This ownership of big business by working people is result of contributions to pension funds, mutual funds, and life insurance policies with a savings component.

What does all this mean? Well, for starters, perhaps an end of complaints about profits of corporations. After all, most of those profits go toward retirement incomes of working people.

More complicated, though, is relationship between working people who own a big company and other working people employed by it. How to share corporate profits -- through continuing employment and higher wages, or through higher returns to shareholders -- remains a difficult issue. Especially for those working people who lose their jobs.

On other side of coin, working people have bought enough stocks and shares to become bosses of bosses. Some pension funds have begun making that clear; CalPERS, California Public Employees' Retirement System, has led way in telling Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and boards of directors that they'd better manage effectively. And, CEOs and directors listen; after all CalPERS runs country's biggest pension fund, with assets of more than $130 billion.

One other thing: if you're a working person, you're a consumer, as well as an owner and employee. When you go shopping, there's a chance you'll buy from a business owned by yourself, your friends, or your neighbors. What's more, clerks who take your credit card with smiles may work for you. Or, maybe clerks own company for which you work. Smile at them, too, just to be on safe side!

The MCA concept breaks with past. Public officials would be held to high conflict-of-interest standards. They would be required to disclose their assets so potential for illicit enrichment is kept to a minimum.

Whistle-blowers would be protected from reprisals. Prosecutors and judges would be independent. And businesses would be forced to comply with laws banning bribery.

But bill, which was overwhelmingly passed by U.S. House of Representatives on July 24, faces resistance in Senate. Its critics argue that since MCA doesn't focus solely on economic development, it's doomed to become just another foreign aid failure.

And, truth be told, legislation will probably be tweaked to foster gender equality, protect environment and pursue other worthwhile goals.

The futilitarian naysayers are dead wrong to insist that measure shouldn't do anything but directly stimulate economic development. The better view recognizes that any law must be true to America's core values.

Countries whose development strategies don't draw on talent and ability of women are less likely to succeed and don't deserve our support. And only countries whose environmental practices are sound can offer investors a robust climate for commerce. Compelling foreign aid recipients to adopt enlightened, pro-growth policies is good politics and good business.