Oliver Sylvester-Bradley

Participatory, local democracy is the solution to our systemic issues. There is clear economic, social and political evidence that a Covid recovery plan towards a green economy is the only logical way forward.

Fairbnb.coop is a platform co-op whose name precedes it. Everyone’s heard of the venture-capital-backed alternative that’s putting hotels and traditional B&Bs out of business, and Fairbnb.coop is the antithesis of that – a platform co-op which puts ethics back into home-sharing.

In this article I use the term ‘progressive movement’ to mean all the people and organisations that are working, or would like to work, on creating a world in which people and planet come before profit. If the term does not sit comfortably with you please substitute ‘solidarity economy’ or whatever term you prefer that encapsulates the widest possible breadth of ‘pro-positive-change’ people and organisations.

An ontology is basically a set of principles or assumption about how the world works; about the fundamental ‘nature of reality’.

The Alternative UK recently convened a “Friendly” meeting in Plymouth as part of The Alternative’s work on engaging communities in people centred politics – a far cry from the male dominated madness and general machismo of Westminster – The gatherings aim to build practical and replicable community-based initiatives – and partnership in which men actually listen to women.

Resonate is a music streaming co-op and a great example of a platform co-op which is changing the way business works. In the run up to the OPEN 2018 Platform Co-op conference we interviewed Peter Harris, Resonate Founder and CEO.