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direct ownership of the means of production. The plan is still viable, and remains financially and politically feasible.

Project Economic Justice was based on "four pillars" of an economically just society:

1) Limited economic role for the State,
2) Free and open markets,
3) Restoration of the rights of private property, particularly in corporate equity, and (what most reform proposals omit)

4) Widespread direct ownership of the means of production.

A similar program called "capital homesteading for every citizen" (from the book of the same title) has been developed for use in the United States, itself plagued by an increasing gap between the rich and the poor, declining heavy industry, and the flight of jobs and capital to other countries. Basic economic laws and institutions largely determine who had access to own the wealth-producing technology, rentable space, critical infrastructure, and other assets of our free enterprise system in the past. This, however, leaves unanswered the question as to who will own and receive the growth profits when new and more productive capital assets are added to the existing capital pie?

Answering this critical question, capital homesteading provides a comprehensive blueprint for real change. The reforms would radically simplify and reform tax, money, and credit systems throughout the Americas. This would level the playing field so that every man, woman, and child would have the same access as the wealthiest people to accumulate a meaningful income-producing ownership stake in the future growth of the western hemisphere.

As President Reagan stated in his speech to the members of the Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice on August 3, 1987, "I've long believed one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or corporation."

The means to establish and maintain economic and social justice throughout the Americas exists. All it requires is leaders with vision to seize the opportunity.

Learn more about this author, Michael Greaney.
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