Ownership

Written by Philip L. McKenzie

Two year ago I published a white paper titled “Is Ownership Obsolete? When Sharing is Not Enough”. This paper used research, case studies and expert interviews to determine if the current nomenclature and branding around the so-called sharing economy was relevant. The reality is the fall out from the financial crisis so altered the social and political landscape that it was possible for economic alternatives to flourish. Many of the ideas to gain traction and flourish did so under the “shared economy” moniker. I determined that this language was useful to an extent but ultimately fell short of a radical reimagining of our economic destiny. The sharing economy does not allow for the sophistication necessary to critique the current hyper capitalist financial environment. Hence, two things are at work here. First, discussing the shared economy is a smoke screen, as I offered in the paper the issue is not sharing but rather ownership and our relationship to the subset of values around that concept. Second, sharing is not a viable alternative to ownership hence I introduced the concept of stewardship.

Stewardship is defined as, shared responsibility of a society to oversee, protect and pass on its critical resources over the course of generations. Stewardship and traditional Ownership have distinct value propositions that align themselves with particular outcomes. If we desire different outcomes from our structural systems we have to reward different behaviors. Much of the sharing economy does not accomplish this. There has been success in a limited sense but the adherence to the VC/PE culture of raising money (beholden to investors), desire and need to scale (exponential growth), and reliance on “freelance” economies makes them Ownership stories with sleight of hand branding. Nowhere is this more evident than with Uber, which is a darling of shared economy adherents. Uber meteoric rise has been celebrated even as it has had high profiles PR gaffes, and questionable employment practices. Outside of the “innovation” of finding easy rides and passing cost on to drivers it’s hard to see how in either spirit or operation Uber is changing the paradigm of traditional ownership business practices. Sharing is being used to put the proverbial lipstick on the pig. Uber, however is merely a useful example, this conversation is bigger than any particular company.

Traditional Ownership models, even those that have a component of so-called sharing economics still reward the same values: Control, vertical hierarchy, conformity, entitlement, zero-sum gaming and skepticism. Stewardship in contrast relies on: a “Matrixed” network, collaborative environment, non-zero sum gaming, trust and transparency. Most notably the multi-billion dollar Spanish Co-operative Mondragon is an example of a company surviving and thriving despite economic turmoil due to its adherence to principles of stewardship. US based Patagonia is another, as their commitment to stewarding the world’s environmental resources impacts how they do business and position themselves as a brand. We have an amazing opportunity to recalibrate the conversation away from so-called sharing economics and toward a more fruitful embrace of the values of stewardship.