New Books in Economic and Business History Dovev Lavie, "The Cooperative Economy: A Solution to Societal Grand Challenges" (Routledge, 2023)
5 snips
Mar 27, 2026 Dovev Lavie, a strategic management professor advocating a cooperative economy, outlines a platform-based pro-social alternative to current markets. He discusses inequality, Big Tech power, privacy loss, and overconsumption. Short sentences explain community-driven design, price subsidization, consumption and profit limits, and voluntary local rollout.
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Design Rules Drive Behavior More Than Nature
- He proposes shifting from homo economicus to pro-social incentives by redesigning system-level rules rather than changing people.
- Evidence shows personality mixes: ~23% exploitative, ~29% always prosocial, majority conditional — norms shape behavior.
Start A Digital Platform Centered On Community Values
- Build a digital cooperative platform that prioritizes equality, sustainability, and community-level exchange.
- Use a two-sided market plus barter and donation features so price isn't the only coordination mechanism.
Use Price Subsidies To Redistribute Locally
- Replace some redistributive taxation with voluntary price subsidization where higher earners pay more for the same product.
- Algorithmically spread a vendor's market price across income-based categories so donations are direct and visible.
