In this rapidly changing world, existing systems are being weakened, resulting in risks as well as opportunities. The global economic crisis has degraded people’s working and living conditions but has also raised questions about the legitimacy of financialized capitalism.
The development of digital technology has produced new types of precarious jobs, but it has also opened new ways of understanding and changing our society in more participatory ways. As the history of crises has shown, people and people-based organisations react against the devastating effects of changes and persist in the search for innovative solutions. New ideas and practices have been proposed; there have been experiments with new forms of organizations and ways of working. Some of them, such as the “sharing economy”, were immediately captured by emergent, digitally-based capitalist companies, but others created more ambitious and innovative initiatives. In recent years, certain concepts and experiences have interconnected with one another and existing initiatives.