Wednesday, April 20, 2016

The sharing economy and platform cooperativism

There's quite a difference between the for-profit sharing economy and platform cooperativism. It's just a matter of putting our money where our mouth is. Some excerpts:

“The ‘sharing economy’ wasn’t supposed to be this way' [....] the actual result of the rise of mobile-based sharing platforms has been something else altogether. 'This new economy is not really about sharing at all. Rather, as Trebor Scholz argues in this study, it is an on-demand service economy that it spreading market relations deeper into our lives.'”

"Scholz’s concept of platform cooperativism encompasses three core action areas.
The first is the reappropriation of the technological tools that Taskrabbit and other for-profit sharing enterprises are built upon for a different, democratic ownership model. Second, platform cooperativism is 'about solidarity'—the same commitment to the collective over the individual that informed the historical spiritual and worker cooperatives Scholz briefly examines as partial precedents. Finally, platform cooperativism maintains platform capitalism’s focus on innovation and efficiency, but again with the broader objective of contributing to the common good."

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.