The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism

摘要

The sharing economy (or the gig economy as I call it) is quite prevalent. In this new economic framework, we turn our cars into a ridesharing service (e.g., Uber, Lyft), walk our pets while not home (e.g., Wag), or rent out our homes' spare bedrooms to strangers (e.g., AirBnB). In this new economic arrangement, we are essentially providing a range of services to strangers in exchange for money. In The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism, Arun Sundararajan explores this new sharing economy that is based on the exchange between two people via an app or other technological platforms. The author attempts to explain the origins as well as implications of this new way of working and how the 'asset-light' generation's political economy is shaped via sharing between two people.