Joseph R. Blasi, J. Robert Beyster Professor and sociologist, and Douglas L. Kruse, professor and economist, are both at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University. Richard B. Freeman is Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
“America used to be based on broad access to wealth and property.
If you want to know more about this tradition, and how to revive
it, read this book.”—Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the
Twenty-First Century
*Thomas Piketty*
“Citizens should know about The Citizen’s Share--it’s important.
And there is no better trio than Blasi, Freeman, and Kruse to tell
them about it.”--Alan Blinder, Princeton University
*Alan Blinder*
“The proposal . . . stands apart from alternate policy initiatives
. . . because it addresses the concentration of wealth and
political power at the top. The idea of expanding employee
ownership deserves serious consideration.”—Thomas B. Edsall, New
York Times
*New York Times*
“The founders . . . agreed that America would survive and thrive
only if there was widespread ownership of land and businesses.
Professor Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse of Rutgers and
Richard B. Freeman of Harvard gathered many of the founders’
writings on this topic for their book . . . Copies are currently
circulating among congressional staffs in both parties as
politicians brace themselves to face what polls show is a rapidly
rising concern over economic growth concentrating at the
top.”—David Cay Johnston, Newsweek
*Newsweek*
"The Citizen's Share provides a thoughtful . . . analysis of
the benefits of encouraging greater employee ownership of
businesses . . . In seeking to increase employee compensation as
well as tax reform, Washington should be thinking hard about how to
expand and encourage greater employee ownership and/or revenue
sharing."—Dean Zerbe, Forbes Magazine
*Forbes Magazine*
“This provocative study exposes a long-lost history of successful
profit-sharing within U.S. capitalism. Good business (not
conscience), the authors argue, holds the promise of a more equal
and therefore more democratically organized society. This is an
optimistic, but eminently plausible scenario.”—Alice
Kessler-Harris, author of In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the
Quest for Economic Citizenship in Twentieth Century America
*Alice Kessler-Harris*
“A model of sober scholarly analysis and impassioned political
advocacy. . . . Here is a book on economic policy that might make
the Founding Fathers smile”—Jonathan I. Levy, author of Freaks of
Fortune: The Emerging World of Capitalism and Risk in America.
*Jonathan I. Levy*
"An accessible, and informative, story of government and business
support for worker ownership . . . . Spotlights an important area
of American economic history."—Library Journal
*Library Journal*
“This book offers the compelling vision of a better healthier
American economy founded on the basic principles of employee
ownership and profit sharing. The deep-rooted history of this
American vision is elegantly interwoven with the results of modern
rigorous research. The Citizen’s Share is a wonderfully
readable book with an important message that will provoke serious
thought and discussion.” —Martin L. Weitzman, Professor of
Economics, Harvard University.
*Martin L. Weitzman*
“A few years ago, Blasi, Kruse, and Freeman caught people’s
attention with an intriguing thesis: that a company performs better
when owned by its workers . In this book, the authors go a step
further. They make the interesting and provocative claim that
worker ownership also improves democracy. Readers may disagree with
the conclusion, but they will want to understand the argument.”
—Eric S. Maskin, Nobel laureate in Economics, Harvard
University
*Eric S. Maskin*
“There is a depressing familiarity about much of the discussion on
what to do about America’s widening income inequality. Some
remedies are uncontroversial but hard-to-achieve (such as improving
education); others are the subject of furious argument (such as
more progressive taxation). Debate is heated, but within a fairly
narrow set of potential solutions. Once in a while, though, more
creative proposals are added to the mix. . . . The Citizen’s Share
is one of those. The authors show, convincingly, that the logic of
citizen capitalism has periodically motivated American politics and
business since the Founding Fathers.”—The Economist
*The Economist*
“The American worker isn’t doing so well. . . . Joseph Blasi,
Douglas Kruse, and Richard Freeman offer a novel solution. . . .
