????在開國元勛那個時代，資本意味著土地。今天，它還包括股票，房地產和其他投資。我們已經從一個基于勞動的經濟，發展到一個基于金融的經濟。制造業步履維艱，華爾街則高歌猛進，其規模已經成倍擴大。布拉西認為，要想讓普通人參與其中，唯有給予他們索取經濟成果的權利。

????“我們必須找到一種方法，讓公民在一定程度上成為未來技術的主人，”布拉西說。在他看來，隨著越來越先進的自動化機器人即將蠶食越來越多的工作，大多數美國工人階層有可能面臨兩種未來。“要么是技術創造一個低等的封建農奴階級，普通民眾的工資低下或者停滯不前，結構性失業高企，”他說。“要么，每周的工作日減少，公民廣泛擁有更多的資本所有權。”

????員工持股和類似計劃也不是沒有問題。常見的批評是：股票是有風險的，尤其是相對于冰冷，堅硬的現金工資而言。比如，安然公司(Enron)當年曾鼓勵員工動用其退休金賬戶購買該公司股票，大量財富后來徹底蒸發。布拉西構想了一個解決之道：他要求公司創建類似于401k計劃（養老基金），與工資脫鉤的員工股票或股權計劃，以對沖員工的風險。另一種擔心是：很難說服公司做出這種改變。雖然許多美國企業出于公司自身和避稅方面的原因，已經讓員工參與某種類型的所有權或利潤分享計劃（這本書的作者說，有一半的美國企業這樣做），但這類計劃往往僅局限于少數人，涉及的資金規模不大。要是擴大員工持股真的對改善企業收益有好處，工商界肯定已經開始這樣做了。

????為了說服他們，布拉西等人建議政府在稅收方面給予廣泛的利潤分享、員工持股或股票期權計劃足夠大的激勵。（幾位作者聲稱，這樣做的公司已經獲得了生產率和利潤提升等方面的好處。）在你提及選擇性激勵機制和漏洞恰恰是這個國家需要清除的體制弊端之前，請考慮一個事實：根據一些智庫估計，這種稅收激勵每年已經導致數十億美元的稅收損失。《國內稅收法》（the Internal Revenue Code）第162節允許公司抵扣向少數高管發放的數額不限薪酬，如果這種薪酬是“基于績效”的話——這種薪酬主要表現為股票期權（就技術層面而言，這類薪酬是根據績效確定的，因為它們跟公司的命運相掛鉤）。一想到用公眾資金補貼直沖云霄的高管薪酬，你肯定氣不打一處來。

????但這種體制跟布拉西希望擴展的員工持股計劃并沒有多大不同，它只是局限于少數人而已。布拉西和公司需要做的事情是，讓這些高管特權和福利擴充到剩余99%的員工。相較于皮克提的全球財富稅，這理應是一個更容易兜售的建議。（財富中文網）

????譯者：葉寒

????When the founders were around, capital meant land. Today, it’s stock, real estate, and other investments. We’ve moved from an economy based on labor to one based on money. Wall Street has expanded exponentially even as manufacturing has floundered. The only way for the Average Joe to get in on the game, Blasi argues, is to give him a real stake in the outcome.

????“We have to find a way for citizens to have some ownership of the technologies of the future,” Blasi says. As increasingly advanced robotics automate away more and more jobs, he sees two possible outcomes for the majority of working America: “We could have a future where technology creates a low feudal serf class—people with low wages or flat wages or high structural unemployment,” he says. “Or, we could have a future where we have a smaller workweek and citizens broadly have more capital ownership.”

????Employee ownership and similar programs are not without problems. The criticisms are thus: Stock is risky, especially compared to cold, hard cash wages. Look at Enron, where workers’ were encouraged to buy company stock in their retirement accounts, and many fortunes were completely wiped out. Blasi wants to get around this by asking companies to create employee stock or ownership plans not tied to wages, as they are with 401ks, to hedge the employees’ exposure. Another worry: it could be hard to convince companies to make this change. While many U.S. businesses (the authors of this book say half of them) already give employees access to some type of ownership or profit sharing plan, for reasons both corporate and tax-related, it’s often limited to a few people and not much money. If expanding employee ownership were actually great for the bottom line, corporations would already be doing it.

????To convince them, Blasi and his co-authors suggest large government tax incentives for corporate broad-based profit sharing, employee stock ownership, or stock option plans. (That’s in addition to the benefits to productivity and profit the authors argue already exist for companies going this route.) Before you say selective incentives and loopholes are exactly the kind of thing the country needs to purge from the books, consider the fact that we already have a form of this, which according to estimates from some think tanks, already cost taxpayers billions per year. The Internal Revenue Code Section 162(m) allows corporations to deduct an unlimited amount of compensation for a few top executives if the compensation is “performance-based”— this winds up being granted mostly in the form of stock options (which are technically performance-based because they’re tied to the fate of the company). Cue outrage at the public subsidization of sky-high executive pay.

????But that system is not so dissimilar to the extension of employee stock ownership Blasi wants—it’s just more limited. All Blasi and company need is to get those executive privileges and perks extended to the rest of the 99%. That should be an easier sell than Piketty’s global wealth tax.