Marjorie Kelly has written new book called “Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution.”  It is a major step toward giving a new language and orientation to how we think about ownership and economic investment and management of our money.  She wisely points out that no matter the intentions of individuals it’s the power of systems that rule our world.  And she questions the extractive ownership model that drives corporations in an article in YES! magazine.

What appealed to me in her book is the recognition of absentee ownership in our current model of corporate capitalism as a destructive force, one that separates ownership from the life of an enterprise and focuses solely on maximizing financial gain.  In my experience, the traditional financial model of abstracted ownership works for fewer and fewer people these days as our financial system accelerates beyond the comprehension of just about any individual—certainly anyone who works for a living.

As a member of the boomer generation heading into retirement, I was brought up and educated on the assumption that working hard and investing money, primarily in stock market mutual funds to spread the risk, would assure a secure investment in the future for myself and my family.  Yet, events over the past dozen years and more have shattered my belief in this financial model.

Stagnant wages for the last decade; 401K retirement savings funds devastated in the financial meltdown in 2008; a spouse losing her job in corporate cutbacks; these are not abstract concepts but a reality that has cost me dearly in lost sleep and worry for the future of myself, my wife, our children who are of the millenials generation, and now a grandchild.

I’ve a graduate degree in business from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and can be categorized as a “knowledge worker” in the computer software industry.  Yet the prospect of understanding what I can actually do with the money I’ve saved over decades is truly daunting.   This book by Marjorie Kelly provides a way for us to get our arms around understanding why the current system of corporate dominance in our economic lives is so destructive—not because of evil people but because of a system that removes ownership and responsibility from “making money.”  And it begins to show an alternative way where we can exercise the power we have over our own money in our own communities.

Owning our future is not going to be easy.  New concepts in thinking about our money and new methods of investment have to form and take hold.  Building an alternative “generative” economic system, as Kelly calls it, will require work and will involve risk.  But as I look back over my personal financial history, I realize how risky it was to trust my financial future to a faceless system that takes needless risks to enrich very few people—and has literally expanded beyond anyone’s control.

It’s time to get back to a local ownership model that links local investors to local businesses that nurture and build stronger communities.  The journey starts here for me—and hopefully you’ll come along for the ride.

John