Louis O. Kelso (1913-1991) was a
lawyer and
economic thinker who sought to find a way to
preserve
capitalism from the competition of
communism as an alternative within the context
of the early
Cold War.
Louis O. Kelso (1913-1991) was a
lawyer and
economic thinker who sought to find a way to
preserve
capitalism from the competition of
communism as an alternative within the context
of the early
Cold War.
His non-conformist "capitalism" might be compared
to the
peoples' capitalism ideas of
G. K. Chesterton in which ownership is
distributed to as many people as possible within the
economy. Kelso developed the idea of
Binary Economics to explain the need for
expanded capital ownership in light of industrial
production and the dominance of capital instead of
labor.
In 1956 Louis Kelso invented the Employee Stock
Ownership Plan (ESOP) to put his ideas into
practice. In 1958 he collaborated with the
philosopher
Mortimer Adler to write The Capitalist
Manifesto that is considered the primary source
of his economic theories. Kelso and Adler followed
this book with The New Capitalists (Random
House, New York: 1961). Both books are readable
online from the Kelso Institute.
Kelso has inspired many economic thinkers
including
James S. Albus, Robert Ashford, and Norman
Kurland.
Publications
The distributive dynamics of capitalism
by Louis O Kelso, self-published; 2nd edition
(1956)
The Capitalist Manifesto, by Louis O.
Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, Random House, New
York: 1958; reprinted Greenwood Press, Westport,
Connecticut: 1975. Also published in French,
Spanish, Greek and Japanese.
ISBN 0-8371-8210-7
The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free
Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings,
by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, Random
House, New York: 1961; reprinted Greenwood
Press, Westport, Connecticut: 1975. Also
published in Japanese.
ISBN 0-8371-8211-5
Two-Factor Theory: The Economics of
Reality, by Louis O. Kelso and Patricia
Hetter, Random House, New York: 1967; paperback
edition, Vintage Books: 1968. (Originally
published under the title How to Turn 80
Million Workers into Capitalists on Borrowed
Money.) Also published in Spanish and
German.
Democracy and Economic Power: Extending
the ESOP Revolution Through Binary Economics,
by Louis O. Kelso and Patricia Hetter Kelso,
Ballinger Publishing Co., Cambridge,
Massachusetts: 1986; reprinted by University
Press of America, Lanham, Maryland: 1991. Also
available in Russian and Chinese.
ISBN 0-8191-7909-4
WRITINGS BY LOUIS O. KELSO
Karl Marx: The Almost Capitalist, American
Bar Association Journal, March, 1957.
[2]
Corporate Benevolence or Welfare
Redistribution?, The Business Lawyer, January,
1960.
Labor's Great Mistake: The Struggle for the
Toil State, American Bar Association Journal,
February, 1960.
Welfare State - American Style, Challenge,
The Magazine of Economic Affairs, New York
University, October, 1963.
The Case for the 100% Dividend Payout,
Trends (published by Georgeson & Co.), New York,
December, 1963.
Poverty and Profits, by Hostetler, Kelso,
Long, Oates, the Editors, Harvard Business
Review, September-October, 1964.
Beyond Full Employment, Title News (the
Journal of the American Land Title Association),
November, 1964.
Cooperatives and the Economic Power to
Consume, The Cooperative Accountant (published
by the National Society of Accountants for
Cooperatives), Winter, 1964.
Why Not Featherbedding?, Challenge,
September-October 1966. (Reprinted in American
Controversy: Readings and Rhetoric, by Paul K.
Dempsey and Ronald E. McFarland, Scott, Foresman
and Company, Glenview, Illinois: 1968.)
The Economic Foundation of Freedom, The
American Prospect: Insights into Our Next 100
Years, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston: 1977.
Labor's Untapped Wealth: An Address by Louis
Kelso, Air Line Pilot, October, 1984.
WRITINGS BY LOUIS O. KELSO AND PATRICIA HETTER
KELSO
Uprooting World Poverty: A Job for Business,
Business Horizons, Fall, 1964. (Reprinted in
Mercurio, Anno VIII, No. 8, Rome, Italy, August,
1965; Far Eastern Economic Review, Vol. L, No.
1, Hong Kong, October, 1965. Winner of the First
Place 1964 McKinsey Award for Significant
Business Writing.)
Poverty's Other Exit, North Dakota Law
Review, January, 1965.
Equality of Economic Opportunity Through
Capital Ownership, Social Policies for America
in the Seventies, edited by Robert Theobald,
Doubleday & Co., New York: 1968. (Excerpts from
this essay reprinted in Current, April, 1968.)
