President Obama and the union movement are missing the boat built from advances in technology and have failed to realize the crushing blow to labor workers that tectonic shifts in the technologies of production has and will continue to exercise.

The labor union movement should transform to a producers’ ownership union movement and embrace and fight for a new economic democracy. They should play the part that they have always aspired to––that is, a better and easier life through participation in the nation’s economic growth and progress. As a result, labor unions will be able to broaden their functions, revitalize their constituency, and reverse their decline.

Unfortunately, at the present time the movement is built on one-factor economics––the labor worker. The insufficiency of labor worker earnings to purchase increasingly capital-produced products and services gave rise to labor laws and labor unions designed to coerce higher and higher prices for the same or reduced labor input. With government assistance, unions have gradually converted productive enterprises in the private and public sectors into welfare institutions. Binary economist Louis Kelso stated: “The myth of the ‘rising productivity’ of labor is used to conceal the increasing productiveness of capital and the decreasing productiveness of labor, and to disguise income redistribution by making it seem morally acceptable.”

Kelso argued that unions “must adopt a sound strategy that conforms to the economic facts of life. If under free-market conditions, 90 percent of the goods and services are produced by capital input, then 90 percent of the earnings of working people must flow to them as wages of their capital and the remainder as wages of their labor work...If there are in reality two ways for people to participate in production and earn income, then tomorrow’s producers’ union must take cognizance of both...The question is only whether the labor union will help lead this movement or, refusing to learn, to change, and to innovate, become irrelevant.”

Unions are the only group of people in the whole world who can demand a real Kelso-designed ESOP, who can demand the right to participate in the expansion of their employer by asserting their constitutional preferential rights to become capital owners, be productive, and succeed. The ESOP can give employees access to credit so that they can purchase the employer’s stock, pay for it in pre-tax dollars out of the assets that underlie that stock, and after the stock is paid for earn and collect the capital worker income from it, and accumulate it in a tax haven until they retire, whereby they continue to be capital workers receiving income from their capital ownership stakes. This is a viable route to individual self-sufficiency needing significantly less or no government redistributive assistance.

The unions should reassess their role of bargaining for more and more income for the same work or less and less work, and embrace a cooperative approach to survival, whereby they redefine “more” income for their workers in terms of the combined wages of labor and capital on the part of the workforce. They should continue to represent the workers as labor workers in all the aspects that are represented today––wages, hours, and working conditions––and, in addition, represent workers as full voting stockowners as capital ownership is built into the workforce. What is needed is leadership to define “more” as two ways to earn income.

If we continue with the past’s unworkable trickle-down economic policies, governments will have to continue to use the coercive power of taxation to redistribute income that is made by people who earn it and give it to those who need it. This results in ever deepening massive debt on local, state, and national government levels, which leads to the citizenry becoming parasites instead of enabling people to become productive in the way that products and services are actually produced.

When labor unions transform to producers’ ownership unions, opportunity will be created for the unions to reach out to all shareholders (stock owners) who are not adequately represented on corporate boards, and eventually all labor workers will want to join an ownership union in order to be effectively represented as an aspiring capital owner. The overall strategy should assure that the labor compensation of the union’s members does not exceed the labor costs of the employer’s competitors, and that capital earnings of its members are built up to a level that optimizes their combined labor-capital worker earnings. A producers’ ownership union would work collaboratively with management to secure financing of advanced technologies and other new capital investments and broaden ownership. This will enable American companies to become more cost-competitive in global markets and to reduce the outsourcing of jobs to workers willing or forced to take lower wages.

Kelso stated, “Working conditions for the labor force have, of course, improved over the years. But the economic quality of life for the majority of Americans has trailed far behind the technical capabilities of the economy to produce creature comforts, and even further behind the desires of consumers to live economically better lives. The missing link is that most of those unproduced goods and services can be produced only through capital, and the people who need them have no opportunity to earn income from capital ownership.”

Walter Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers, expressed his open-mindedness to the goal of democratic worker ownership in his 1967 testimony to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress as a strategy for saving manufacturing jobs in America from being outcompeted by Japan and eventual outsourcing to other Asian countries with far lower wage costs: “Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America’s vast corporate wealth, which is today appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy.

“If workers had definite assurance of equitable shares in the profits of the corporations that employ them, they would see less need to seek an equitable balance between their gains and soaring profits through augmented increases in basic wage rates. This would be a desirable result from the standpoint of stabilization policy because profit sharing does not increase costs. Since profits are a residual, after all costs have been met, and since their size is not determinable until after customers have paid the prices charged for the firm’s products, profit sharing [through wider share ownership] cannot be said to have any inflationary impact on costs and prices.”

