I think you are perhaps misstating the response slightly (at least for my part). I agree that there is culturally a vast unwillingness to take risk; and I do blame both our educational system (which is largely designed to turn out worker bees who are told what and not how to think and was more appropriate to the factory era of 50+ years ago) as well as some of the cultural heritage of the "good lifetime job" myth. However speaking for my response only; I am adding caution because I've seen people being offered "opportunities" that are anything but. Buying into a failing business is not an advancement, and practically speaking many (?most?) small businesses are distressingly "poorly" run and most go under.
This isn't always the fault of the owner, at least not in an obvious way; I have some friends starting a business and I see them doing things that are going to cost them days or weeks of critical revenue later in order to save a couple of hundred today - but the trade off is that they can pay the bills today and if they can't do that they risk going under. As an owner you sometimes have to make trade offs that aren't pleasant and sometimes things just don't work out (don't be the 5th failed restaurant in the same location - its a bad location).
You also have to consider who you are polling. Generally speaking hobbiest woodworkers tend to be fairly middle class and up who have some leisure time (pro woodworkers have it a lot rougher - hats off to you guys). This class has generally been somewhat conservative don't rock the boat types.
You can also bet that the follows building the skyscrapers back then didn't have any company shares and many of the people who ventured west were - by modern standards desperately poor. If you have nothing to loose you're more willing to take chances, or if you see strong growth opportunities ditto. We're in sort of a weird place in history where neither are very true which does lead to some weird incentives.
You also have to actually believe in the business. As a founder you can easily start wearing rose colored glasses (I call this "irrational optimism" and believe its necessary for anyone starting a business to have it - you NEED to believe in success and crush all evidence to the contrary - it helps if you're also correct in your call but it seems that's not absolutely necessary, sometimes strong individuals can create a powerful enough reality distortion field to overcome logic). Expecting all of the employees to believe in your business the same way you do is irrational as well (unless you're the next Steve Jobs... reality distortion field engaged).
There is also the question of control and self destiny. If you do believe in something there are few things more painful than watching it die because of decisions you don't have any control over. Having "ownership" means nothing if you can't influence some of the direction, it just means that you are frustrated and see good opportunities being tossed. In the one case where I sort of had a possible long term takeover scenario I had built (more or less single handedly) a pretty reasonable revenue stream for one side of the business. I really wanted to grow that side of the business and could see where we could make a
LOT of money by expanding our market share. The (sole) owner was unwilling to invest any of the profit back into the side of the business I was working on and was bleeding the profits back into the other side (which was the side he understood and what had admittedly built and carried the business for a long time before I started but was going through a rather rough spell - again I understand the dilemma/thinking but disagreed with the outcome). I tried to work with him to put some of the profit from my side back into building the business but eventually gave up and moved on. If I had had access to ~$25k in capital at the time I believe I could likely have built a comparable business to one that sold to Sprint ~5 years later for 1 Billion dollars (yes really, I was a year earlier than they were but the overall model and strategy were the same - no guarantee of course but right place, right time, didn't happen - I made a few abortive attempts to get some side funding but none of them worked out).
In at least some cases the individual would be much better off spinning out to their own business. Technology improvements and (lets be honest) crazy wealth as a nation have lowered the bar to entry for many types of business to unprecedented levels (there are obvious exceptions; like if you need a shop full of machinery the startup cost may be prohibitive and there are some capital heavy industries that just have a high barrier to entrance naturally). I happen to work in a technology field where the barrier to entry is ridiculously low in historical terms so I'm pretty sure my perspective is somewhat skewed, adjust your reading of this accordingly. People who really want it are willing to take "sacrifices" (i.e. I lived for years in AZ with no AC, no phone - for periods, no TV, no real furniture besides a chair and a desk) - I put the word "sacrifices" in quotes because if you're busy you don't miss most of it; and the vast majority of the world still can't imagine most of those things anyway. I actually see some evidence of this in some of some of the younger generation.
I'm also, from a personal finance point of view, hesitant to put to many eggs in one basket. If my primary income is at <firm A> I'm hesitant to invest large percentages of my savings in <firm A> as well, I saw this sort of thing go horribly wrong for some folks in the 2000 tech crash. There are some exceptions here where you may decide to go big or go home and take the risk. If its a mom & pop small business plodding along though I find it harder to muster enthusiasm the same way because (lower barrier to entry myself, limited growth prospects).
For entirely selfish reasons I've spent a little more time investigating the example business I mentioned earlier (full sale brewing). I know of at least four people who are "alumni" and have used ?some? of their employee ownership rewards (and based on talking to folks + other evidence more savings from salary, etc..) to open "competing" businesses in the local area (I believe that the craft beer market is at least somewhat synergistic so I don't consider them to be fully competing). Two of the earlier offshoots I believe did fairly well from their employee ownership, the later ones I believe less so as the value in the original company became more dilute (this makes sense anyway, earlier means more risks).
Some random things I found along the way:
To quote some of the comments from glassdoor.com:
"Employee ownership is marketing scheme, and not a reality. Only upper management really benefits from ownership. Most employees see minimal monetary value."
This was from what I think is a later employee who has a smaller share.
From a cnn article:
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/smallbusiness/0909/gallery.worker_owner_coop.smb/2.html
"avoid being bought by a larger company and "incentivize the [47] people already working there." "
"this arrangement has helped the company find ways to save money and increase profits in the face of a recession."
So again from a primary owner perspective - spread the risk, incentivize the employees, cut costs - makes sense. From an early employee perspective where you have possible large growth or long term benefits, again makes sense. From a later employee or one where you don't see the growth (for whatever reason) its less compelling.
Interesting article at national center for employee ownership (there is a lot more there):
http://www.nceo.org/main/article.php/id/26/
So
can employee owner ship work and be good for all parties? Sure of course. Does it practically do so in all or even most cases? I'm less sure. Its certainly more complicated than "here kid have some shares" in order for it to be beneficial for all parties involved.