As we approach the 250th anniversary of American self-government, it is worth asking some fundamental questions: What is the economy for? Whom should it serve, and how? Can — and should — it serve the common good?
The answers to these questions can shape how we address the numerous crises facing our nation today: economic inequality, political dysfunction, social isolation, and the erosion of trust in our institutions.
For decades, America’s economic priorities have been economic growth, upward mobility and technological advancement. Yet in prioritizing these goals, we have largely neglected what President Calvin Coolidge once called “progress in moral and spiritual things,” which he equated with the “golden rule” — treating others as we would wish to be treated. By Coolidge’s measure, it is hard to argue that our current economic conditions, or the policies underpinning them, are fostering real progress.
Perhaps this is because, for too long, we have answered the question “Whom should the economy serve?” with “the few” rather than “the many.” Wealth and power have grown increasingly concentrated, as owning one’s own business and home have become increasingly out of reach for many Americans. These conditions have left many Americans with diminishing assets, as well as diminishing opportunities to contribute meaningfully to society.
In today’s economy, dignity and connection often feel elusive for Americans who struggle financially. The gig economy, enabled by platforms like Instacart and DoorDash, has traded human interaction and meaningful work for frictionless convenience. The person delivering your fast food is invisible, reduced to a transaction on an app as they deposit your order at your front door so you can return to gaming or streaming as quickly as possible.
For many Americans, the term “common good” may conjure metrics like gross domestic product (GDP), a measure of our economic status as consumers. But the common good in its original essence goes far beyond consumption. It is about a broader, more equitable distribution of assets. This shift is not just about fairness, but also about creating the conditions for dignity, participation and a sense of belonging. It is about enabling people to contribute to society, not just consume more inexpensively within it. It is about fostering a shared world where everyone has a stake.
The common good is also a fundamentally political issue. Our current political situation, marked by deadlock in Congress, growing polarization and a profound sense of loneliness and alienation, stems in part from an economy that fails to inspire collective purpose. As I wrote earlier this year with my colleagues Caroline Cassidy and Ian Marcus Corbin, “When people lose the ability to act meaningfully with others, society begins to fray. We lose not only our capacity to solve collective problems but also our sense of belonging, trust, and hope.”
Affordability has also become a central focus of public discourse, as seen in this year’s “abundance” discourse and Zohran Mamdani’s successful campaign for New York City mayor. But we must not reduce affordability to a question of making goods and services cheaper or even simply more abundant.
The frustration over high costs is not just about limited disposable income. It is about the barriers to ownership and participation that these costs create. When people cannot afford to own a home or start a business, they are shut out of critical opportunities to build and belong to a shared world. They lose a chance to take a stake in their communities and be recognized for their contributions. But people who hold a stake — whether through a home, a business, a cooperative or a union — tend to be more rooted, more connected and more invested in their community’s future. They have reasons to show up for others, and others have reasons to rely on them.
There are signs of hope, however, in efforts to reimagine public policy in ways that foster a more humane economy.
Capita recently published a paper by Elias Crim highlighting strategies to empower people through ownership and participation. Policies that promote worker cooperatives, employee ownership trusts (EOTs), and other forms of employee-owned enterprises can help restore the common good, he argues.
The Worker Ownership, Readiness, and Knowledge (WORK) Act of 2022 and the proposed Retire Through Ownership Act of 2025 are steps in the right direction. These initiatives align with a vision of an economy where more people can own and contribute, rather than simply consume. And they are not new ideas by any stretch of the imagination— we know they work in many other countries around the world. A quiet but growing effort is under way in this country to broaden ownership through these models. They deserve a place in our debates about the future of the American economy.
The point is not that owners are somehow more virtuous than wage earners. It is that certain forms of ownership place people in positions of trust and responsibility. When ownership is widely held, more people inhabit those roles that connect private well-being to the public good.
James Madison understood this dynamic well. He argued that Americans “without property, or the hope of acquiring it, cannot be expected to sympathize sufficiently with its rights to be safe depositories of power over them.” In other words, a flourishing democracy relies on a broad distribution of ownership throughout society. If we are serious about revitalizing our democracy as we approach our 250th anniversary, we must make restoring broad ownership a top priority.
This means more than just making the “bare necessities of life” affordable, though that is important. It means ensuring that all Americans have a meaningful stake in our economy and society.
Joe Waters is the cofounder and CEO of Capita, a think tank focused on the flourishing of families and their communities. He lives with his family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.