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Winner of the First Prize in the Joyce Rothschild Book Awards
Platform cooperatives reimagine a world where domestic workers can double their income by establishing their own platform-an internet where platforms such as Twitch, Twitter, and Roblox were owned by their streamers, users, and creators. What if small fishing communities in Mexico or farmers in Kerala had the power to determine what data they collected about their work and how they utilized that data?
Platform cooperatives are not a figment of the utopian imagination, but rather a reality that is transforming industries today. Collectives that leverage technology offer an urgent and practical solution to shift how businesses are owned and controlled, allowing workers to make decisions together. In this book, researcher and activist Trebor Scholz explores how these new forms of business, powered by peer principles, are paving the way for a more equitable economy that benefits everyone.
Own This! sets out a program that could change the ways we live, work, and organize.
List of contents
1. Alternative Paths
2. Worker Ownership for the Digital Economy
3. Solidarity at Scale
4. Redefining Value
5. Roots of Resilience: Unions and Platform Cooperatives
6. The Coming Data Democracy
7. Letter from 2035: A Social Vision Realized
Epilogue: How to Start a Platform Co-op
About the author
R. Trebor Scholz is a scholar-activist and founding director of the Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) and the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy at The New School in New York City. In 2014, he introduced the concept of "platform cooperativism" as a way of bringing the co-op model into the digital economy. Scholz's articles and ideas have appeared in The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, Le Monde, and The New York Times, among many other publications.
Summary
What if taxi drivers in New York City or rickshaw operators in Bangalore could start a worker-owned and-operated alternative to Uber with stable hourly wages?
Report
Trebor Scholz has tirelessly promoted worker empowerment around the world via platform cooperatives. Going beyond unionization, these co-ops give their employee-owners control over the businesses they run, ranging from banks to taxi companies to recycling firms. Scholz is by turns passionate and analytical, utopian and pragmatic. An excellent read on a critically important topic, Own This! should have global reach and impact. Frank Pasquale, author of The Black Box Society
