Introduction 

For generations, and especially since the days of the Robber Barons, most of us have believed that big businesses belong to rich people living in mansions up on a hill. And, for a time we were mostly right.

Of course, many still believe it's true, still believe that if corporations gain, then working people must lose. Just witness the demonstrations and riots that take place when world leaders meet.

But...

There's been a change, a profound change. A change that makes the anti-corporate credo as dated as the clothes the Robber Barons wore. Working and middle-class people - the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker (well, maybe a computer chip maker rather than candlestick maker) - have been rapidly buying up big businesses. These days, the corporate agenda has become the agenda of working people, too.

Their interests are converging. Or should that say, our interests are converging. This phenomenon now affects most of us in the developed world, and increasingly in the rest of the world as well.

Through our contributions to pension funds, mutual funds, and life insurance policies that pay a retirement income, we working people are investing as never before. And where do all those contributions go? Mostly into big companies, especially publicly-traded companies.

Pension funds and mutual funds make these investments on your behalf. That means, directly or indirectly, you become an owner of these corporations. You're not the kind of owner who gets to run the corporations, but you are the kind who shares in the profits and losses.

By purchasing shares in big corporations for you, pension funds and mutual funds earn much greater returns than they could by 'putting their money in the bank.' Of course, when returns get bigger, you get more retirement income for smaller contributions.

"But, what about rich people?" you might ask, "Don't they still own a lot of companies?" Well, yes, they still own a lot, but there are very few of them, very few indeed when compared with the number of working and middle class people putting away a few dollars every month. We're talking about literally hundreds of millions of working people (and soon to be billions of working people, as India, China and other developing countries grow large middle class populations).

All of which means working and middle class people now own big stakes in corporation after corporation, and will keep buying even more for the foreseeable future.

No matter if you're a right-wing conservative or a left-wing liberal, or something in-between, you've become an owner of big business. Ironically, if you belong to a union, you're probably a bigger capitalist than your non-union neighbours because unions have negotiated big pension fund deals with employers.

Unexpectedly and unintentionally, we have become owners of big business by simply putting away a few dollars at a time for retirement. Call us the Accidental Capitalists.

[More Introduction to be added at a later date.]

Next, read a draft of Chapter 1 by clicking here: Chapter 1: The Ownership Revolution

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People, Profits, & Pensions: How Working People are Buying Up Big Business, Copyright Robert F. Abbott 2009-2010