The sharing economy: a short introduction to its political evolution

http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/sharing-economy-short-introduction-its-political-evolution?

by Adam Parsons
21 January 2014

Can the sharing economy movement address the root causes of the world’s
converging crises? Unless the sharing of resources is promoted in relation
to human rights and concerns for equity, democracy, social justice and
sustainability, then such claims are without substantiation – although
there are many hopeful signs that the conversation is slowly moving in the
right direction.


In recent years, the concept and practice of sharing resources is fast
becoming a mainstream phenomenon across North America, Western Europe and
other world regions. The internet is awash with articles and websites that
celebrate the vast potential of sharing human and physical assets, in
everything from cars and bicycles to housing, workplaces, food, household
items, and even time or expertise. According to most general definitions
that are widely available online, the sharing economy leverages
information technology to empower individuals or organisations to
distribute, share and re-use excess capacity in goods and services. The
business icons of the new sharing economy include the likes of Airbnb,
Zipcar, Lyft, Taskrabbit and Poshmark, although hundreds of other
for-profit as well as non-profit organisations are associated with this
burgeoning movement that is predicated, in one way or another, on the
age-old principle of sharing.

As the sharing economy receives increasing attention from the media, a
debate is beginning to emerge around its overall importance and future
direction. There is no doubt that the emergent paradigm of sharing
resources is set to expand and further flourish in coming years,
especially in the face of continuing economic recession, government
austerity and environmental concerns. As a result of the concerted
advocacy work and mobilisation of sharing groups in the US, fifteen city
mayors have now signed the Shareable Cities Resolution in which they
officially recognise the importance of economic sharing for both the
public and private sectors. Seoul in South Korea has also adopted a
city-funded project called Sharing City in which it plans to expand its
‘sharing infrastructure’, promote existing sharing enterprises and
incubate sharing economy start-ups as a partial solution to problems in
housing, transportation, job creation and community cohesion. Furthermore,
Medellin in Colombia is embracing transport-sharing schemes and
reimagining the use of its shared public spaces, while Ecuador is the
first country in the world to commit itself to becoming a ‘shared
knowledge’-based society, under an official strategy named ‘buen saber’.

Many proponents of the sharing economy therefore have great hopes for a
future based on sharing as the new modus operandi. Almost everyone
recognises that drastic change is needed in the wake of a collapsed
economy and an overstretched planet, and the old idea of the American
dream – in which a culture that promotes excessive consumerism and
commercialisation leads us to see the 'good life' as the 'goods life', as
described by the psychologist Tim Kasser - is no longer tenable in a world
of rising affluence among possibly 9.6 billion people by 2050. Hence more
and more people are rejecting the materialistic attitudes that defined
recent decades, and are gradually shifting towards a different way of
living that is based on connectedness and sharing rather than ownership
and conspicuous consumption. ‘Sharing more and owning less’ is the ethic
that underlies a discernible change in attitudes among affluent society
that is being led by today’s young, tech-savvy generation known as
Generation Y or the Millennials.

However, many entrepreneurial sharing pioneers also profess a big picture
vision of what sharing can achieve in relation to the world’s most
pressing issues, such as population growth, environmental degradation and
food security. As Ryan Gourley of A2Share posits, for example, a network
of cities that embrace the sharing economy could mount up into a Sharing
Regions Network, then Sharing Nations, and finally a Sharing World: “A
globally networked sharing economy would be a whole new paradigm, a
game-changer for humanity and the planet”. Neal Gorenflo, the co-founder
and publisher of Shareable, also argues that peer-to-peer collaboration
can form the basis of a new social contract, with an extensive sharing
movement acting as the catalyst for systemic changes that can address the
root causes of both poverty and climate change. Or to quote the words of
Benita Matofska, founder of The People Who Share, we are going to have to
"share to survive" if we want to face up to a sustainable future. In such
a light, it behoves us all to investigate the potential of sharing to
effect a social and economic transformation that is sufficient to meet the
grave challenges of the 21st century.

Two sides of a debate on sharing

There is no doubt that sharing resources can contribute to the greater
good in a number of ways, from economic as well as environmental and
social perspectives. A number of studies show the environmental benefits
that are common to many sharing schemes, such as the resource efficiency
and potential energy savings that could result from car sharing and bike
sharing in cities. Almost all forms of localised sharing are economical,
and can lead to significant cost savings or earnings for individuals and
enterprises. In terms of subjective well-being and social impacts, common
experience demonstrates how sharing can also help us to feel connected to
neighbours or co-workers, and even build community and make us feel
happier.

