Cooperative economy can offer a long-term fix for broken system

In my lockdown isolation in northern Italy, against the devastating backdrop of COVID-19, I took some time off to sit down and revisit the frameworks I have been teaching my MBA and executive students for a couple of decades. How come? Well, in a world facing growing inequality, the dominance of a few major platforms, ineffective economic policy and regulation, the exhaustion of natural resources, social unrest, and the unprecedented economic impact of the pandemic, I became increasingly convinced that our economic system was broken and no longer fit for purpose.

Despite any benign intentions, it had become an entrenched framework that made it possible for a few opportunistic, well-informed actors – best illustrated by the Big Tech companies and their platforms – to game the system at the expense of the well-being and prosperity of everyone else, with dire consequences for our planet and our society. I wanted to think about how business school professors like me…