Some things our economy discards aren't waste objects or toxic substances. They're buildings. Businesses. And the people who ran them.

In 2003, a group of laid-off workers broke a single padlock, slipped into an abandoned five-star hotel in Buenos Aires, and reopened it themselves — no owners, no bosses. They ran the 22-story Hotel Bauen as a worker cooperative for nearly two decades. Everyone rotated through every job, from the front desk to the trash tunnels beneath the lobby. Everyone was paid the same.

Our guide to this story is ethnographer Dr. Katherine Sobering, who didn't just study the Bauen — she worked there, rotating through departments and drinking more yerba mate than any person should. Her book, The People's Hotel, calls it an "equality project": a deliberate, imperfect attempt to build a fairer workplace from  ...