Portal:Capitalism/Selected quote/44

"I began asking myself whether our present form of capitalism is the best way to support American democracy in the long term. It didn't seem that way to me. I thought that the model corporation of the future should be largely owned by the people who work for it, not by banks or mutual funds or shareholders who might have inherited the stock from their parents and done nothing to earn it. Entrepreneurs and capitalists would always have a key place-if you risk your money by putting it behind Henry Ford you certainly ought to be able to enjoy the fruits of your investment. But there is enormous strength in proprietorship-people develop strong attachments to the things they own, especially if they can influence whether those things succeed or fail-and it seemed imprudent to let the ownership of a business rest with people and institutions that are not directly involved. Remedying this situation would have to be an evolutionary process, but as I imagined it, gradually, over two or three generations, a business would, by law, shift into the hands of employees."

—Thomas J. Watson Jr. and Peter Petre, Father, Son & Co., 1990