Work for Stake: Reimagining Ownership & Work in the Emerging Internet

Abstract: The modern labour economy is fraught with challenges, such as economic inequality, job insecurity, digital intensification and shifting labour market composition along the lines of skills, employer consolidation, and the profile of the average employee. Ownership has emerged as a powerful, growing, and increasingly accessible solution to these challenges, as it enables workers to reap the full material benefits of their labour and generate wealth and security in a digital-first world. However, despite a positive perception of ownership, few workers participate in ownership models, such as co-operatives and entrepreneurship. This research investigates barriers to ownership optimizing behaviours among workers, the costs, risks, and benefits of transitioning to ownership, and the differences between employees and independent workers. The hypothesis is that experimenting with interoperable digital ownership tools can lead to disruptive worker-centred innovations that increase worker stake, such as capital ownership, capital income, and voice in decision-making. This research employs strategic foresight and design research methodologies to provide a structured approach to understanding complex systems and framing future scenarios and experimentation. Ultimately, this research aims to decrease precarity and increase agency for workers by laying the groundwork for practical innovations that enable ownership-driven security.

game theoryhuman-computer interactionsocial and information networkslaw and economics

Audience: researchers in the topic

( chat | video )

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Metagovernance Seminar

Series comments: The Metagovernance Seminar invites individuals working in online governance to present their work to a community of other researchers and practitioners. Topics of the seminar include, but are not limited to, computational tools for governance, governance incidents and case studies from online communities, topics in cryptoeconomics, and the design of digital constitutions.

See archived videos: archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Metagovernance%20Seminar%22

The seminar is intended for researchers and practitioners in online governance, broadly defined. We welcome guests and curious members of the public, but please note that the discussion is moderated. Our governance structure is defined here: metagov.pubpub.org/metagov-governance

Please contact a planning committee member (Cent Hosten, Nathan Schneider, Divya Siddarth, Michael Zargham, Joshua Tan, and Seth Frey) if you are interested in becoming a member of the seminar.

Where available, a direct link to the archived video is linked beneath the video tags.

Join our community to participate in the discussions around this series: metagov.org/join/community

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