00:00if not now when take a look at this chart over the last 90 years cooperative employment in europe
00:06has barely moved in the 1930s roughly two percent of europeans worked in cooperatives today the
00:13figure is still around two percent some countries went up others went down but the overall picture
00:18is close to where it started and that's despite the fact that cooperatives have proven they can
00:23survive they did not fail economically they survived wars economic crises globalization
00:28and neoliberalism yet they remained on the margins of the economy why
00:38because for the last hundred years society was built around a different model if you wanted to
00:43start a business you created a private company if you wanted to invest you invested capital if you
00:49wanted a career you became an employee banks were built around that model laws were built around that
00:55model business schools were built around that model the media celebrated that model cooperatives
01:01never received comparable support and yet they survived that alone should make us pay attention
01:07but now something is changing artificial intelligence automation robotics for the first time in human
01:14history we are moving toward a world where the central question may no longer be who works
01:19instead the central question may become who owns because if one ai system can do the work of 10 people
01:27the most important question is not who performs the task the important question is who owns the ai if it
01:35is owned by a tiny elite wealth concentration will accelerate dramatically if it is owned by workers
01:41communities cities or citizens automation could create prosperity for many instead of wealth for a few
01:48and this is where cooperatives become interesting not because they are perfect but because they offer
01:53a third path europe has already experimented with state ownership we know its strengths and weaknesses
02:00we are currently living through the era of shareholder capitalism and we can see its strengths and weaknesses
02:05too cooperative ownership is different the company is not owned by the state the company is not owned by a
02:12billionaire the company is owned by the people who create its value or by the community it serves for a
02:18century the cooperative movement has been sleeping not dead not defeated just sleeping and now as artificial
02:27intelligence transforms the economy faster than any technology in history the question of ownership should be at
02:34the center of political and economic debate and if there has ever been a moment when cooperative ownership
02:39could grow from two percent of the economy to ten percent or even more this is that moment because if
02:46not now
02:47when
Comments