Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen: A Just Free Market Solution for Saving Social Security

The "Capital Homesteading" term builds upon the successful experience under the United States Homestead Act of 1862. Signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, it transferred sustainable plots of government land on the country's frontier to families who devoted at least five years to developing a farm. The book includes a quote from Ronald Reagan, who called for an "Industrial Homestead Act" in 1974, before he was president, saying "it is time to accelerate economic growth and broaden the ownership of productive capital. The American dream has always been to have a piece of the action." The book's 17 separate "Policy Objectives of Capital Homesteading" include many legislative goals that are not directly related to broadening the ownership of capital. For instance, balanced federal budgets, zero inflation rate, new global monetary system, tax simplification and "teaching at all levels of education of universal principles of personal morality and social morality, that are based on the inherent dignity and sovereignty of every human person under the higher sovereignty of the Creator." The objective that relates specifically to the book's title and subtitle is the creation of "Capital Homestead Accounts (CHAs)" for each U.S. citizen. These accounts would borrow from banks to pay for "full voting, full dividend-payout shares issued by `qualified' private sector enterprises in need of capital for expansion, modernization or for purchasing outstanding shares from present shareowners." The bank loans would be insured by a Federal Capital Credit Corporation and then discounted at the Federal Reserve Banks. Dividends from the shares purchased by the CHA would pay interest and principal on the loans and then provide income to the citizen. The book deals with most of the questions that come to mind from the basic proposal, including the major change in the function of the Federal Reserve System and Social Security. A citizen could rollover other retirement plans, and even inheritances and gifts, into the CHA and have it accumulate income tax free, up to a maximum that would be set by law, based upon current living costs and other factors. Reading Capital Homesteading was a bit like my reading, 50 years ago, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Published in 1888, its fictional narrator had slept until 2000 and is comparing the socialist utopia of his awakening with the inequities when he fell asleep. With Bellamy, I couldn't believe that the socialist society would work, or that it would even be a very desirable way of life. With Kurland, I just can't believe that the program is politically possible. If one made a list of who stands to lose from his legislative proposals, and then compared that to the list of who spends the most on political contributions and lobbyists, the two lists would be a match. Changing expectations and attitudes may be the best work we can do today toward making the legal system more compatible with broadening the owne

I am not an economist but that has not prevented me from seeing the solid and compelling arguments laid out in this book to truly turn the United States into an "ownership" society. Many may feel we already have that. I would agree that we have it to a point. But, there are too many structural impediments to real democracy in the capital markets resulting in greater and greater polarization of wealth in our society. If unchecked, I fear that this trend will lead to more and more disengagement on the part of my fellow citizens. The United States has always been a beacon to the entire world as a result of our economic and political freedom. This book offers a new economic paradigm that will not only continue that but, more over, significantly elevate the US even more as a source of new and exciting ideas that help EVERYONE build a better life. The proposals in this book are bold. But they are so compelling and, at least in my view, so intuitively correct that they must be heard."

This is a great book. The book offers solutions on how to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, encouraging employees to become owners of their company, overhauling the current taxation system, and reforming the Federal Reserve's monetary policy. I would recommend this book to everyone. You don't need whole lot of background in economic to read this book.

My sincerest congratulations to Norman Kurland, Dawn Brohawn and Michael Greaney for authoring such an impressive book on Capital Homesteading and how it can avoid bankrupting the Social Security and radically improve the competitiveness of basic industries in America. I am very impressed at the comprehensivenes of this book in addressing through a more just free market system a whole host of economic problems that up to now, seemed to be hopeless. The book is also very timely in that I and other seaman of Oglebay Norton Marine Services recently formed an association called the Oglebay Norton Employee Economic Empowerment Association (ONEEEA) to initiate an employee buyout of the Great Lakes vessels owned by our financially ailing company. The Capital Homesteading book helped me tremendously to understand why many corporations are experiencing financial difficulties and why our economy is so unstable. It gives very clear reasons, scenarios and end results of why these problems exist, offers solutions to these problems and describes in great detail, the benefits of implementing the suggested solutions. I could not recommend a book more highly for educating all American workers and our leaders to the mess we are in. It really brought on a whole new understanding for me, why our present economic systems and corporations are failing and what kind of reforms are needed before it's too late. All of the suggested reforms for simplifying and restructuring the tax systems, governments, social security, credit availability, corporations, etc., seem to have a logic that makes it easy to understand. Many of the problems and failures in our economy that are described in this book in graphic detail, have come to roost in the corporation that I work for. The book makes it easy to see why we, as a group of employees, are so drammatically affected by flaws in our current economic policies. I believe that reading this book very carefully would help everyone to gain a better understanding of our economic problems of today. It is well worth the purchase price.