I¹ never intended to create the concept of commons capitalism. I first developed the idea of a business organization (later called a commons capitalism entity or CCE), while trying to envision a “better mousetrap” than capitalism. The foundation question was, “How could a company hold the means of production and distribute net profits to workers as higher wages and social benefits?” Slowly, the potential of a CCE’s power and purposes became clearer as the CCE’s dimensions unfolded. However, people often misjudged a CCE as just another workers cooperative operating under capitalism or a milder form of corporation that still ravaged the countryside. After describing several times to patient listeners what was a CCE, I realized that my conversations necessarily described an inchoate concept of what commons capitalism, a CCEs operating environment, should be. While a CCE was a set of business entities that could be described easily in finite terms, commons capitalism was a complicated economic system that, I later learned, subtly evoked universal social benefits because of its commons nature.

I originally termed this as “labor capitalism” because the system would efficiently distribute wages and benefits to workers as its purpose. Midway through my research, I realized that labor capitalism would accomplish end results convergent with the end results socialism would propose to create. Also, I determined that the net profits had to be held and administered for at least five disparate groups (past workers, present workers, future workers, the parent nonprofit corporation, and the subsidiary enterprise), each of whom would require a share of the net profits to perform their specific function. Each group (except the parent corporation) would need to administer their respective share independently of the other groups and, primarily, without control by the corporate hierarchy of the CCE. Additionally, the distribution of net profits to each of the groups, from year to year, could greatly fluctuate depending on current economic conditions and their respective needs. Therefore, a traditional business approach to administering those funds was impracticable. However, the funds could be available to those groups as a common pool resource, à la Elinor Ostrom,² would provide the necessary management independence and economic flexibility. In determining that the net profits should be managed as a common pool resource, I then discerned the greater import of labor capitalism was more than just paying good wages and benefits to workers. I realized that the ancient use of the commons, which predated capitalism, had a utility much like that of labor capitalism but it accomplished broader, community-wide results: the equitable distribution of wealth throughout the community, raising the standard of living of its population and halting the concentration of the means of production in fewer and fewer individuals. Hence, “labor capitalism” more accurately described communal or “commons capitalism.” 

Commons capitalism using CCEs could spread wealth among tens of millions of past, present, and future workers, thereby enriching communities while magnifying that wealth by the local economic multiplier effect in each community. I think Elinor Ostrom knew there was something special about the commons. That must be one reason why the commons consumed her interest. She forged the path into the commons, and I just happened to stumble out of the capitalist forest onto the path she had charted.³

As a result, I now believe it necessary to prepare these evergreen documents to more fully describe the full impact of commons capitalism and the utility of its attendant CCEs. I’m approaching commons capitalism in the same way I approached CCEs, with accounting and law complemented by logic and reason but also tempered by what is, and is not, feasible for a nation and necessary for a society. As far as I can determine, commons capitalism, together with its attendant CCEs, is a new concept that begs for critical thought and analysis.

Please transform and build upon the concept of commons capitalism and CCEs. Copy and redistribute these materials and remix, transform, and build upon them, all under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0. I am extremely grateful to the Wikipedia Foundation, Inc., and its contributors for my access to their detailed dissertations on capitalism, socialism, and their related fields. Wikipedia lists the broad descriptive tenets of capitalism and socialism that make it much easier for me to describe the philosophic and economic aspects of commons capitalism. I used Wikipedia and its contributors as my unwitting foils to that end.