Ever wonder how ESOPs came to be? Here’s the full story:

“All truth passes through three stages,” wrote the nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. “First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” The idea that employees should own a good part of the company they work for was indeed both ridiculed and opposed before it became the quasi-mainstream notion that it is today. But it didn’t proceed smoothly  ...

By Christopher Mackin, Ownership Associates

Editor’s note: The following article was written in 2003, soon after United Airlines filed for bankruptcy. It remains the definitive account of United’s ill-fated ESOP. 

The filing for bankruptcy of United Airlines ranks eighth out of the top ten bankruptcies on record since April of 1987. United’s filing lacks the audacity  of WorldCom (# 1) and the mendacity of Enron (# 2). It is not, however,  ...