THE WASHINGTON UNION PAPERS: NO. 11

THE CASE FOR A WORKER-OWNED ECONOMY

To the People of the United States,

A nation that dares to call itself free must do more than merely offer its people the right to vote; it must offer them a stake in the wealth that their labor creates. Political liberty is incomplete—hollow, even—if it does not extend into the economic sphere. What use is the ballot if the hand that casts it is chained to wages so meager that each day is consumed with the struggle to survive? What purpose is freedom if it does not include the right to build prosperity from one’s own toil? And yet, in this republic, the laboring masses, upon whose shoulders the entire edifice of civilization rests, find themselves alienated from the very wealth they create, their contributions absorbed into vast corporate monopolies that reward them with mere subsistence while bestowing boundless riches upon the fortunate few.

This is a contradiction too great to ignore. It is an illusion, a deception, that a system can call itself free while leaving the majority of its people economically powerless. A nation’s wealth is not forged in the boardrooms of financiers, nor is it conjured by the algorithms of speculation. It is created by the hands of the many, in the factories, in the fields, in the workshops and offices where real work is done. And yet, the fruits of that labor are harvested not by those who plant, but by those who own. This is not freedom. It is feudalism in a modern guise, where a privileged class extracts the bounty of the nation while those who built it are left only with enough to sustain their usefulness to the system.

We have been taught to accept this economic arrangement as the natural order of things, as though the structure of the market is beyond the reach of human will, as though economic injustice is an immutable law of existence. We are told that some must rule and others must serve, that capital must command and labor must obey, that those who control the means of production are entitled not only to greater wealth, but to greater influence, greater security, greater dignity. This doctrine, though clothed in the language of merit and efficiency, is no different from the ancient feudal order where lords owned the land and peasants toiled upon it with no hope of ever claiming it as their own. The modern economy may no longer be ruled by kings and dukes, but it is no less a system of masters and subjects, where the serf has been replaced by the employee, where the manor house has been replaced by the corporate boardroom.

Where the title of nobility has been supplanted by the title of CEO.

And yet, the essence of feudalism remains: a world in which the many serve the few, in which those who labor are kept separate from the power and wealth they sustain. It is a system that demands obedience while offering no security, that preaches self-reliance while ensuring that the worker is ever reliant upon forces beyond his control. It is an economy in which the laborer owns nothing—not the tools of his trade, not the value of his work, not even the roof over his head, for even his wages must be surrendered to landlords who profit from his very need for shelter. And so he labors, year upon year, not to build a future of his own, but to sustain an economy that sees him as nothing more than an instrument of another’s enrichment.

But this arrangement is not fate. It is not destiny. It is not the only way in which a society may be ordered. There is no law of nature that decrees that wealth must be concentrated in the hands of the few while the many struggle for their share. There is no divine mandate that demands that those who labor must live in insecurity while those who profit from them enjoy comfort and leisure. The great deception of our age is that we have been led to believe that there is no alternative, that the present system is the best we can hope for, that economic justice is an unreachable ideal rather than an attainable reality. But history tells us otherwise. It tells us that societies change, that economic systems evolve, that the forces that shape human prosperity are not immutable but subject to the will and determination of those who refuse to accept their subjugation.

If liberty is to mean anything—if this nation is to be more than a democracy in name alone—then we must confront this contradiction. We must ask ourselves why it is that those who build our cities, who transport our goods, who teach our children, who harvest our food, who staff our hospitals, who lay the bricks and forge the steel, must spend their lives struggling for economic security while those who merely manage capital accumulate fortunes beyond all reason. We must question why it is that a system which calls itself free continues to function as a machine of economic servitude. And most importantly, we must reject the notion that this is how things must be, for a system that places wealth over justice, that treats labor as a commodity rather than as the very source of all economic power, is a system that has already sealed its own fate.

