The workers, consumers and universal members who will become the owners of the organisations formed by DGTB will benefit from the project, economically and socially. They will participate in an exciting ground-breaking social experiment that fundamentally changes the way we organise our economic activity, involving decisions about how we determine what products we produce, how we produce them and how the products are distributed.
The project is committed to so much more than the reduction of economic deprivation and inequality. In connecting production decisions with human needs, consumers, producers and others, benefit from the democratic input. Consumer participants gain input that can steer production decisions into the types and qualities of products or services, more in the direction of their requirements. Worker participants gain meaningful rewarding work, that is subject to their own democratic control. Universal members are able to influence decisions in ways that ensure more socially useful goods and services are provided, and negative externalities minimised. Overall, because people are more able to meet their own needs, their dependence on state services is reduced and their potential to contribute socially is increased. The fiscal benefits therefore extend beyond the range of the immediate participants and accrue to all taxpayers. 
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Cooperatives have a good record in reducing the negative, and increasing the positive, externalities that follow from business decisions. When compared with Capital Owned firms, they are less likely to be limited to the singular objective of profit maximisation and are more likely to achieve positive social outcomes such as reduced unemployment, better material reward for workers, subsidisation of pro social production and less harmful environmental impacts (United Nations, 2014; Novković, Prokopowicz & Stocki, 2012). Research for the OECD found that “the social economy plays a growing role in OECD countries in tackling the problems of socio-economic exclusion and poverty and in fostering active citizenship and solidarity together with democratic participation”; that it has the potential to contribute to sustainable development and more resilient and better performing economies; and that “social entrepreneurship is a key component of any strategy aimed at making our societies more entrepreneurial, innovative and competitive.” (Arzeni, 2007:4).
Donors benefit by finding a fitting legacy for the organisations that they have developed. Doners’ succession planning achieves the highest level of meaningfulness, because entrepreneurs have the satisfaction of knowing that their life’s work is being given to the best hands which can possibly receive the gift. The gift will be cared for by the best knowledge that consensual action is capable of producing and therefore the gift will benefit humanity to the greatest possible extent. Most importantly, this project is situated not only in changing the lives of its immediate participants but within the larger scale of developing organisations which can buttress the social organisation of democracy itself. The project focuses on developing the social architecture which extensive research has shown provides the basis of human happiness and fulfilment (Pink, 2010; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Deci, Connell & Ryan, 1989; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Deci, et al 2008) and indeed, provides the basis for human survival (Harari, 2016, 2018, 2022). |