Sharing Property Sharing Labour: The Co-Production of Value in Platform Economies

Sally Zhu
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Sally Zhu: School of Law, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK

Laws, 2020, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: The recent meteoric rise of innovative companies in the sharing economy has divided commentators and regulators alike on the question of their socio-economic impact. Do these economic activities herald an equitable and sustainable alternative to existing practices, or are they simply expanding commercial exploitation into greater areas of life? This dichotomy overlooks how these economic activities constitute new assemblages of labour and property, and shape the flow of value amongst their participants. I propose a conceptual mechanism of ‘labour-service’, whereby labour and value flow through webs of material objects, as a way of examining how organic collaboration is first structured by the laws of property, and then by the dynamics of nascent platform economies. Tracing labour-service through the sharing economy renders a clearer view of the factors that drive collaboration and exploitation, and hopefully can contribute towards more efficacious regulatory measures and advance academic commentary on this emerging phenomenon.

Keywords: property; labour; value; sharing-economy; exploitation; collaborative-consumption (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E61 E62 F13 F42 F68 K0 K1 K2 K3 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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