In this tradition, we received a submission for a guest blog posting from “Nito Fisajto” (not the individual’s real name . . . thank goodness) asking the key question, If the rich can own capital using the techniques of modern corporate finance, why can’t ordinary Americans . . . or anyone else? So, with only slight editing, here is the guest blog posting:
“If Private Equity Can Own America, Why Can’t the American People?
Private equity firms like KKR & Co., with over $360 billion in assets, and Kelso & Company, with nearly $17 billion, have mastered the art of ownership. They buy up housing, hospitals, infrastructure, and technology—not with savings, but with pure credit, backed by the future earnings of the assets themselves.
Louis O. Kelso
Their employees often hold equity. Their investors collect dividends. Their portfolios shape the American landscape.
So, here’s the question: If private equity can own America, why can’t the American people?
Birthright Capital: A New American Promise
Imagine a child born today—not into debt, but into ownership. Not into precarity, but into participation.
The Economic Democracy Act (EDA), formerly “the Capital Homestead Act,” proposes just that. Every citizen receives a Citizen Ownership Account, seeded with capital financed by local commercial banks rediscounted at the Federal Reserve Bank (pure-collateralized-credit) a loan on new capital formation. These accounts grow through dividends from infrastructure, innovation, and enterprise—assets we all rely on, but few of us own. Those dividends initially pay back, at below favorable rates, the capital loan. The cycle repeats (stacking) ever higher in new capital formation, all the while building a sovereign capital estate for every child, woman, and man -- citizen.
This isn’t redistribution. It’s reconstruction. It’s not charity. It’s economic dignity.
The Disparity We’re Up Against
As of the first quarter of 2025, the top 10% of Americans own 64.2% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50% own just 2.5%.
The CEO-to-worker pay ratio has ballooned over the past 50 years, reaching levels not seen since before the Great Depression.
These numbers aren’t just statistics. They’re symptoms of a system that rewards ownership but restricts access.
Youth labor force participation is down 17 points from its 1989 peak. Add that to the burdensome ‘student debt’ of between $1.77 TRILLION and $1.88 TRILLION and the system has placed 42.5 million young Americans into perpetual DEDT.
Private equity firms now manage $820 billion in U.S. assets, projected to grow to $1.24 trillion by 2030.
Over 382,000 stakeholders at PE-backed companies hold equity, but only 20% of firms have more than 100 employee owners.
These numbers aren’t just statistics. They’re symptoms of a greater human catastrophe built on debt on top of more debt, until the great collapse which is built on a one-factor fallacy.
Louis O. Kelso
Kelso’s Two-Factor Theory: The Foundation
Kelso argued that all production involves two forces:
· Labor (human effort)
· Capital (tools, machines, land, technology)
Traditional economics focused only on labor. Kelso called that a one-factor fallacy.
He saw that capital increasingly does the heavy lifting—and that ownership of capital must be a legitimate source of income for all.
Capital Where You Are
· At work: You co-own the tools and platforms you help build.
· At home: You hold equity in the bridges, broadband, and energy grids that sustain your community.
· In healthcare: You co-own the technology and devices that keep you alive.
· In education: Students earn dividends from learning-linked capital pools.
· In public services: You share in the productivity of what you already pay for.
This is capital formation with a conscience. Private equity logic—repurposed for public empowerment.
Examples: Kelso vs. the Pipeline: Who Gets to Own America?
In the 1970s, oil companies built the Trans-Alaska Pipeline—800 miles of steel, paid for with borrowed money backed by future profits. The corporations got the oil. The executives got the dividends. The people? They got the cleanup bill.
Louis O. Kelso saw through it. He believed working Americans shouldn’t just earn a wage—they should own a piece of the action.
If Exxon can borrow against future oil to build a pipeline, why can’t a family borrow against future productivity to build a life?
Kelso’s idea was simple: Capital ownership shouldn’t be a privilege—it should be a right.
He helped launch the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) movement, now with over 6,000 companies and nearly $2 trillion in assets owned by workers. That’s not theory. That’s proof.
The pipeline was built by corporations for corporations. The Economic Democratization Act would be built by the people—for the people.
The Moral Contrast: Private vs. Public Equity
Private equity extracts old capital. Public equity builds new capital.
Restoring the Property of Being Human
Kelso once said:
“The problem is not that capital is privately owned. The problem is that people are not.”
Today, we face a crisis—not just of income, but of agency.
The EDA doesn’t just offer capital. It offers belonging. It’s a blueprint for restoring what’s been stripped from millions: The property of being human—to own, to shape, to matter.
The “Second Income Plan”: What It Means
Kelso’s metaphor of the “Second Income Plan” refers to a parallel economic track—a way for individuals to earn income from capital ownership, not just wages. This second income plan would:
· Lift families off welfare by helping them acquire access to productive assets
· Enable income from dividends, rents, and profits—not just jobs
· Expand the economy by democratizing access to capital credit
· Restore dignity and independence by replacing dependency with ownership
He envisioned a system where millions of families could acquire capital through pure credit mechanisms, repayable from future earnings of the capital itself—without requiring prior savings. This was the heart of his Second Income Plan, proposed to the President’s Commission on Income Maintenance Programs in 1969.
Why It Still Matters
Kelso’s Second Income Plan isn’t just policy. It’s moral architecture for a post-industrial society. It insists that:
“The right to income must not be limited to those who labor but extended to those who own—and ownership must be universal.”
Kelso’s vision aligns perfectly in today’s context of Economic Democratization Act: a structural mechanism to place every citizen on the Second Income Plan from birth.
From Extraction to Empowerment
We’ve seen what happens when ownership is concentrated: Rising inequality. Fragile families. Disconnected youth.
But we’ve also seen what’s possible when ownership is democratized: The Alaska Permanent Fund (APF). Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP). Citizens Land Cooperative (CLC). Cooperative broadband.
Take ESOPs, for example. There are over 6,000 employee-owned companies in the U.S., covering nearly 15 million workers. These firms collectively hold more than $1.8 trillion in assets—a quiet but formidable counterweight to Wall Street’s dominance. And while they represent just 0.5% of all U.S. companies with 10 or more employees, their impact is outsized: higher retention, stronger productivity, and deeper community roots.
This is ownership with skin in the game. Not speculative—participatory.
Economic Democratization: A Republic of Capital
It’s time to stop renting the American dream. It’s time to own it.
The Economic Democratization Act isn’t utopia. It’s a republic of capital—where every citizen is a stakeholder, not a spectator.
It’s time to stop renting the American dream. It’s time to own it, or for generations to come they will be owned by it. Let’s build an economy that works for all of us.
— Nito Fisajto
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