The impulse toward broadly extending property ownership is one that
has a long history in America. . . . [E]xpanding employee ownership
could be a solution to the problems of stagnating worker
compensation and rising income inequality.”—Christopher Matthews,
Time Magazine
*Time Magazine*
“Based on a series of national surveys, the authors reckon that
some 47% of full-time workers have one or more forms of capital
stake in the firm for which they work, whether from profit-sharing
schemes (40%), stock ownership (21%) or stock options (10%). About
a tenth of Fortune 500 companies, from Procter & Gamble to Goldman
Sachs, have employee shareholdings of 5% or more. Almost a fifth of
America’s biggest private firms . . . have profit-sharing or
share-ownership schemes. Some 10 million people work for companies
with ESOPs.”—Brad DeLong, University of California, Berkeley, and
the Washington Center for Equitable Growth
*Brad DeLong*
"This important book demonstrates conclusively that employee
ownership can be an effective business model, resulting in
efficient outcomes."—Jonathan Michie, President, Kellogg College,
University of Oxford
*Jonathan Michie*
“Based on comprehensive data and painstaking historical research,
The Citizen's Share provides a superb overview of employee
ownership in the United States. At a moment when economic
inequality has reached an apogee and trust in corporations a nadir,
when the employment relationship has frayed in companies across the
U.S., and American industry faces challenges from around the globe,
the authors' message could not be more important.”—Viviana A.
Zelizer, author of Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the
Economy
*Viviana Zelizer*
“The Citizen’s Share is a must-read for current and future business
leaders as well as policymakers who believe all American’s are
entitled to participate in a healthy and growing U.S. economy. This
insightful tapestry of history, economics and psychology begins by
telling the story that our country was founded with the right for
all citizens to ownership and ends with 10 non-partisan policy
recommendations that will ensure ownership is a right for all, not
just the 1%.”—Carine M. Schneider, Chairman of the Board, Global
Equity Organization
*Carine M. Schneider*
“Rutgers management professors Joseph Blasi and Douglas Kruse and
Harvard economics professor Richard Freeman wrote The Citizen’s
Share. . . . They argued that worker ownership had a long history
in the American economy and a long history of bipartisan and
cross-ideological support. . . . One proposal to implement [their]
strategy would be to have state and federal governments link
corporate tax rates to the extent of the companies’ profit sharing:
The more that’s shared, the lower the rate.”—Harold Meyerson, The
American Prospect
*The American Prospect*
"The Citizens Share demonstrates that employee ownership is as
American as apple pie. Let’s put it to use to improve our lives and
strengthen our democracy. The authors do a superb job of showing
the way to do so."--Thomas A. Kochan, Co-Director, MIT Institute
for Work and Employment Research
*Thomas Kochan*
“George Washington liked the basic idea, as did Thomas Jefferson.
We should build on our rich national tradition of support for
widespread asset ownership. Joseph Blasi, Richard Freeman and
Douglas Kruse develop this proposition in a new book, The Citizen’s
Share, which lends historical perspective to their empirical
research on shared capitalism.”—Nancy Folbre, Economix, The New
York Times
*Economix, The New York Times*
“Employee ownership—profit sharing, stock sharing and other
employee-ownership plans—can increase your workers’ productivity
and innovation. Research shows that workers at companies with
employee ownership plans work harder, are more creative and more
loyal. That translates into better company performance. ‘The
impacts are larger when the programs are larger, as in many closely
held ESOP companies and some model publicly traded companies,’ say
Rutgers professors Joseph Blasi and Douglas Kruse and Harvard
economist Richard Freeman, in their new book The Citizen’s
Share.”—Michael Kling, Entrepreneur Magazine
*Entrepreneur Magazine*
“One of the big frustrations about income inequality is that when
corporate profits grow, they aren’t shared equally–typical
employees sees very little from it, while the people at the top,
and big investors, reap most of the rewards. . . . One solution?
Give average workers direct ownership in the company and its
profits. . . . [A] new book called The Citizen’s Share advocates
government tax incentives to encourage companies to introduce
profit-sharing and stock-ownership programs for their employees, or
expand the programs they already have. . . . The authors argue that
increased ownership and a share in profits may be the key to
reviving the American middle class.”—David Parkinson, Economy Lab,
Toronto Globe and Mail
*Economy Lab, Toronto Globe and Mail*
“Three professors would rather see income flowing into the hands of
the many, and they’ve written a book to point the way. . . . ‘The
outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its
failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and
inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.’ Keynes wrote those
words about England in 1936. To deal with the same faults, America
needs more ‘citizen’s shares’ in 2014.”—Gerald E. Scorse, Baltimore
Chronicle and Sentinel
*Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel*
“[A] thought-provoking addiction to the literature, given the
current debates on economic inequality.”—Choice
*Choice*
"Important and insightful. . . . Offers history-, economics-, and
evidenced-based policy ideas at their best."—Politico
*Politico*
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