Few could disagree on these beneficial aspects of sharing resources within
communities or across municipalities, but some controversy surrounds the
broader vision of how the sharing economy movement can contribute to a
fair and sustainable world. For many advocates of the burgeoning trend
towards economic sharing in modern cities, it is about much more than
couch-surfing, car sharing or tool libraries, and holds the potential to
disrupt the individualist and materialistic assumptions of neoliberal
capitalism. For example, Juliet Schor in her book Plenitude perceives that
a new economics based on sharing could be an antidote to the
hyper-individualised, hyper-consumer culture of today, and could help
rebuild the social ties that have been lost through market culture. Annie
Leonard of the Story of Stuff project, in her latest short video on how to
move society in an environmentally sustainable and just direction, also
considers sharing as a key ‘game changing’ solution that could help to
transform the basic goals of the economy.

Many other proponents see the sharing economy as a path towards achieving
widespread prosperity within the earth’s natural limits, and an essential
first step on the road to more localised economies and egalitarian
societies. But far from everyone perceives that participating in the
sharing economy, at least in its existing form and praxis, is a ‘political
act’ that can realistically challenge consumption-driven economics and the
culture of individualism – a question that is raised (although not yet
comprehensively answered) in a valuable think piece from Friends of the
Earth, as discussed further below. Various commentators argue that the
proliferation of new business ventures under the umbrella of sharing are
nothing more than “supply and demand continuing its perpetual adjustment
to new technologies and fresh opportunities”, and that the concept of the
sharing economy is being co-opted by purely commercial interests – a
debate that was given impetus when the car sharing pioneers, Zipcar, were
bought up by the established rental firm Avis.

Recently, Slate magazine’s business and economics correspondent
controversially reiterated the observation that making money from new
modes of consumption is not really ‘sharing’ per se, asserting that the
sharing economy is therefore a “dumb term” that “deserves to die”. Other
journalists have criticised the superficial treatment that the sharing
economy typically receives from financial pundits and tech reporters,
especially the claims that small business start-ups based on monetised
forms of sharing are a solution to the jobs crisis – regardless of drastic
cutbacks in welfare and public services, unprecedented rates of income
inequality, and the dangerous rise of the precariat. The author Evgeny
Morozov, writing an op-ed in the Financial Times, has gone as far as
saying that the sharing economy is having a pernicious effect on equality
and basic working conditions, in that it is fully compliant with market
logic, is far from valuing human relationships over profit, and is even
amplifying the worst excesses of the dominant economic model. In the
context of the erosion of full-time employment, the assault on trade
unions and the disappearance of healthcare and insurance benefits, he
argues that the sharing economy is accelerating the transformation of
workers into “always-on self-employed entrepreneurs who must think like
brands”, leading him to dub it “neoliberalism on steroids”.

Problems of definition

Although it is impossible to reconcile these polarised views, part of the
problem in assessing the true potential of economic sharing is one of
vagueness in definition and wide differences in understanding. The
conventional interpretation of the sharing economy is at present focused
on its financial and commercial aspects, with continuous news reports
proclaiming its rapidly growing market size and potential as a
“co-commerce revolution”. Rachel Botsman, a leading entrepreneurial
thinker on the potential of collaboration and sharing through digital
technologies to change our lives, has attempted to clarify what the
sharing economy actually is in order to prevent further confusion over the
different terms in general use. In her latest typology, she notes how the
term ‘sharing economy’ is often muddled with other new ideas and is in
fact a subset of 'collaborative consumption' within the entire
'collaborative economy' movement, and has a rather restricted meaning in
terms of "sharing underutilized assets from spaces to skills to stuff for
monetary or non-monetary benefits" [see slide 9 of the presentation]. This
interpretation of changing consumer behaviours and lifestyles revolves
around the “maximum utilization of assets through efficient models of
redistribution and shared access”, which isn’t necessarily predicated on
an ethic of ‘sharing’ by any strict definition.

Other interpretations of the sharing economy are far broader and less
constrained by capitalistic assumptions, as demonstrated in the Friends of
the Earth briefing paper on Sharing Cities written by Professor Julian
Agyeman et al. In their estimation, what’s missing from most of these
current definitions and categorisations of economic sharing is a
consideration of “the communal, collective production that characterises
the collective commons”. A broadened ‘sharing spectrum’ that they propose
therefore not only focuses on goods and services within the mainstream
economy (which is almost always considered in relation to affluent,
middle-class lifestyles), but also includes the non-material or intangible
aspects of sharing such as well-being and capability [see page 6 of the
brief]. From this wider perspective, they assert that the cutting edge of
the sharing economy is often not commercial and includes informal
behaviours like the unpaid care, support and nurturing that we provide for
one another, as well as the shared use of infrastructure and shared public
services.

