Commons, Cooperatives and Ethical Human Capabilities Development

We propose a mechanism for funding human capabilities development in situations where other resource channels (markets, banks, government policy or NGOs) are lacking or deficient. We lay out the conceptual framework for a new type of multi-stakeholders co-operative in which members are 1) individuals or communities seeking funding for the expansion of their human capabilities along with 2) other funding members and 3) human capabilities enhancement services providers. Governance rules follow the operational logic of a co-op and the management structure of a cultural commons. An innovation is the creation of human capabilities equity shares sold by the co-op to funding members. These shares are only tradable under strict guidelines between (old and new) members. We argue that this design is superior from an ethical and efficiency standpoint to other existing solutions that attempt to market human ‘capital’