Unfortunately for democratic unionism, the United Auto Workers, American manufacturing workers, and American citizens generally, Reuther was killed in an airplane crash in 1970 before his idea was implemented. Leonard Woodcock, his successor, never followed through.

Now is critical that the President lead the way and that new labor movement leaders emerge to create an OWNERSHIP CULTURE.

Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/homestead/index.htm and http://www.cesj.org/homestead/summary-cha.htm

Also please see my article published by The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/who-should-own-america_b_2040592.html

Sign the Petition at http://signon.org/sign/reform-the-federal-reserve.fb23?source=c.fb&r_by=3904687

Sign the WhiteHouse.gov petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-federal-reserve/PhY3Jswk

Also follow the Center for Economic and Social Justice at www.cesj.org and http://capitalhomestead.org/

This is reply to #1.

I think there are some basic truths to what you say here. As a Libertarian Socialist (which usually means Anarchist or Syndicallist but doesn't necessarilly in my case; I'll go with whatever works to produce the results of freedom, equality and justice) I believe that what is needed is not a redistribution of wealth but a redistribution of power. If the power is redistributed the wealth will redistribute itself. What the Soviets, the Leninists, did was try to redistribute the wealth keeping the power with a small, centralized elite. What resulted was that the wealth didn't get redistributed all that well either. The small minority of Communist Party members lived much better than everyone else and were much more privileged and rarely tried to defect to the West.

Much of the union movement in the U.S. initially had the goal of gaining ownership of the means of production for the workers. The mobbing up and other corruptions of the unions, the McCarthy Era purges and, more importantly, the intentional dedemocratization of unions by the government, forcing them to go through the NLRB has made unions often into bogus or, at best, weak institutions in which the union officials exploit the rank and file pimping them and selling them out.

Actually, it might produce a better result to simply redemocratize the unions as there then would be a collectivity and a collective ownership rather than making everyone an individual stockholder.

Drill baby, Drill, or is America going out of business? Depends on what we drill for! Let’s drill for intelligent education; the Internet can be combined into new age refineries.

The Michigan legislation, politically slant drilling, seems to be just a centuries old “Edict”. The Michigan legislation the Right-to-Work-for-less laws in Michigan is likely and simply a political schism. Screw the citizen, tyranny at its best. Leadership without constitutional respect is wide open in your face book unregenerate conservatism. The Michigan leadership is the finest in lost spirituality yet banners missions accomplished for the religious right.

It is unfortunate our young people see and despise this woeful and obstinately wrong political agenda in a metaphysical way by taking actions with fatal random deeds, personally martyr themselves as in the now Connecticut massacre. From my point of view the young are sending a message. Whether we think the young are insane or not, the message is vectored not well. As once was the Kent state massacre.

My personal message to the young men; please endure this leadership it will change. That which is animal therefore does not perceive the things that are of God cf. 1 Cor 2:14.

Ladies and Gentlemen of America my view is simple and somewhat derived through the notion of an Eisenhower Republican though being an Independent my thoughts are with Ike, that military industrial complex warning haunts me. More over the CIA secret assassinations America keeps secret for tens of decades at one end to now the increasing frequency of indigenous young in fatal combat with the current system at our other end. It is as though America appears to be caught in a resonant cavity reflected political standing wave of corruption driven by military profiteering. Both political parties engulfed knowing exposure will end in a horrible criminal embarrassment mess. Likely the only way out.

Or, now being bombarded with the ultimate capitalism, the Binary economy needs to be talked about. Making sure this is not just Cyber punk mathematics. We need to debate, is Binary economics o.k. or an Aesop's Fable the sophist line of Baines capital Ying Yang Canary cage money laundering. The new advanced form of “Ferengi” buy out?

Can't you build on the talking points just a little, just to make it sound good? What does this have at all to do with the state going broke?

You the ones need common sense. Austerity, cutbacks and low wages only hurt an economy more. You gotta invest in it not take money out.