Liberty without economic justice is not liberty at all; it is a façade, a mask for exploitation. A republic cannot call itself free while its people are bound by the invisible chains of economic servitude. The true measure of a nation's freedom is not found in the wealth of its elite but in the prosperity of its working people.

And if that prosperity is denied, if the economy remains a fortress for the privileged few while the many are left outside its gates, then this nation will stand not as a beacon of liberty, but as a monument to the failure of its promise.

We were told that capitalism in its purest form would lift all boats, that the bounty of a free market would cascade down from the boardroom to the factory floor. But we have seen what happens when an economy is built to serve only those at the top. We have seen the hollowing out of American industry, the stagnation of wages while profits soar, the consolidation of wealth in fewer and fewer hands while the worker is left with barely enough to sustain himself, let alone thrive. And while the masters of commerce boast of economic growth, the man who built the machines, who worked the line, who carried the burden of production, is told that he should be grateful for whatever wages he is given, as if his toil were not the foundation upon which all fortunes rest.

This is not liberty. This is economic monarchy, where kings of capital dictate the fates of millions, where the great bulk of the people are reduced to little more than cogs in a system that values profit over dignity, speculation over stability, and wealth concentration over widespread prosperity. And if this republic is to stand for another generation, if it is to maintain not only its economic strength but its moral character, then we must reclaim the economy for those who sustain it. We must build an economy where those who labor have a stake in the fruits of their work, where industry is not the fiefdom of the wealthy but the domain of those whose hands create its value. We must make the case for a worker-owned economy.

It is a simple proposition: that those who build should own, that those who labor should share in the wealth they create, that the worker should not be an expendable commodity but a shareholder in the enterprise to which he commits his strength and his intellect. This is not a new idea. It is a principle deeply embedded in the very foundation of republican virtue. The yeoman farmer, independent and self-reliant, was long held as the ideal citizen precisely because he owned the land he worked. He was not subject to the whims of a landlord or a master; his prosperity was his own, tied to his effort, to his ingenuity, to his will. And yet, as industry has replaced agriculture as the foundation of our economy, we have allowed the worker to slip into a condition far removed from that ideal. He is no longer an owner, no longer a stakeholder in his own future, but a wage-earner at the mercy of forces he cannot control.

History has shown us the dangers. Dangers of an economy concentrated in the hands of the few.

The robber barons of the Gilded Age built empires upon the backs of men who saw little of the wealth their labor produced. The great trusts of the early twentieth century strangled competition, dictated wages, and turned the American worker into a mere instrument of profit. And though the labor movements of the past fought to break those chains, though laws were passed to curb the worst abuses, we find ourselves once again in the grip of an economic order where corporate monopolies dictate the rules of the game, where workers are disposable, where the pursuit of profit trumps the well-being of the very people who make that profit possible. We have returned to an era where the few hoard what the many create, where a man can give his life to a company and yet own nothing of it, where those who control capital wield power not as stewards of a just economy but as lords over an indentured class.

But let us not despair. For just as the past has shown us the perils of unchecked corporate dominion, so too has it provided us with the solution. Throughout this nation’s history, there have been those who dared to reimagine what an economy could be. The cooperative movements of the early twentieth century sought to put ownership into the hands of the workers, not as a socialist fantasy but as a means of economic empowerment. The great labor unions of the New Deal era secured not only better wages and conditions but a voice in the governance of industry itself. And today, as corporate consolidation threatens the very fabric of our economy, we stand on the precipice of another great shift—one in which the American worker reclaims his rightful place as an owner in the enterprises that define his labor.

A worker-owned economy does not mean the abolition of free enterprise; it means the expansion of it. It does not call for the dissolution of business but for its democratization. Imagine an America where the men and women who staff the factories, who assemble the goods, who manage the stores, are not mere employees but partners, stakeholders, co-owners in the businesses they sustain. Imagine a nation where corporate boards are not composed solely of distant investors but of the very workers whose labor determines the company’s success. Imagine an economy where profit is not siphoned away to the pockets of absentee shareholders but reinvested in the very people who created it.

