New book, “THE 3rd WAY,” presents major idea to renew The American Dream
“If you want to see the one fresh economic growth idea that has finally jelled in Americansocietyandthatcutsacross party lines with the potential to create a large middle-class majority, then read on. A new book, “THE 3rd WAY,” presents a major idea that will renewTheAmericanDreamand make more wealth available to more citizens by encouraging broad-based employee stockownership in small businesses and large corporations.
“The central purpose of this book is to make the case that by further enhancing the tax incentives for corporations to shareequitywiththeiremployees, the nation will see an overall better performance by corporations, a more secure and motivated workforce, countless benefits to society, a stronger economy, and potentially more tax revenue,” says Republican co-author Veny W. Musum.
Democrat co-author Upendra Chivukula says: “Like massive tectonic plates, the two most fundamental forces of labor and capital are moving away from each other with catastrophic consequences. But it’s not too late to act.”
Some 15 million fortunate employees already participate in employee-owned companies, impacting over 10,000 companies with combined assets that exceed one trillion dollars. But this only represents a little over 10% of the workforce. “THE 3rd WAY” lobbies for a revolution and calls for the greatest economic reform this country has ever undergone. It wants the nation to adopt the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) model as the standard way of doing business.
THE 3rd WAY addresses the following:
• How to solve income inequality in America.
• Why capitalism works but is not fair – and why socialism seems fair in theory, but doesn’t work.
• Why Congress needs to pass significant tax relief for businesses but to also incentivize companies to create ESOPs.
• How a system of shared capitalism – THE 3rd WAY – can be enacted and what it could look like.
• How Democrats and Republicans can agree on key economic policies that no one seems to know are the critical ones that President Abraham Lincoln embraced.
• Why America is in significant trouble and how THE 3rd WAY is the only viable solution.
• A ranking of America’s Top 100 Largest Majority Employee-Owned Companies – and the best-rated employeeowned workplaces.
• Why there are now more employee-owners than private union members.
• How we must stop the bleeding. Roughly 90% of wealth-producing capital is ownedbyjust10%ofthepopulation and the gap is widening!
The book is authored by a long-standing activist Republican, Musum, who is a New Jersey businessman. He is joined by a respected Democratic leader, Chivukula, the wellliked, brainy, policy-oriented Deputy Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly. The political officeholder capable of acrossthe-aisle dialogue and policy discussion when it’s designed to benefit the middle class.
Bothpoliticalpartiesareobserving that an economic Hurricane Sandy has slammed into the American middle class in the last few decades. Unlike our parents’ post-World War II generation, the middle class on average is not doing better eachyear. Thisbook’ssolution is to broaden the ownership of private capital without redistribution from the rich to the poor, by creating many more capitalists who can supplement their wage income with some capital ownership and income. The authors’ bipartisan way to accomplish these goals is for government to get out of the way.
The key proposal of this book is to restructure tax incentivestoexpandtheopportunity for citizens to own a piece of the rock. The authors offer a straightforward solution and agenda for restructuring the tax state, thus expanding the number of taxpayers while decreasing the rate of taxes.
Their solution is to provide tax incentives to increase the chance for middle-class citizens to have ownership opportunities in the small businesses and the large stock market companies where they work, through a variety of methods of moderate risk.