The Pretender and the Promise of Worker to Owner, Inc.

From Grateful Ed's Medium

In Jackson Browne’s The Pretender, a haunting lyric captures the exhaustion of working life: “Caught between the longing for love and the struggle for the legal tender.” It paints a picture that feels just as real today as it did in 1976 — people waking early, packing lunches, clocking in, grinding through the day, and collapsing at night, only to rise and do it all again. It is a cycle of survival, not fulfillment. And it’s not just about individuals. It’s about a system.

The “struggle for the legal tender” is more than the stress of bills or paychecks — it’s about who controls the value created through work. Every business produces a surplus: the wealth generated above and beyond what employees take home in wages. That surplus is built on creativity, labor, and persistence. But for decades, it hasn’t been managed for growth or fairness. It’s been hoarded.

Here’s the truth: since the early 1980s, more than 90% of corporate profits have been funneled into stock buybacks and dividends, rewarding shareholders while leaving little for innovation, retirement funds, or community development. The change from 1982 to today is not the presence of surplus — it’s how that surplus has been siphoned away and concentrated at the top.

And yet, whenever people begin asking hard questions about this imbalance, we see what can only be called squirrel politics. Instead of addressing the root issue — who controls the surplus — the blame gets shifted to the people with the least power to change anything: workers themselves. Distraction becomes the strategy. Point to a “squirrel,” change the subject, and avoid a real solution.

The result is clear. Businesses chase quarterly profits while long-term stability erodes. Workers face stagnant wages and underfunded retirements. Small businesses remain starved of capital, forced to cut corners just to stay afloat. Communities, meanwhile, struggle to hold on as wealth is extracted instead of reinvested.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The problem isn’t a lack of value. Americans generate immense value every day. The problem is that the surplus has been managed for extraction instead of growth. And the solution lies not in distraction, but in ownership.

That’s where Worker to Owner (WTO, Inc.) comes in. WTO was founded on a transformative idea: workplaces can move beyond conflict when workers themselves become genuine owners. Its model is practical, not theoretical. Through acquisitions, education, and funding, WTO helps transition small, commodity-based businesses into worker-owned enterprises. Employees don’t just work for wages — they buy into equity, decision-making, and a shared stake in success.

Here’s the difference: instead of surplus being siphoned off to fuel buybacks, it is redirected. Into fair wages. Into secure retirements. Into debt reduction. Into reinvestment in the business itself. Bondholders provide the capital for acquisitions. Workers receive training to step confidently into ownership. And over time, the wealth created by labor flows back to those who generate it.

This isn’t just an adjustment in economics — it’s a structural rebalancing. Ownership changes the questions businesses ask. No longer, “How much can we extract right now?” but instead, “How do we build a company that lasts?” No more pretending, just purpose.

The lyrics of The Pretender still resonate because they describe life in an extractive system: dreams deferred, people caught between longing and survival, and a cycle that never seems to break. But Browne’s words also feel prophetic. They hint at the need for something bigger — for a model where the struggle for the legal tender is not a cage, but a challenge to overcome.

Worker to Owner, Inc. offers that path. It breaks through squirrel politics and points us to the real issue: who controls the surplus. And it delivers a real solution: putting ownership in the hands of the workers themselves.

Because in the end, ownership isn’t just about wealth. It’s about dignity, power, and possibility. It transforms workplaces from sites of pressure into places of purpose. It ensures that growth isn’t temporary or extractive — it’s sustainable and shared.

Maybe the question isn’t whether we’re Pretenders, just going through the motions. The question is: how much longer are we willing to pretend — when ownership, and real change, is within our reach?