A Few Get It -- Only a Few Dozen Generations to Go and Change will Arrive

I saw another article over on the "ESOP News" gadget I set up to the right of this blog: "Hire smart people, get out of their hair." It's an encouraging article, give it a read.

I actually have seen two articles in the LA Times regarding this same TV business (The other article is, "The Power of Being Local and Employee-Owned." That, to me, is encouraging. A for-profit newspaper has allowed a reporter to highlight an alternative capitalistic model. It is encouraging that the business has been prospering; it is encouraging that the reporter, and her editor, felt the story was worthy of publication; and it is encouraging that their owners allowed the story to be published.

[Actually, I notice that it is "FROM HOWARD'S 65TH ANNIVERSARY, A SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE" and is not a product of a reporter, or editor, or even a publisher's tolerance of alternative models of capitalism. I guess I should have stuck with my snakiness about humanity.]

That is what it is going to take to achieve change, intelligent people spreading the word about how to construct a sustainable capitalistic economy. Repeated stories over a lengthy period of time until others recognize the validity of the alternative capitalistic models and begin to follow suit. It is also encouraging that the writer didn't not grow snarky as I normally do.

The business highlighted in the article has been around for years, and has been employee-owned since 1976. Publix has been around a similar amount of time, and the Bank of North Dakota has been around for over a hundred years. Those are the dismaying points, to me. That the model of sustainable capitalism, which is a style of socialism, has been around for so long yet Americans have ignored it.

But, as I highlighted a few posts ago on November 7, Gars Alperovitz points out that the number of worker-owned corporations has increased. So, change is coming, it is just going to be very slow. Evolution is frustratingly slow, I guess. But at least there is some hope of a more just economy for our great-great-granchildren.