Overview
A quarter century of trickle-down economics has failed. Economic inequality in the United States has dramatically increased. Many, alas, seem resigned to this growing chasm between rich and poor. But what would happen, ask Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott, if America were to make good on its promise of equal opportunity by granting every qualifying young adult a citizen’s stake of eighty thousand dollars? Ackerman and Alstott argue that every American citizen has the right to share in the wealth accumulated by preceding generations. The distribution of wealth is currently so skewed that the stakeholding fund could be financed by an annual tax of two percent on the property owned by the richest forty percent of Americans.Ackerman and Alstott analyze their initiative from moral, political, economic, legal, and human perspectives. By summoning the political will to initiate stakeholding, they argue, we can achieve a society that is more democratic, productive, and free. Their simple but realistic plan would enhance each young adultís real ability to shape his or her own future. It is, in short, an idea that should be taken seriously by anyone concerned with citizenship, welfare dependency, or social justice in America today.
Editorials
Dustin Beilke
The idea is at once simple and grand, basic and big: Upon entering college or turning 21 (whichever comes first), every American will receive $20,000 a year for four years, to dispose of as he or she sees fit. Initially the program will be funded by a "wealth tax" on the people who have derived the most benefit from the United States' increasingly skewed distribution of income and property; it will eventually be paid for by $250,000 contributions from the estates of deceased program recipients. The $80,000 will give a genuine head start to every young person, regardless of his or her parents' wealth or parenting abilities; it will also deprive future generations of the excuse that they never made anything of themselves because they lacked the money to pursue their opportunities.
After that, The Stakeholder Society, Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott's bold new proposal in the form of a 229-page essay (plus notes), gets more complicated. The authors, both professors at Yale Law School, spend almost the entire book anticipating the arguments that opponents will wage against their idea. They devote a chapter to the liberalism vs. libertarianism vs. utilitarianism debate. They fill pages with discussions of such subjects as the philosophy of Tom Paine, the funding of the Head Start program, the truth about Social Security "insurance" and the constitutional implications of the North-South compromise that deemed each slave three-fifths of a person -- to name only a few.
Ackerman and Alstott, who loudly, proudly and repeatedly refer to themselves as liberals, seem at once overly sensitive and overly naive when it comes to the political environment into which their plan will be unleashed. I say "overly sensitive" because they spend so much space worrying about the arguments that could be (incorrectly) made against their proposal. And I say "overly naive" because they don't seem to understand that the fate of their program would be decided not by a national debate between libertarianism and utilitarianism but by an endless series of 30-second television commercials depicting the $255 billion annual program as the most un-American idea since socialized medicine.
The cynic in me would like to wisecrack, Yes, this rather appealing idea is un-American. Indeed, the grim prospects before most of today's young people are the direct result of 20 years' worth of economic policies that have been carefully devised to put the desires of investors and corporations before the needs of the working population or the next generation. What we have now is a nation in which the minimum wage buys less than it did in 1970, real wages decline every year, two-worker families have to work longer hours to do marginally better than one-worker families did in the 1950s, college students graduate with ever-increasing debt loads and the share of wealth that the top 1 percent holds has gone from 13 percent to almost 40 percent in just two decades.
Social Security was a radical idea when it was proposed, but the undeniable need for it was enough to propel it into reality anyway. Let's hope that the same fate awaits the stakeholder idea or some form of it. More probably, though, the 1-percenters -- the people who can afford to produce the 30-second commercials, and who disproportionately fill the seats in Congress -- will provide the shove that will cause the idea to collapse under its own weight. -- Salon
Matthew Miller
A big new idea so bold in its simplicity, so pure in its claims to justice, ...that the only shock is that it is certain to get a hearing as the fight to fix Social Security heats up this year.— New York Times Magazine
Publishers Weekly
Do Americans truly believe in equal opportunity? This provocative book outlines an ambitious proposal to put our collective money where our rhetoric is: give every American a one-time grant of $80,000 when he or she reaches early adulthood. The money would be funded by an annual 2% tax on the nation's wealth, to be paid for by the wealthiest 41% of the country. The funds could be used for anything: education, home purchase, business investment. The authors, both professors at Yale Law School (Ackerman's books include The Future of Liberal Revolution), may be liberals, but their proposal is informed by libertarianism: they want people to make their own decisions. But, unlike libertarians, they argue that Americans don't begin from a "fair starting point." The authors speculate on intriguing possible effects: the grant might foster patience rather than instant gratification, cause colleges to compete more and give child-rearing women new independence. Thus, they suggest that stakeholding would serve more as a citizenship program than an antipoverty program. While there may not be the political will to establish such a stakeholder society, Ackerman and Alstott's proposal is an interesting alternative to the similarly dramatic and simple plans for a flat tax currently being put forward. (Apr.)Library Journal
Yale law professors Ackerman and Alstott propose that a number of existing governmental aid programs be replaced by two new ones. First, an $80,000 "stake" would be provided to citizens when they reach the age of 21 or at a younger age if they enter college. Secondly, a new federal pension program would be created for people when they reach retirement age. These programs would be partially financed through two new taxes: a "wealth" tax and a "privilege" tax. The authors' arguments on behalf of these new programs and taxes challenge views long held by scholars of both the political Left and Right. This is one of the most thoughtful and well-argued proposals for major policy changes published in recent years. Highly recommended for the political science and public policy collections of all academic libraries and a good optional purchase for larger public libraries.--Thomas H. Ferrell, Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana, LafayetteJack Beatty
The authors' sympathies, commendably, are with the plight of the blue- and pink-collar workers in an economy convinced that job competence is predicted by years in school, not character or performance....If [the authors'] $80,000 stake is not the path to greater equality of opportunity, the burden is on their critics to say what is.— The Atlantic Monthly