This sheds a new light on governments as the “ultimate level of sharing”,
and suggests that the history of the welfare state in Europe and other
forms of social protection is, in fact, also integral to the evolution of
shared resources in cities and within different countries. Yet an
understanding of sharing from this more holistic viewpoint doesn’t have to
be limited to the state provision of healthcare, education, and other
public services. As Agyeman et al elucidate, cooperatives of all kinds
(from worker to housing to retailer and consumer co-ops) also offer
alternative models for shared service provision and a different
perspective on economic sharing, one in which equity and collective
ownership is prioritised. Access to natural common resources such as air
and water can also be understood in terms of sharing, which may then
prioritise the common good of all people over commercial or private
interests and market mechanisms. This would include controversial issues
of land ownership and land use, raising questions over how best to share
land and urban space more equitably – such as through community land
trusts, or through new policies and incentives such as land value
taxation.

The politics of sharing

Furthermore, Agyeman et al argue that an understanding of sharing in
relation to the collective commons gives rise to explicitly political
questions concerning the shared public realm and participatory democracy.
This is central to the many countercultural movements of recent years
(such as the Occupy movement and Middle East protests since 2011, and the
Taksim Gezi Park protests in 2013) that have reclaimed public space to
symbolically challenge unjust power dynamics and the increasing trend
toward privatisation that is central to neoliberal hegemony. Sharing is
also directly related to the functioning of a healthy democracy, the
authors reason, in that a vibrant sharing economy (when interpreted in
this light) can counter the political apathy that characterises modern
consumer society. By reinforcing values of community and collaboration
over the individualism and consumerism that defines our present-day
cultures and identities, they argue that participation in sharing could
ultimately be reflected in the political domain. They also argue that a
shared public realm is essential for the expression of participatory
democracy and the development of a good society, not least as this
provides a necessary venue for popular debate and public reasoning that
can influence political decisions. Indeed the “emerging shareability
paradigm”, as they describe it, is said to reflect the basic tenets of the
Right to the City (RTTC) - an international urban movement that fights for
democracy, justice and sustainability in cities and mobilises against the
privatisation of common goods and public spaces.

The intention in briefly outlining some of these differing interpretations
of sharing is to demonstrate how considerations of politics, justice,
ethics and sustainability are slowly being allied with the sharing economy
concept. A paramount example is the Friends of the Earth briefing paper
outlined above, which was written as part of FOEI’s Big Ideas to Change
the World series on cities that promoted sharing as “a political force to
be reckoned with” and a “call to action for environmentalists”. Yet many
further examples could also be mentioned, such as the New Economics
Foundation’s ‘Manifesto for the New Materialism’ which promotes the
old-fashioned ethic of sharing as part of a new way of living to replace
the collapsed model of debt-fuelled overconsumption. There are also signs
that many influential proponents of the sharing economy - as generally
understood today in terms of new economic models driven by peer-to-peer
technology that enable access to rather than ownership of resources - are
beginning to query the commercial direction that the movement is taking,
and are instead promoting more politicised forms of social change that are
not merely based on micro-enterprise or the monetisation/branding of
high-tech innovations.

Janelle Orsi, a California-based ‘sharing lawyer’ and author of The
Sharing Solution, is particularly inspirational in this regard; for her,
the sharing economy encompasses such a broad range of activities that it
is hard to define, although she suggests that all its activities are tied
together in how they harness the existing resources of a community and
grow its wealth. This is in contradistinction to the mainstream economy
that mostly generates wealth for people outside of people’s communities,
and inherently generates extreme inequalities and ecological destruction –
which Orsi contends that the sharing economy can help reverse. The problem
she recognises is that the so-called sharing economy we usually hear about
in the media is built upon a business-as-usual foundation, which is
privately owned and often funded by venture capital (as is the case with
Airbnb, Lyft, Zipcar, Taskrabbit, etc.) As a result, the same business
structures that created the economic problems of today are buying up new
sharing economy companies and turning them into ever larger, more
centralised enterprises that are not concerned about people’s well-being,
community cohesion, local economic diversity, sustainable job creation and
so on (not to mention the risk of re-creating stock valuation bubbles that
overshadowed the earlier generation of dot.com enterprises). The only way
to ensure that new sharing economy companies fulfil their potential to
create economic empowerment for users and their communities, Orsi argues,
is through cooperative conversion – and she makes a compelling case for
the democratic, non-exploitative, redistributive and truly ‘sharing’
potential of worker and consumer cooperatives in all their guises.

