Sharing the liberal utopia. The case of Uber in France and the US

Katarzyna Gruszka and Andreas Novy

SRE-Disc from Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Abstract: This article takes the case of Uber, a global platform specialized in transport technologies, to reappraise the claims of the sharing economy. The case presents a chronology of the struggles over the regulation of these digital markets in the US and France, using Uber's self-description and web discourse for additional illustrative purposes. It exposes Uber's business model, the key driving actors and their strategies as well as multi-scalar counter movements. The analysis is framed from a Hayekian and a Polanyian perspective, and the potential of the sharing economy to go beyond market fundamentalism. The Polanyian utopia of sharing as more than market relations based on self-interest is mobilized for legitimizing the platform. The Hayekian utopia of a market society which transforms social relations of friendship and community service into market activities is describing actual development. Finally, Polanyian "counter movements" are described and their potentials are discussed.

Keywords: political economy; socio-economics; economic change; markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B55 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-pay and nep-tre
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wiw:wiwsre:sre-disc-2018_07

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