This is not an idealistic dream; it is a practical necessity. The companies that have embraced worker ownership—whether through cooperative structures, employee stock ownership plans, or other models—have shown us that such an economy is not only possible but superior. Studies have consistently demonstrated that worker-owned enterprises are more stable, more resilient in times of economic downturn, and more committed to long-term prosperity than their traditionally structured counterparts. When workers have a stake in their company, productivity rises, job satisfaction increases, and economic security is strengthened. The adversarial relationship between labor and management dissolves when both share a common interest in success. And most importantly, wealth ceases to be concentrated in the hands of a few and is instead distributed among those who earned it.

The time has come to embrace this vision. Let us put forward policies that encourage worker ownership, that provide incentives for businesses to transition toward shared prosperity. Let us break the chains of economic servitude and restore to the American worker what has been unjustly taken from him. For a nation that does not value its workers, that treats its laborers as disposable instruments rather than as the backbone of its prosperity, is a nation that cannot long endure. And if we are to call ourselves a republic, if we are to lay claim to the ideals of liberty and self-determination, then we must build an economy that reflects those ideals. We must build an economy where the worker is not merely a tool of production but a master of his own fate.

The case for a worker-owned economy is not merely an economic argument; it is a moral imperative. It is a call to restore dignity to labor, to ensure that those who sweat and toil in the service of industry are not left behind while a select few reap the rewards. It is a demand that America live up to its promise, that it become once again a nation where work is not exploitation but empowerment, where industry is not the domain of the privileged but the shared enterprise of all who contribute to it.

Let us build this economy. Let us reclaim our future. Let us return to the workers what is rightfully theirs.

A nation that refuses to heed the warnings of history will find itself swallowed by its own negligence. No empire, no republic, no civilization has ever endured while ignoring the needs of those who sustain it. When the laborers of a nation toil without dignity, when they sweat and strain only to find themselves locked in cycles of economic uncertainty, when their children are raised with the knowledge that no amount of effort will guarantee them a better future, then that nation is not merely failing its people—it is sealing its own fate. A society can endure many hardships, can withstand wars, can recover from crises, but it cannot survive the betrayal of its workers. And let no one be deceived—this is not merely a reference to those who lift steel and turn wrenches, but to every worker in every corner of this economy. The cashier standing for eight hours at a fast-food counter, the janitor scrubbing floors for a pittance, the teacher grading papers long into the night, the coder burning through lines of script to meet a deadline, the nurse pulling yet another double shift, the gig worker juggling three jobs just to scrape by—these are the people who keep this country alive. And if this nation does not serve them, then it is a nation undeserving of its own survival.

A nation that forgets the value of its laborers is a nation that forgets itself. It is not capital alone that builds a country, nor is it policy, nor innovation. These are but tools, mechanisms that guide and shape an economy, but they do not sustain it. What sustains an economy is the worker, the individual whose labor gives those tools meaning, whose effort transforms raw materials into steel, whose hands build the machines that power industry, whose intellect fuels the advances that propel society forward. Without them, the economy is a hollow structure, a machine without an engine, an edifice built on sand. To disregard the worker is to disregard the foundation of prosperity itself. And yet, this is exactly what has happened. Workers today are not merely underpaid—they are overworked, exhausted, drained by an economy that demands they hold two or three jobs just to afford rent, while their employers buy back stock and give themselves bonuses large enough to house entire neighborhoods. What kind of system forces a person to work 60 hours a week just to survive? What kind of economy demands labor from dawn to dusk yet offers no security, no dignity, no promise that all this sacrifice will amount to anything more than another cycle of struggle? The ruling class tells us this is the way of things, that we should be grateful to have work at all. They have the audacity to call us "lazy" while they reap the profits of our endless toil, while they sit on their thrones of unearned wealth built upon the backs of the exhausted and the desperate.

