In today’s economy, most people are locked into one role: consumer. We buy what’s offered, work in jobs where decisions are made elsewhere, and live in a world shaped by forces beyond our control. The people who make the rules—the ones who decide what gets built, who benefits, and who bears the cost—operate at a distance. It’s a top-down system, designed for efficiency and profit, not for participation.
But what if that changed? What if people weren’t just passive recipients of goods and services but active participants in shaping them? That’s the idea behind co-production in a stakeholder economy: an economic model where people have a direct hand in creating value rather than just consuming it.
Co-production has already taken hold in unexpected places. In healthcare, patients who take an active role in managing their conditions often have better outcomes than those who simply follow doctor’s orders. In urban planning, communities that help shape local development projects create neighborhoods that better reflect their needs. These examples show what happens when the boundary between provider and recipient starts to blur.
Now imagine applying that principle to the broader economy. Worker cooperatives, where employees own and operate businesses, already exist in pockets of the economy. So do open-source software communities, where programmers collaborate on tools that anyone can use. Even time banks, where people trade skills and services without money, show that economies don’t have to revolve around corporate profits.
Scaling these ideas up would take a fundamental shift in policy and finance. Governments could encourage co-owned enterprises with tax incentives and legal protections. Investors could prioritize businesses that share ownership and control with workers. Technology, often used to concentrate wealth, could instead be designed to distribute decision-making, using decentralized platforms that allow people to coordinate and trade without intermediaries skimming off the top.
The biggest hurdle isn’t technical—it’s cultural. We’ve been trained to see economic life as a competition: businesses vs. workers, sellers vs. buyers, winners vs. losers. Co-production requires a different mindset. It means treating the economy like a shared project, not a zero-sum game. It means recognizing that real value isn’t created in boardrooms but in the daily work of people contributing their time, skills, and knowledge.
A stakeholder economy built on co-production wouldn’t just be fairer—it would be more robust. When people have a direct stake in the systems they rely on, they don’t just consume; they invest, maintain, and improve. They stop being spectators and start becoming architects of their own economic future. And that, more than anything, is how lasting change happens.
Join us in making the world a better place – you’ll be glad that you did. Cheers friends.