Reparations and the Churches, Business
Horizons, December, 1969.
Invisible Violence of Corporate Finance, The
Washington Post, June 18, 1972.
Man Without Property, Business and Society
Review, Summer, 1972.
Corporate Social Responsibility Without
Corporate Suicide, Challenge, July-August, 1973.
Employee Stock Ownership Plan, Business &
Government Insider Newsletter, July 30, August 6
and August 13, 1973.
Employee Stock Ownership Plans: A
Micro-Application of Macro-Economic Theory, The
American University Law Review, Spring, 1977.
The Greatest Financial Planning Tool of All
. . . Could ESOP Save General Motors?, The
Financial Planner, November, 1981.
Sychophantasy in Economics: A Review of
George Gilder's Wealth and Poverty, The
Great Ideas Today, Encyclopœdia Britannica,
Inc., Chicago: 1982.
The Right to Be Productive, The Financial
Planner, August and September, 1982.
Tax Reform Is Not the Answer, Chief
Executive, Spring, 1983.
How We Can Achieve Lifetime Employment,
Chief Executive, Autumn, 1983.
Damning Binary Economics With Faint Praise,
Workplace Democracy, Summer, 1987.
Leveraged Buyouts Good and Bad, Management
Review, November, 1987.
The Great Savings Snafu, Business and
Society Review, Winter, 1988.
Why Owner-Workers Are Winners, The New York
Times, January 29, 1989.
Why I Invented the ESOP LBO, Leaders,
October/November/December, 1989.
Don't Meddle With ESOPs, The Journal of
Commerce, October 2, 1989.
Looking in a Marxist Mirror, The Journal of
Commerce, January 11, 1991.
ALSO RECOMMENDED - BOOKS
Curing World Poverty: The New Role of
Property, edited by John H. Miller, C.S.C.,
S.T.D., Social Justice Review, St. Louis: 1994.
Binary Economics: The New Paradigm, by
Robert Ashford and Rodney Shakespeare,
University Press of America, Lanham, Maryland:
1999.
ALSO RECOMMENDED - WRITINGS
The ESOP According to Kelso, by Stuart
Nixon, Air Line Pilot, October, 1984.
The World According to Kelso, by Steven
Hayward, Inland Business, April, 1987.
Louis Kelso, Capitalist, Bill Moyers: A
World of Ideas II, edited by Andie Tucher,
Doubleday, New York: 1990.
The Binary Economics of Louis Kelso: The
Promise of Universal Capitalism, by Robert H. A.
Ashford, Rutgers Law Journal, Vol. 22, No. 1,
Fall, 1990.
Louis Kelso's Binary Economy, by Robert
Ashford, The Journal of Socio-Economics, Vol.
25, No. 1, 1996.
Binary Economic Modes for the Privatization
of Public Assets, by Jerry N. Gauche, The
Journal of Socio-Economics, Vol. 27, No. 3,
1998.
A New Market Paradigm for Sustainable
Growth: Financing Broader Capital Ownership with
Louis Kelso's Binary Economics, by Robert
Ashford, Praxis: The Fletcher Journal of
Development Studies, Vol. XIV, The Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy, Global Development
and Environment Institute, Tufts University,
Medford, Massachusetts: 1998.
The Theory of Productiveness: A
Microeconomic and Macroeconomic Analysis of
Binary Growth and Output in the Kelso System, by
Stephen V. Kane, The Journal of Socio-Economics,
Vol. 29, No. 6, 2000.
The Ultimate Management Team, by Chris
Bayers, WIRED, January, 2002.
Employee Ownership and Corporate
Performance: A Comprehensive Review of the
Evidence, The Journal of Employee Ownership Law
and Finance, Vol. 14, No. 1, National Center for
Employee Ownership (NCEO), Oakland, California:
2002.
Binary Economics, Fiduciary Duties, and
Corporate Social Responsibility: Comprehending
Corporate Wealth Maximization and Distribution
for Stockholders, Stakeholders, and Society, by
Robert Ashford, Tulane Law Review, Vol. 76, No.
5-6, June, 2002.
Quote
"The Roman arena was technically a
level playing field. But on one side were
the lions with all the weapons, and on the other
the Christians with all the blood. That's not a
level playing field. That's a slaughter. And so
is putting people into the economy without
equipping them with capital, while equipping a
tiny handful of people with hundreds and
thousands of times more than they can use."
--Louis O. Kelso in
Bill Moyers: A World of Ideas, (1990)
