The CCCB will host the conference " From the Corporate Sharing Economy to Platform Cooperativism" by Trebor Scholz. The event is organized jointly with the Dimmons research group of the IN3, and the collaboration of Procomuns.net, IGOP.net, P2Pvalue and BCNActiva.
The presentation will be led by Mayo Fuster, director of the Dimmons group about sharing economy. The session will be held in English and there will be Spanish simultaneous translation. This activity can be seen live from the CCCB website. Free admission but seating is limited.
Trebor Scholz is the author of the book entitled Cooperativismo de plataforma. Desafiando la economía colaborativa corporativa (Dimmons, 2016). The book is an essay on mistrust being created in sharing consumerism. Big companies are eliminating democratic values such as responsibility labor, workers' rights, etc., and Scholz introduces the concept of platform cooperativism to propose an economic movement that benefits most citizens.
Cases such as Airbnb, Uber or eBay have popularised the concept of sharing economy. Digital platforms allow for the exchange of products and services, defying the business model of traditional companies. In many cases, though, the expansion of these platforms goes against the rights of their workforces. All these dilemmas and their alternatives will be discussed by Trebor Scholz.
For Scholz, however, these software companies have created
markets where they did not exist
before, basing them on the infrastructure of other people:
your car, your apartment, your time…
Logistics companies where the intermediary gets paid and the
employees lose their working rights:
no unemployment, no social security and no retirement.
Scholz highlights that we need to understand
the long-term implications of these platforms and consider
alternatives. Platform cooperativism
matches the technology of digital platforms with a
cooperative organisation model. It also asks the
question of what would happen if the Internet was used and
ruled in a different way, bringing the
economy closer to its citizens in a way that benefited
everyone.
Trebor Scholz is a scholar-activist and Associate Professor for Culture & Media at The New School in New York City. His book Uber-Worked and Underpaid. How Workers Are Disrupting the Digital Economy (Polity, 2016) develops an analysis of the challenges posed by digital labor and introduces the concept of platform cooperativism as a way of joining the peer-to-peer and co-op movements with online labor markets while insisting on communal ownership and democratic governance. In 2009, Scholz started to convene the influential digital labor conferences at The New School. Today, he frequently presents on the future of work, solidarity, and the Internet to media scholars, lawyers, activists, designers, developers, union leaders, and policymakers worldwide. His articles and ideas have appeared in The Nation, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Le Monde and The Washington Post.