The ideas presented in this selection of op-ed articles by researchers within the Workable Futures Initiative are provocations meant to inspire insights to help you navigate the new landscape of labor economics and non-traditional livelihoods.
Op-Ed
Marina Gorbis: Universal Basic Assets—A Better Society for All?
Marina Gorbis | July 24, 2018
In this podcast, Marina Gorbis discusses the concept of universal basic assets (UBA), a framework developed at IFTF in response to the technology-driven reshaping of jobs and work and rising levels of economic inequality. Why do we need UBA now, and what would a UBA plan look like?
Listen on Commonwealth Club
To fix income inequality, we need more than UBI—we need Universal Basic Assets
Marina Gorbis | October 11, 2017
While the wages we are paid are vital to the success and comfort of our lives, economic returns have been going increasingly to investors rather than wage earners. The real affliction America is suffering from isn’t income inequality: It’s asset inequality.
Read more on Quartz
Money, assets are tightly controlled in the hands of the few; it’s time to revisit that philosophy
Samuel Greengard | November 11, 2016 It’s apparent that digital technology is impacting the world in numerous ways. However, one of the most profound and visible signs is how it’s disrupting organizations and leading to entirely new business and work models. Consider…
Building Workable Futures: IFTF Fellows prototype Positive Platforms for tomorrow’s on-demand economy
Marina Gorbis | August 30, 2017
What happens after designers, engineers, policymakers, and labor organizers all around the world gather to hack away on platform prototypes, design frameworks, financial tools, data management systems to tease out the hidden problems inherent in many platform models? IFTF’s Positive Platforms Fellows set out to develop four very different solutions.
Read more on Medium
There Could Be a Real Solution to Our Broken Economy. It’s Called ‘Universal Basic Assets.’
Marina Gorbis | April 4, 2017
In this moment of massive wealth inequality, we urgently need to develop a new model for society to deliver both social and economic equity. The answer may be in the concept of Universal Basic Assets (UBA), which in my definition is a core, basic set of resources that every person is entitled to, from housing and healthcare to education and financial security.
Read more on Medium
Making the Gig Economy Work for Everyone: Ideas and Prototypes at IFTF’s Positive Platform Design Jam
Mark Frauenfelder | December 15, 2016
The platform economy can have something for everyone. People needing goods or services get what they want, people who have the time and skills to provide the goods and services get paid, and people who built and invested in the platforms that connect customers with providers get a cut of the action. Win-win-win, right?
Read more on Medium
Why There’s No Such Thing As A Skills Gap
Marina Gorbis | September 30, 2016
Paul Krugman has called our widespread belief in the existence of a severe “skills gap” a zombie idea—an idea that should have been killed by evidence but refuses to die. Hardly a day goes by when a candidate for a political office does not propose investments in training and re-training as a panacea for stagnating wages and growing income inequality.
Read more on GE Reports
Prosperity by Design
Marina Gorbis | September 19, 2016
Automation has tremendous potential to create prosperity. With sufficient demand, automation facilitates the increases in productivity and efficiency that are fundamental to driving economic growth. But it also increases the risk of human dislocation. This is a familiar historical pattern.
Read more on Democracy Journal
Thinking about the Future of Work to Make Better Decisions about Learning Today
By looking at historical patterns and identifying signals of change around us today, we can better prepare for the transformations occurring in both work and learning.
Read more on Educase Review
Design It Like Our Livelihoods Depend on It: 8 Principles for Creating On-Demand Platforms for Better Work Futures
Marina Gorbis and Devin Fidler | April 4, 2016
The design of “Positive Platforms” — platforms that not only maximize profits for their owners but also provide dignified and sustainable livelihoods for those who work on them, plus enrich society as a whole — is one of the most urgent tasks we are facing today.
Read more on Medium
Designing a New Operating System for Work
Marina Gorbis | December 9, 2015
Today’s emerging platforms and ways of working may seem new and alien, but let’s remember that the way we work, the way we organize ourselves to create value, has gone through equally radical transformation in the past.
Read more on Medium
What We Need to Know About On-Demand Work Platforms Before Regulating Them
Devin Fidler | August 20, 2015
As we fast approach the 2016 election cycle, the future of on-demand work platforms is at a crossroads, with Uber, TaskRabbit and other market leaders facing increased scrutiny and skepticism from regulators and political leaders.
Read more on Tech Crunch
It’s Not About Uber: Beyond the W-2 vs. 1099 Debate
Marina Gorbis | June 19, 2015
The recent ruling by the California Labor Commission that an Uber driver should be classified as a W-2 employee, not an independent contractor, highlights the strange new landscape we are in. They force us to confront the challenges of transition to the new reality of work.
Read more on IFTF Future Now
Here’s how management can be replaced by software
Devin Fidler | April 21, 2015
Fortune 500 executives spend a fair amount of time thinking about how automation and the Internet are changing the nature of employment, but they rarely wonder how technology will have an impact much closer to home: on their own jobs.
Read more on HBR
IFTF Workable Futures Initiative 
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