Moving beyond a “Sharing Economy” (that doesn’t share)
Just think back for a minute: What was the last thing you “liked” on a social media site? What was the last thing you bought online? What made you click on it? One friend might post an article we feel worthy of sharing. Or we read all the pros and cons from various people who tried the product we were thinking of buying and feel risk diminish with each positive review. More and more, our actions are based on input we get via social media fueled by the Sharing Economy. The basis for this sharing relies upon peer-to-peer connection and feedback to build trust. This inherent trust heightens our capacity to ride with unknown people and rent our empty bedrooms with a felt-sense of security.
The Sharing Economy has been motivated by more than a simple desire to share – mobile apps streamline the movement of goods and services by connecting buyers and sellers with increasing speed and decreasing hassle. And this is on top of the general desire for sustainability that sharing offers... It is not hard to understand why this movement is growing.
Nonetheless, it has come at a cost. Unfortunately, we are learning that social media can be used against our best interests. Consumers are only beginning to recognize how our personal “intellectual property” can be harvested and monetized by corporate and even nefarious interests. The often-unnoticed downside of the “Sharing Economy” is that there are definite winners and losers, such as displaced taxi drivers, hotel staff and retail employees. And the benefits (like healthcare coverage, consistency of income, etc.) of the new opportunities rarely match the more secure benefits of the jobs being outsourced in the Uberized world.
In many if not most cases, the economic pie does not get bigger, it is merely sliced differently as it depends upon playing the old zero-sum game of win-lose competition. What if more for me doesn’t really have to be less for you?
The use and misuse of synergy
In essence, synergy is based on the possibility of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. We all know the adage about workhorses being able to pull 1000lbs apiece, but together they can pull over 3000lbs – much more than the 2000lbs limit one might expect. Synergy has a beautiful role to play in nature, showing up in the mutualism or symbiosis of bees and flowers, insects and fungi, etc. Thankfully, Nature has had millennia to get the balance right allowing win- win sustainability.
Alas, synergy, too, can have a downside if the equation is unbalanced. The business proposition of synergy has promised the ability to “do more with less” – an obvious boon for employers. Workers, on the other hand, are often asked to “do more” as a move to increase business efficiency without any added gain coming to the person actually doing the work. Productivity increases, but often at a negative, unsustainable cost to the workers themselves. (Even the workhorses will collapse if they are expected to do the pulling too often without adequate rest and care.) We all know far too many instances of over-worked staff at hospitals or restaurants where something must give: either the patients and consumers and/or the staff pay a horrible price when being asked to make due with less.
Enter the possibility of collaborative synergy
Nature seems to find a way to balance both sides of the equation so that symbiosis works for each participant. Perhaps we humans can learn from this. Any gains made through synergy can be shared. The economy can expand – the whole pie getting bigger – if we move towards shared sustainable prosperity. It may seem improbable, but it is possible to design an economy that shares income and non-income gains across the board.
Even before the Covid crisis, discussions about Universal Basic Income (UBI) were becoming more commonplace due to growing economic concerns related to the precipitous fall-off of jobs as widely predicted due to increasing robotics and AI. Now, when more than half of the U.S. population is without a job, it is clear we need some better economic ideas to meet the degree of suffering happening on an unconscionable level. Old adages about the need for taking “personal
responsibility” cannot honestly apply when there is no opportunity to make a living wage.
It is clear we need to rethink what type of economy we want—one where “winner takes all” or one built upon collaborative synergy that taps our human creativity to create a world that works for all. A “Sharing Economy” only truly makes sense when it is indeed shared.
“We are in the process of realising that humanity, as a whole, is a planetary super-organism, a sentient swarm constantly altering and transforming the ecology that sustains us. Confronting the mega-crises that threaten all life on earth, we will either die off or we will transition from domination and aggression to co-operation and sharing.” (Daniel Pinchbeck)