It’s hard to find good news in recent economic reports – or really any since the financial crisis. Some are beginning to look at new forms of ownership for possible answers. It’s a fascinating issue and a new book on the topic offers wisdom and insight. Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution, by Marjorie Kelly, opens a discussion that we dearly need to have. The publisher writes,
“Looking around at the wreckage left in the wake of the world economy’s latest crisis, veteran business journalist Marjorie Kelly noticed that some institutions were left relatively unscathed. What did they have in common? The key, Kelly realized, is seemingly obscure: ownership. Prominent among the survivors were organizations that combined the flexibility of traditional private ownership with a focus on the common good.”
Ownership is the gravitational field that holds our economy in its orbit, locking us all into behaviors that lead to financial excess and ecological overshoot. Marjorie brings us back to the knowledge that we created corporations and can make them what we want them to be. So what do we want them to be?
