Trebor Scholz

Economy

Building an Alternative to Amazon?

Toward a planetary-scale, pluralist commonwealth for the digital economy

May 14, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz and Casper Gelderblom

_____ During a community town hall discussion last year, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez commented that “If Jeff Bezos wants to be a good person, he’d turn Amazon into a worker cooperative.” AOC’s refreshing call for a radical transformation of Amazon’s Everything Store rests on a well-established case of shocking violations of workers’ ...

Capitalism

Data Cooperatives for Pandemic Times

To avoid ‘co-op whitewashing,’ experiments with data co-ops should be co-developed with communities connected to the long history and analysis of the various forms of cooperatives.

April 19, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz and Igor Calzada

To avoid 'co-op whitewashing,' data cooperatives must be shaped by those who need them most, rooted in cooperative principles and localized data....

Economy

Can Cooperatives Build Worker Power?

Give platform co-ops a seat at the policy table

March 11, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz, Doug O'Brien and Jason Spicer

If the American movement supporting Democratic Socialism gets traction, centrist Democrats are likely to push for cooperatives as a way to temper the severity of American capitalism. To that end, efforts like The Clean Slate for Worker Power project would do well to consider the potential of platform cooperatives ...

Activism

Black Swans No More!

When Things Fall Apart, a New Role for Community-Engaged Scholars

February 15, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz

As the pandemic has worn on, I have found myself devoting more and more of my time to conversations with researchers who have one foot in the world of alternative economies. I talked with dozens of Ph.D. students who self-identify as scholar-activists; they don’t want to stop at an analysis ...

Democracy

Expanding Democratic Ownership

The ownership model of the public corporation should no longer be the aspiration for startups in the digital economy

January 14, 2021 • by Trebor Scholz

In August 2019, a group of 200 chief executive officers of major U.S. corporations, calling themselves the Business Roundtable, issued a statement committing to invest in their employees, compensating them fairly, and providing benefits. They also committed to fostering diversity, and inclusion, dignity, and respect. And this was newsworthy given ...

Feature

Own This!

A portfolio of platform cooperativism, in progress

August 12, 2018 • by Trebor Scholz

“We are own bosses. The platform co-op model can help us to grow professionally and as people.” - Up&Go Member-Owner The Economy is Not Working for Most People Platform capitalism, the economic system currently dominating the Internet, is not working for most people. Despite its initial promise as a new commons, the Internet ...

Feature

The People’s Disruption

Platform Co-ops for Global Challenges

November 7, 2017 • by Trebor Scholz

The first platform cooperativism event in 2015 popularized the #platformcoop concept, and the conference a year later brought together co-op and union leaders to push the model forward. This third event will zero in on ways that platform cooperatives can help to address some of the future's most urgent challenges. ...

Uncategorized

Platform Cooperativism vs. the Sharing Economy

April 17, 2015 • by Trebor Scholz

The backlash against unethical labor practices in the “collaborative sharing economy” has been overplayed. Recently, The Washington Post, New York Times and others started to rail against online labor brokerages like ...

Economy

Think Outside the Boss

Cooperative alternatives to the sharing economy

April 5, 2015 • by Trebor Scholz

Digital labor touches all of us, whether you are browsing Tinder profiles in your spare time, searching for “Jersey Shore” on Google, or ordering an Uber taxi.

In this afternoon’s talk, I will highlight what is and what could be successful about 21st century work and what are some tendencies that ...

Uncategorized

The 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

November 9, 2014 • by Trebor Scholz

At the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall I noticed fear.

I did not find myself in Angela Merkel’s words who stated that “I had to wait 35 years for that feeling of liberty.”

I hear nervousness in The New York Times article that ...

The 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Wall

Uncategorized

The Politics of the Sharing Economy

June 30, 2014 • by Trebor Scholz

“As best we can tell, the politics of the venture capital elite boils down to fending off higher taxes, keeping labor costs low and reducing the 'burden' of government regulation. … Silicon Valley could start by putting a stop to pretending that the sharing economy is about anything other than ...

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