디지털시대 협동조합 법제의 미래방향: 협동조합의 정체성 강화와 조합원의 사업이용 관점에서

Abstract

This article predicts the future society based on the current trend and emerging signs from the perspective of the identity of cooperatives and the business use of its members and proposes the most desirable future of cooperative legislation. Judging from the emerging signs after digital transformation, future society can be predicted as a complex system, a hyper-connected society, an open society, a risk society, and a platform society. In a complex system, collective action is through the network and collective intelligence matter; in a hyper-connected society that will be accelerated by digital transformation, organizations that find and interpret deep data hidden inside humans will survive beyond big data. The more open society becomes, the more important democratic governance will be; at the same time, there will be more intolerance against the enemies of the open society. It is necessary to communicate with members and meet the step-by-step needs of safety, trust, and security that the risk society warns about. The platform society designs is a new business profit model through unformed data. Therefore, even in the future, the traditional cooperative philosophy or values that pursue solidarity, reciprocity economy, and common good through collective action, humanism, democratic governance, and mutual aid will become more necessary. Plus, ‘Platform cooperativism’ will become commonplace. It really helps to overcome big concerns about platform capitalism or data monopoly, which began in earnest after the 4th industrial revolution. Therefore, the purpose and essence of a cooperative, that is, the identity of a cooperative by members for members, and the characteristics of a patrons-owned firm (POF), are very important in the process of legislating future cooperative legislation. In particular, capital procurement, insurance, and financial functions, welfare business, and platform cooperativism in the cooperative legislation should be considered.