What does it mean to truly own the results of your work?
A conventional company pays people wages. A cooperative promises something more: participation, ownership and a voice in the enterprise. Yet even a cooperative can gradually reach a point where work, accumulated capital, ownership and actual decision-making power become separated.
YOUR SHARE proposes a different approach.
At the centre of the book is the Economics of Co-Ownership, a model based on a simple principle: people who create value together should have a protected share in what they create together.
The book examines the relationship between labour, income, capital, ownership and governance. How should individual contribution be recognised? Who should own accumulated capital? How can a cooperative avoid gradually becoming an ordinary company? How can the interests of individual members and the wider community remain balanced?
The model is built around five economic rights: the right to control one’s time, the right to the results of one’s labour, a share in jointly created capital, meaningful participation in governance, and a voice in determining how collectively created wealth is used.
This is not a promise of an ideal society and it is not an economic utopia. It is an attempt to answer a practical question:
how can people build an enterprise together without eventually losing ownership of what they themselves have built?
The book is intended for readers interested in cooperatives, employee ownership, economic democracy, entrepreneurship and alternative models of enterprise.