Owning Our Future

TWELVESTAKEHOLDER FINANCECapital as Friend

In our talk at the Constitution, Ken Temple said something about the John Lewis Partnership that I found later in my notes. “We believe labor should employ capital, rather than capital employ labor,” he said. I recognized that formulation. It was also found in the writings of David Ellerman, an economist formerly with the World Bank, who was an early participant in Corporation 20/20.

After I return from London, I send an e-mail to David and find that he’s soon coming to Boston. I ask him to meet me for lunch. We sit down together at Mr. Bartley’s Gourmet Burgers on Massachusetts Avenue near Harvard Square, where David orders the Ted Kennedy, “a plump, liberal amount of burger” with fries, while I settle ...