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New Models of Ownership: Worker-Owned Enterprises, Community Financing and Land Trusts

We are increasingly seeing models of a "third way" for economic development, based on neither private individual enterprise nor government ownership. This third way is characterized by direct ownership by the participants of the firms in which they work, and by financing institutions and land-holding by and for democratically run organizations based in a local community. Their mission goes beyond merely making the highest profit to include promoting economic and environmental benefits for the local community as a whole. Examples of some of these new models will be described in this workshop.

• Jon Wisman, Economics Department, The American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016; (202) 885-3770, will explore the benefits of the worker-owned movement for personal growth and for the larger community in his talk, "Individual and Social Benefits of Workplace Democracy."

• Kate McKee, Center for Community Self-Help/Self Help Credit Union, 413 E. Chapel Hill St., Durham, NC 27701; (919) 683-3016. The Center for Community Self-Help supports ownership of enterprises by workers, women, and minorities, and home ownership for disadvantaged people. Kate McKee will discuss the center's work as the first statewide "development bank" in the U.S. that provides financing and management assistance for disadvantaged communities and enterprises in her talk, "Worker-Ownership, Financing, and Other Community-Based Development Strategies."

• Bob Swann, President, E.F. Schumacher Society; P.O. Box 76, RD 3, Great Barrington, MA 02130; (413) 528-1737, will discuss the philosophy behind the Community Land Trust and describe mechanisms for bringing more of them into being in his talk, "Who should Own What and Why? The How and Why of Community Land Trusts."

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