Louis O. Kelso
Louis O. Kelso was a lawyer and economic thinker whose non-conformist "capitalism" might be compared to the peoples' capitalism ideas of G. K. Chesterton. in 1956 Louis Kelso invented the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
Publications
BOOKS
- 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.
- The New Capitalists, by Louis O. Kelso and Mortimer J. Adler, Random House, New York: 1961; reprinted Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut: 1975. Also published in Japanese.
- 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.
WRITINGS BY LOUIS O. KELSO
- Karl Marx: The Almost Capitalist, American Bar Association Journal, March, 1957.
- 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, Encyclop?dia 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)</blockquote>
