Building “Next Generation” Democratic Workplaces to Reduce Inequality and Empower Workers: Evidence and Policy Implications from Buffalo-Niagara

Abstract

[Excerpt] Within the current political economic system, prevailing cultural norms and institutional infrastructure have forged a business climate that rewards self-interest, growth, and profit-maximization while essentially punishing “costly” actions that enhance the public good at the expense of the private bottom line. As such, entities that exhibit all of the NGE features listed above are extremely rare. And they are under constant threat of being swept away by competitive economic forces where they do exist. This report explores strategies for changing this reality—both by building on existing institutions that work to make the economy more democratic and equitable in the here and now, and by designing and implementing new tools and mechanisms to allow new NGEs to emerge, and thrive, in a new economy for the “next generation.”