History is filled with examples of nations that placed profit above people and paid the price for their short-sightedness. The collapse of great industrial centers, the revolts of disenfranchised workers, the uprisings of those who refused to be treated as disposable—all of these stand as testament to a singular truth: an economy that serves only the few is an economy that will not endure. The aristocracies of old learned this lesson too late, as did the monopolists of the Gilded Age, as will the corporate oligarchs of today if they continue their march toward unchecked consolidation of wealth. The balance of power cannot remain forever tilted against those who create the wealth of a nation. There is a breaking point, a moment in history where the weight of injustice becomes too great to bear. And when that moment comes, change is not a request—it is an inevitability.

The time for change is not in some distant future. It is not a matter to be deferred to the next generation. It is not a gradual shift that can be left to the invisible hand of the market to resolve. The time for change is now. For too long, the American worker has waited, hoping that those in power would see reason, that wages would rise, that industries would return, that prosperity would be shared rather than hoarded. But hope alone is not a strategy. The worker has been told to wait while wealth accumulates in fewer hands. The worker has been told to be patient while companies offshore their jobs, while factories close, while productivity soars but wages remain stagnant. The worker has been told that if they simply endure long enough, something will change. But nothing changes until action is taken. Nothing improves until the demands of labor are met with more than empty assurances and political platitudes. Nothing happens until those who build this nation refuse to be treated as second-class citizens in an economy that would not exist without them.

The workers of America will wait no longer. They will not sit idly by while their futures are mortgaged for the sake of corporate expansion. They will not endure another generation of stagnation while executives enrich themselves at their expense. They will not accept an economy that treats them as liabilities rather than as the very force that makes the system function. They will demand more—not merely in wages, but in ownership, in influence, in the right to shape the destiny of the industries they sustain. They will no longer be content with being employees; they will demand to be stakeholders. They will no longer accept that the fruits of their labor belong to others while they are left to fight for scraps. They will rise, not in anger alone, but in resolve, in unity, in the unshakable certainty that an economy that does not serve its people is an economy that must be transformed.

Let no one mistake this moment for a passing wave of discontent. Let no one assume that the calls for worker justice will fade with time. The tide has turned, and those who have for too long reaped the benefits of a system built on the backs of laborers without sharing its rewards will soon find that their control is not as unassailable as they believed. For when the workers of a nation stand together, when they refuse to accept the fate that has been dictated to them, when they make clear that they will no longer tolerate an economic order that sees them as disposable, then no force on earth can stop them. The future does not belong to the hoarders of wealth; it belongs to those who create it. And when the workers of America decide to take what is rightfully theirs, when they refuse to be ignored, when they demand an economy that reflects the principles of justice, fairness, and democracy, then and only then will this nation fulfill the promise upon which it was founded.

The time for waiting is over. The time for action has come. The workers of America will wait no longer. They will not be placated with hollow promises or misled by empty political gestures. They will not be subdued by distractions or pacified with mere survival while those who exploit them thrive. The time has come to rise, to organize, to demand more than the crumbs that have been thrown from the tables of the powerful. No more will they accept an economy that treats them as expendable, that wrings them dry and discards them when their labor is no longer convenient. No more will they tolerate a system that thrives on their exhaustion while rewarding those who contribute nothing but speculation and greed. They will take back what is theirs—through collective power, through unyielding pressure, through an unshakable refusal to remain silent. They will flood the streets, they will challenge the halls of power, they will reclaim ownership of the industries they sustain. They will not be ignored, they will not be dismissed, and they will not be denied. Let the forces of wealth tremble, let the exploiters prepare for reckoning, for the workers of this nation are done being patient. The battle for economic justice is no longer a request—it is a demand, and it will not be silenced. Either the economy will serve its people, or it will be torn apart and rebuilt by those who refuse to be slaves in a land that calls itself free.