I’ve been everywhere. And I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to economic ideas. My travels have shown me that Zohran Mamdani and those he’s inspiring need better radical ideas, especially as AI comes for the working class.
Born in California, I’ve lived in Arizona, Connecticut, New Mexico, New York and six countries. After college in Indiana, my first big job took me to India. I lived in Ukraine and Tunisia before their revolutions and saw what state control of the economy can do to wreck economies and inspire revolt. From economic conservatism in Texas to northern European democratic socialism in Sweden, I’ve seen it all.
Today Mamdani’s success in New York City is traveling around like I used to. A growing group of New Radicals — young, progressive, and, yes, radical candidates for mayor — is popping up in Albuquerque, Minneapolis and Seattle.
I agree with them: we need some earth-shakingly radical ideas to address working-class pain. But with AI set to kill millions more jobs, we need better ideas than freezing already stabilized rentals, mandating state-run grocery stores that evoke Soviet bread lines, or always reverting to tax increases.
Thankfully history offers radical ideas that can work at scale. And they enjoyed bipartisan support from people as different as Bernie Sanders and Ronald Reagan. I’m talking about dramatically increasing capital ownership for all.
So what would increasing capital ownership look like?
Companies like Southwest Airlines are owned in part by employees. Reagan called employee ownership “a path that befits a free people” and Bernie has been a huge supporter of these Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs). Indeed, nearly 15 million Americans have gotten a promotion from worker to owner thanks to an ESOP. The New Radicals should give tax breaks to companies who transition to ESOPs in their cities.
Or look north. In Alaska, each person owns a share of the state’s oil reserves and gets an annual dividend. In 2022, each Alaskan got a check for nearly $3,500 before they clocked one hour at a job. New York City’s many roofs could become solar farms, owned by people who have never owned a share of anything. Mamdani could create municipal solar corporations and give a share to everyone who lives — not owns, lives — in an apartment where the rooftop contributes.
They were not his idea, but President Trump also gave them a clue for where to look: baby bonds. Many have advocated for the government to seed accounts with capital that will accrue value tax-deferred well before the $1,000 Trump-branded accounts for new babies made their way into his One Big Beautiful Bill.
The idea of opening up the power of capitalism to the huddled masses may be radical but it is not new. It was one of America’s original bipartisan ideas, backed by the notorious political enemies Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Working to restore New England’s fishing industry after the British destroyed it, both insisted that any federal support would come with a crucial stipulation: owners must share future earnings with their workers.
Giving the workers — who have been the backbone of the American economy for centuries — a share in the profits will only become more imperative to stave off revolution when AI comes for whole industries. AI pioneer and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called on government to stop “sugar coating” the fact that in the next 1 to 5 years AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.
I have no faith in the GOP to forestall the AI job massacre. And when Democrats aren’t attacking Trump or getting dragged into culture war issues, all they offer is vague generalities about jobs and affordability.
That’s why I think the New Radicals can play such an important role in charting a path forward. We need big, radical ideas. We just need better ones. The million-dollar question is how we can democratize ownership of capital to give everyday people more access to dividends, bonds, rents, and other capital instruments that wealthy people have used for generations to further enrich themselves without working.
As the concept of work as we know it is challenged by AI, we need massive, broad access to capital for everyday people. Let’s not eat the rich. Let’s steal their ideas like Robin Hood and give them away to everyone.
Oliver is a communications strategist who advises private and public sectors organizations on global health, development and emerging markets.
