On Wed, 9 Dec 2015 20:54:10 +0000
Zenaan Harkness <[email protected]> wrote:
> Perhaps this is worth discussion.
>
> Are AirBnB, Uber and Homejoy examples of political anarchism
> (degenerate or otherwise)?
AiBnB and Uber are centralized middlemen - though the fact that
uber goes against the privileges of the taxi mafia is an
example of a freer market at work - at least in some limited
fashion.
On the other hand the 'market' is wholly owned by the middleman
and the potential for abuse (assuming airbnb is not already the
NSA) is...big.
I suppose the anarchist version would exist as a p2p network,
for starters. Haven't the cypherpunks already coded a bunch of
those decentralized, censorship resistant, anonymous, bla bla
bla systems?
Anyway, I think couchsurfing is closer to anarchism than uber
or airbnb (though the platform is just as centralized).
>
> Are we seeing the ultimate in self responsibility (I would say self
> responsibility is a good thing)?
>
> How might we embrace such self responsibility, whilst also manifesting
> collective empathy/ shared 'responsibility' (perhaps there's a better
> term here)?
>
> Is Lauren Weinstein with his indenting style actually Juan in
> disguise?
Well...this is something I wouldn't say :
" companies are stripping away worker protections, pushing down
wages, and flouting government regulations"
While I do think that airbnb and the like are more
sophisticated forms of corporatism (not a free market), I
wouldn't suggest that they are the only bad guys in town and
that 'progressive' statists are the good guys who protect
'workers' with 'regulations'.
> Or is it in actual fact the other way around?
> Z
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: "PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility) Announcement List"
> <[email protected]>
> Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2015 09:48:40 -0800
> Subject: [ PFIR ] The "Sharing Economy" Is the Problem
> To: [email protected]
>
> The "Sharing Economy" Is the Problem
>
> http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33720-the-sharing-economy-is-the-problem
>
> It's unfortunate then that these companies and the
> misnamed "sharing economy" are really just fronts for
> millionaires and billionaires to opportunistically ride off
> the backs of everyday people, while also exacerbating many economic
> inequalities. Avi Asher-Schapiro explains the truth in
> Jacobin: The premise is seductive in its simplicity: people have
> skills, and customers want services. Silicon Valley plays matchmaker,
> churning out apps that pair workers with work. Now, anyone can
> rent out an apartment with AirBnB, become a cabbie through
> Uber, or clean houses using Homejoy. But under the guise of
> innovation and progress, companies are stripping away worker
> protections, pushing down wages, and flouting government
> regulations. At its core, the sharing economy is a scheme to
> shift risk from companies to workers, discourage labor
> organizing, and ensure that capitalists can reap huge profits
> with low fixed costs.
