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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

17. Democratizing Capital: Building Union Coop Partnerships Through Economically Targeted Investing and Crowdfunding Innovations

Authors : Minsun Ji, Tony Robinson

Published in: Cooperatives and Social Innovation

Publisher: Springer Singapore

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Abstract

In many nations, workers possess a promising tool to catalyze social innovation by advancing cooperative business models and mutualistic business practices. This tool is the power of worker’s capital itself, pooled in massive pension funds, deployed in targeted private equity funds, and distributed in the pocketbooks and individual investments of workers themselves. The challenge is how to coordinate and deploy the potential power of this “workers’ capital” in a way that can humanize the broader economic system. This chapter explores how recent policy innovations in equity crowdfunding laws across the world, together with technological innovations (e.g., the expansion of social media and the rise of internet investment portals), have opened new paths for social innovation through a democratized deployment of investment capital by worker cooperative advocates. If strategically pursued, equity crowdfunding offers a pragmatic tool to democratize capital in labor-friendly ways. Through equity crowdfunding, large numbers of average investors can pursue socially conscious goals by coming together to support cooperative enterprises, built around socially innovative goals of democratic worker control, concern for the community, mutualism and equity among members. Labor unions can play an important role in strategically pursuing these socially innovative possibilities by promoting crowdfunding opportunities to their members.

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Title: Democratizing Capital: Building Union Coop Partnerships Through Economically Targeted Investing and Crowdfunding Innovations
Authors: Minsun Ji
Tony Robinson
Publisher: Springer Singapore
Book: Cooperatives and Social Innovation
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-8879-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-15-8880-8

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-8880-8_17

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