Kend and Global - The main objective of Gov. Snyder is to privative as much of the state as possible to generate profits for the Corporations that are waiting to swoop down and turn all the commons into private businesses run by the Corporations that fund the re-election of conservative Republican politicians. The Koch brothers and billionaires like them are just waiting to gain control and turn the workers into drones for profits. A perfect example is how the states have privatized prisons and halfway houses so as to have complete control of the revolving door in our nation for greater profits. First they gain control of the prisons and make sure there is no rehabilitation of the prisoners and once released they serve a mandatory length of time in the privatized halfway houses (which make hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal funds) and make sure the paroles receive little if any assistance in rebuilding their lives, release them into society and wait until they fail and resume a life of crime. The corporations have a revolving population that is again housed in privatized prisons and the cycle begins again. Of course being conservatives that feel the cuts in prison funding has no real effect on society and the prisoners do not deserve any rehabilitation, your views are part of the problem.

Gary Riber & Mark S., your theory basically has one big flaw. The corporations and major companies are not going to allow ownership or partnership of the workers and therefore your theory that the Unions should push for more ownership of the companies simply does not apply in our present society. How would you propose unions and workers gain a greater stake in the workplace and share the profits of their work, when it is evident ownership would mean having access to major funds or funding by the banks? The banks are part of the power structure that works together with the corporations to keep wages stagnate. You think the Union and workers should take charge of the workplace and determine their own fate and income through the profits generated by their work. Just how would you generate the capital needed to fund such an endeavor on a scale needed to provide a successful outcome. We have seen that most companies and corporations favor bankruptcy over sharing the profits with the workers that are represented by the Unions. Partnership of the employees through representation of the workers has worked in places like Germany, but the mindset of the corporations and companies is completely different here in America. If we had a history of such corporation of management and labor from the beginning it might have a chance of working. But look around you in the real America and you will see it has been a battle between labor and management from the inception of Unions in America. We cannot even get a consensus on health insurance for the workers and citizens because it is blocked by all the small and large businesses across America, based on the greed and need for greater profits for the owners and shareholders. The only chance American workers have of obtaining a livable standard of living in America is through the Unions and the threat of disruption of profits for the small and large businesses and corporations. And the idea that a form of socialism is feasible for the American workplace is nothing more than a theory of hope and has been crushed by management from the beginning of the unionization of the workforce. Not only that, most production has been moved offshore for greater profit through lower costs of labor. And I highly doubt there will be any move to bring production back to the shores of America. And, we have heard over and over again how we have to embrace new technology and adapt to the new age. Problem is there are just not enough jobs generated by new technology to sustain a growing workforce, even with training of new and existing workers. Basically your theories are great on paper but will not work in the real world. Management and our government encourage cheap illegal workers to migrate to this country for greater profits for the companies and corporations that hire them. What jobs are left are being outsourced to countries like the Philippines and Vietnam, not just China. And corporations are bringing in white collar workers from places like India to boost the profit margin of the corporations. Basically the time of the American worker has passed due to the laws passed by Washington such as the free trade agreements at the request of the corporations. The corporations are only concerned with immediate profits not realizing the American consumers will eventually run out of credit and savings to purchase these goods that are made outside of the U.S. and they will see their profits disappear due to their own greed.

Right on Sinsibilitty! You rock.

Kend- your point is well taken. However I am not the U.S. government; I'm just one little citizen here. I don't make the kinds of decisions that lead to things like U.S. military bases stationed all around the world. I can assure you, this has never been a situation I have approved of. It does not please me to know my tax money is helping support these operations. In fact, it makes me ill. In my lifetime I have watched this country morph into something more akin to an empire, pushing its weight around the world stage like a big fat bully... with my money and in my name!

Anyway Kend, I apologize for being rude. It's just that you sound so much like these ignoramous Americans who watch FOX so-called "news" all the the time, who only THINK they know what's going on... I get so sick of hearing it day after day. I've had my fill of their fear mongering, you're-on-your-own, I've-got-mine-and-screw-you Ayn Rand screed, relentlessly broadcast everywhere it seems, poisoning the air we breathe with these divisive, toxic messages. I tell you, it is mind numbing, soul-sucking crap. So when someone like you from another country (Canada or WHEREVER) joins that chorus, I'm like, ENOUGH ALREADY! - Aliceinwonderland

No Fraud- I am so envious of people like your siblings, who enjoy duel citizenship in other countries more civilized than ours; countries where no one becomes bankrupted by illness or injury! How I wish we were among that group. And I share your sibs' assessment of American culture.

I am a big fan of Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films. They've released a great documentary: "Wal Mart; The high cost of low price". Another masterpiece of theirs targets Fox "news", titled "Outfoxed". I highly recommend them both. - Alive I.W.