The challenges of platform cooperativism and the path ahead

This chapter explores the legacy and emerging dual challenges of platform cooperatives. The first section examines the longstanding issue of political identity in both traditional and platform cooperativism through an extensive textual analysis of historical and contemporary scholars. The second section delves into the business challenges of cooperatives – namely, scale, finance, and the market – showing how these difficulties persist within platform cooperatives and may even be exacerbated by the characteristics of the platform economy. This analysis draws on qualitative case studies from platform cooperatives in Italy and the United States, as well as data from the first international economic survey of platform cooperatives, which includes responses from 86 legally registered businesses across five continents. The third section outlines potential avenues for future research aimed at addressing these challenges and strengthening the cooperative economy to confront the most urgent issues of our time: the climate crisis, war, and social divisions along gender, race, and class lines.