As America and The Wealth of Nations both turn 250, this edition explores how the choices businesses make today—about ownership, wages, and the transitions ahead—can help working people earn a real stake in what they build.
From the Founder
Dear Friends and Fellow Members,
This summer, America marked its 250th anniversary. It is a moment to celebrate—and to reflect on the promise that has drawn people to this country for generations: the American Dream, where opportunity is genuinely within reach for everyone—a promise every generation since has had to work to fulfill and extend.
It is also, fittingly, the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. When we first began this work, an economist told me that to Adam Smith, “Inclusive Capitalism” would be a redundancy. He was right. Smith understood that markets serve society, not the other way around. Inclusive Capitalism does not depart from his thinking—it returns to it.
I remain an optimist about capitalism. It is the most powerful wealth generator in the history of the world. But over the last 30 years, it has also produced a widening gap between those who own capital and those who only earn wages. If we want to keep the American Dream achievable for all, we have to close that gap—not through fixes after the fact, but in how our economy works in the first place.
One of the most powerful ways to do that is to help workers earn a real stake in what they build.
The pieces in this edition explore exactly this question: how the choices businesses make today—about ownership, wages, training, and how we protect people through the economic transitions ahead—can build an economy that is both more prosperous and more fair.
With optimism and resolve,
Lynn Forester de Rothschild
Founder and CEO
Watch
Lynn on Inclusive Capitalism and Worker Ownership
In this statement, Lynn lays out the principles behind Inclusive Capitalism — and makes the case for workers having a real stake in what they build.
Insights
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How Pre-Distribution Can Shape a Fairer AI Economy
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AI is compressing the timeline for economic concentration. Companies deploying it today are making choices about training, wages, and ownership that will define the next labor market.
The Council’s Framework for Inclusive Capitalism shows how business leaders can shape those choices deliberately across three critical areas: job opportunity, workforce expansion, and fair gainsharing.
Read the full insight
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In Conversation
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From Intent to Follow-Through: A Just Transition Conversation with Caroline Rees
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Many companies are aligned on just transition — but struggle to translate commitment into measurable practice. Caroline Rees, President of Shift, explains how 19 new sector-agnostic metrics, developed through two years of cross-sector collaboration, help companies move beyond high-level statements to clear, outcomes-focused evidence of performance.
The strategic upside: companies that anticipate and address the human impacts of their transitions face fewer delays, operational disruptions, and reputational risks.
Read the full Q&A
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Resource Highlight
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The TISFD Beta Framework
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The TISFD is inviting feedback on its beta framework to help businesses identify and disclose people-related impacts, dependencies, risks, and opportunities. This beta version includes conceptual foundations, proposed requirements, and draft recommendations.
The taskforce is now inviting feedback from businesses, investors, labor representatives, and other stakeholders to shape its evolution.
Download the Framework (PDF)
Download the Executive Summary (PDF)
Explore the framework & provide feedback
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Deeper Dives
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Carl Williams | Tech Times
A Tech Times profile traces Lynn Forester de Rothschild’s decades of work and her founding of the Council, framing inclusive capitalism as a sustained effort to reform the market system rather than reject it. The argument it lays out is both moral and practical: markets depend on public legitimacy, and that legitimacy erodes when workers, communities, and younger generations stop believing the system delivers for them. Defending capitalism, in this view, means being willing to redesign its rules, incentives, and outcomes for more inclusive growth.
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Karlyn Bowman & Nicole Penn | American Enterprise Institute
This AEI survey reveals a legitimacy crisis embedded in America’s founding promises: while majorities still espouse ideals of equal opportunity and meritocracy, confidence that these ideals actually work is fracturing along generational, racial, and educational lines. For practitioners of inclusive capitalism, the data cuts to the core challenge — economic systems cannot deliver shared prosperity without stakeholder belief that opportunity and reward are genuinely available to all.
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Yueran Ma | Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago
Drawing on centuries of global data, Ma argues that capitalism has evolved in ways neither Adam Smith nor Karl Marx fully anticipated: production has become dramatically concentrated, but ownership has diffused through capital markets and retirement savings, while Fortune 500 companies constantly turn over despite their dominance. For practitioners building inclusive economic systems, the data reveals a critical insight — many workers already hold stakes in large enterprises through pensions and mutual funds, yet lack the direct voice and control that would make those stakes feel like meaningful ownership. This gap between technical and experienced ownership is precisely why deliberately structuring worker stakes through ESOPs, profit-sharing, and direct capital participation matters for restoring both fairness and legitimacy in how firms distribute the gains they create.
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Let’s Work Together
Only through collective action can good ideas become policy and practice. Explore the Council’s programming and initiatives, and the many ways your organization can get involved.
Partner With Us
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July 14, 2026
