Using Government (Corona-)Aid Packages to Establish Employee Ownership
It has become a common cultural reference that the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ combines the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. While the dangers of the ongoing crisis are increasingly clear, the opportunities have not been sufficiently explored yet.
Governments and central banks around the world are preparing huge fiscal and monetary packages to address the current liquidity crisis. These massive interventions should raise a policy question: how should we organize the post-corona economy so that it works for all of us, not only the 1%?
It is the responsibility of the governments to use what is in effect a tax-payers money to promote inclusive economic models. The interventions after the Great Recessions were, at the very least, an opportunity missed. Will this time be different?
Nationalization options are on the “European table”. And this is certainly not bad. The importance of a strong public sector has been, yet again, emphasized by the ongoing crisis. Few would, however, try to extend the proposal to other sectors of the economy, like the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), and the corporations.
The crisis warrants a significant government initiative to establish systemic and broad-based employee ownership in firms receiving…
