Sharp-suited Philanthropists

Abstract

John Spedan Lewis was a man alone in a nation of shopkeepers. Some may have thought him subversive, even dangerous. Others may have wondered if he had taken leave of his senses, all because he wanted his company’s workforce to share the advantages of corporate ownership. Lewis was a successful British capitalist, the head of a growing retailing empire, an autocrat obsessed with his business. But his obsession had some unusual characteristics. While he was determined, like other entrepreneurs, to create an ever-expanding business empire, he questioned why the profits from the business should be concentrated among a minority of wealthy shareholders. Shouldn’t the people whose labor contributed to the company’s success have a fairer share of the profits? Shouldn’t they experience, collectively, the rewards and responsibility of ownership? He thought they should, so he placed his company in the hands of its workforce.

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production.

(Clause Four of the British Labour Party’s constitution, 1918; removed 1995)