The Sharing Economy: Capitalism's Last Stand?

Is the sharing economy the first part of a New Economic Paradigm or is it capitalism’s latest trick to survive at all costs? Arthur De Grave shares his views.

- De Grave

Access over ownership. After decades of excessive consumerism, this prospect sounded revolutionary. At first. Now that the sharing economy has become mainstream, more critical voices are appearing. So, what will it be? Empowerment or exploitation? A revolution or business as usual?

Before getting to the heart of the matter, I’d like to set something straight: the collaborative economy and sharing economy (or collaborative consumption) are not the same concept. The sharing economy is just one part of the collaborative economy, as is distributed production, P2P (peer to-peer) finance and the open source and knowledge movements.

What these phenomena have in common is their reliance on horizontal networks and distributed power within communities, as opposed to the competition between hierarchical organisations that has dominated economic life since the second industrial revolution. For a number of reasons, I believe this old economic framework is rapidly becoming obsolete. A new economic paradigm is needed, and this could be the collaborative economy.

But still, there are several contradictions in the collaborative economy that are currently becoming most obvious in the sharing economy as it goes mainstream. Let’s take a closer look at what these are. And guess what? They have something to do with inequality.

Empowerment in an era of growing inequalities

An economy where people value access over ownership? It sounds — literally — revolutionary. Karl Marx would be thrilled. Indeed, if you look at it closely, it is the exact opposite of capitalism, a system that encourages people to accumulate more wealth and goods than they could possibly use and “put it to work for them”.