Sharing as a path to systemic change

There are important reasons to query which direction this emerging
movement for sharing will take in the years ahead. As prominent supporters
of the sharing economy recognise, like Janelle Orsi and Juliet Schor, it
offers both opportunities and reasons for optimism as well as pitfalls and
some serious concerns. On the one hand, it reflects a growing shift in our
values and social identities as ‘citizens vs consumers’, and is helping us
to rethink notions of ownership and prosperity in a world of finite
resources, scandalous waste and massive wealth disparities. Perhaps its
many proponents are right, and the sharing economy represents the first
step towards transitioning away from the over-consumptive,
materially-intense and hoarding lifestyles of North American, Western
European and other rich societies. Perhaps sharing really is fast becoming
a counter-cultural movement that can help us to value relationships more
than things, and offer us the possibility of re-imagining politics and
constructing a more participative democracy, which could ultimately pose a
challenge to the global capitalist/consumerist model of development that
is built on private interests and debt at the cost of shared interests and
true wealth.

On the other hand, critics are right to point out that the sharing economy
in its present form is hardly a threat to existing power structures or a
movement that represents the kind of radical changes we need to make the
world a better place. Far from reorienting the economy towards greater
equity and a better quality of life, as proposed by writers such as
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, Tim Jackson, Herman Daly and John
Cobb, it is arguable that most forms of sharing via peer-to-peer networks
are at risk of being subverted by conventional business practices. There
is a perverse irony in trying to imagine the logical conclusion of these
trends: new models of collaborative consumption and co-production that are
co-opted by private interests and venture capitalists, and increasingly
geared towards affluent middle-class types or so-called bourgeois
bohemians (the ‘bobos’), to the exclusion of those on low incomes and
therefore to the detriment of a more equal society. Or new sharing
technology platforms that enable governments and corporations to
collaborate in pursuing more intrusive controls over and greater
surveillance of citizens. Or new social relationships based on sharing in
the context of increasingly privatised and enclosed public spaces, such as
gated communities within which private facilities and resources are
shared.

This is by no means an inevitable outcome, but what is clear from this
brief analysis is that the commercialisation and depoliticisation of
economic sharing poses risks and contradictions that call into question
its potential to transform society for the benefit of everyone. Unless the
sharing of resources is promoted in relation to human rights and concerns
for equity, democracy, social justice and sound environmental stewardship,
then the various claims that sharing is a new paradigm that can address
the world’s interrelated crises is indeed empty rhetoric or utopian
thinking without any substantiation. Sharing our skills through
Hackerspaces, our unused stuff through GoodShuffle or a community potluck
through mealshare is, in and of itself, a generally positive phenomenon
that deserves to be enjoyed and fully participated in, but let’s not
pretend that car shares, clothes swaps, co-housing, shared vacation homes
and so on are going to seriously address economic and climate chaos,
unjust power dynamics or inequitable wealth distribution.

Sharing from the local to the global

If we look at sharing through the lens of just sustainability, however, as
civil society organisations and others are now beginning to do, then the
true possibilities of sharing resources within and among the world’s
nations are vast and all-encompassing: to enhance equity, rebuild
community, improve well-being, democratise national and global governance,
defend and promote the global commons, even to point the way towards a
more cooperative international framework to replace the present stage of
competitive neoliberal globalisation. We are not there yet, of course, and
the popular understanding of economic sharing today is clearly focused on
the more personal forms of giving and exchange among individuals or
through online business ventures, which is mainly for the benefit of
high-income groups in the world’s most economically advanced nations. But
the fact that this conversation is now being broadened to include the role
of governments in sharing public infrastructure, political power and
economic resources within countries is a hopeful indication that the
emerging sharing movement is slowly moving in the right direction.

Already, questions are being raised as to what sharing resources means for
the poorest people in the developing world, and how a revival of economic
sharing in the richest countries can be spread globally as a solution to
converging crises. It may not be long until the idea of economic sharing
on a planetary scale - driven by an awareness of impending ecological
catastrophe, life-threatening extremes of inequality, and escalating
conflict over natural resources - is the subject of every dinner party and
kitchen table conversation.
.- See more at:
http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/sharing-economy-short-introduction-its-political-evolution?dm_i=M4P,24W05,B08RK7,7PNWP,1#sthash.tAAvCeh5.dpuf

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