Four ways workers become owners
Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)
ESOPs are US retirement plans that invest primarily in the stock of the employer. Introduced by Louis Kelso in the 1950s and codified in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, they now cover around 14 million US workers across 6,000 firms. Research by the National Center for Employee Ownership consistently finds ESOP members hold roughly twice the retirement wealth of comparable non-ESOP workers.
Employee ownership trusts
Several countries have created trust structures that hold shares in the employer on behalf of all employees, often with tax advantages for owners who sell their business to the trust. Unlike an ESOP, the shares are usually held collectively rather than allocated to individual accounts. Where these trusts have been introduced, adoption has grown quickly, especially among founders planning a succession.
Cooperatives
The older form, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. Today, the International Cooperative Alliance estimates that cooperative enterprises employ around 280 million people worldwide. Worker cooperatives, producer cooperatives, and consumer cooperatives all follow the same principle: members own and democratically control the enterprise.
Why they matter for post-labour economics
All three forms do the same basic work. They broaden who owns the firm. If wages shrink while capital returns rise, broad capital ownership keeps more of the gains with the people who used to work there. They are not a substitute for other policies — sovereign wealth funds, transfers, tax reform — but they are one of the few post-labour tools already operating at scale in real economies, with measurable positive outcomes.
If you could convert 10% of your next year's wages into ownership of your employer, at fair market price, would you? Why or why not?