What we talk about when we talk about the collaborative economy (and what we want to talk about)

Justice. Love. Freedom. Democracy. Collaboration. We are all for all that is good and against all that is bad. Who could be against justice? But it only takes a quick look at the major controversies of any era to see that we don't all have the same understanding of what the word means.


What are we talking about when we talk about the collaborative economy? More than a rigorously defined term set in stone, it is an umbrella of alternative perspectives to business as usual , to traditional market society, which is related to many other alternative views in circulation. “Alternative” in senses that can be very different. The term changes depending on who uses it and when, and on what features they put the emphasis: on the objectives, on the social organization that is promoted, on the technical means involved? For this reason, the labels listed above often contradict each other: the on-demand economy, which presents as an innovative feature the offering of goods and services at a click away, has little to do with degrowth as a movement towards environmental sustainability. The concentration of power of platform capitalism is the opposite of the conscious economy and the social and solidarity economy.


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