Global Compact International Yearbook 2016

Sharing
Has Been Hijacked
The “sharing economy” is today’s buzzword for Silicon Valley’s most recent
batch of billion-dollar companies. So ring the headlines: $ 51 billion valuation
for Uber; Chinese ride-hailing business Didi Kuaidi raising $ 4.42 billion; Airbnb
valuation $ 10+ billion. In the last three years, the world has embraced this idea
of the sharing economy. Who would have thought that a 23-year-old part-time
student tooling around in her Prius would disrupt the transportation industry?
Or that renting out your spare bedroom with the Star Wars sheets could make
you part of the largest hotel network in the world?
By Lily Cole and Adam Werbach
Is it just us or is there something a bit awkward about
marrying “sharing” with “billion dollars”? Unless you are
sharing a billion dollars, which would be rather cool. In
reality, it is millions of people “sharing” to produce a handful
of billionaires. Riddled with contradiction, it brings to mind a
pseudo-communist dictatorship with a well-groomed leader.
The word “share” comes from the Old English word scearu,
related to sceran (“to cut”) and is recorded in the late 16th
century as having meant “to divide one’s own and give part
to others.” Note the word “give” in there. The Latin origin for
“give” is muni and is found in words such as communication
and community: We share our words; we share in communities.
Sharing has been an important part of humanity’s mutual
ability to distribute resources and sustain relationships since
the time of fire and caves. We share with our families, we share
with our friends, and in some places we still share with our
neighbors. Sharing creates community, social cohesion, and
the identity of the group. Real sharing thus is in the realm of
giving and was never a transactional endeavor.
Therefore, sharing does not seem to be the most fitting description
for technical platforms that enable users to pay to
use one another’s underutilized resources, be it homes or
cars. “Rent” might be a better word. “Rent” in the mid-15th
century meant “to rent out property, grant possession and
enjoyment of in exchange for a consideration paid.” Although
modern rental platforms offer enormous value – enabling
trust between strangers and a partial deconstruction of hierarchical
economies on the peer-to-peer level (albeit with the
same macro-ownership structures) – they do not reflect the
sentiment of sharing that has defined communities as communities
for thousands of years.
Well, yes. We believe so. And not because we are not fans of
rental platforms – we are – but in the miasma of lumping
everything together as the “sharing economy,” there is the
threat of distorting and confusing both the meaning of sharing
and the very real and silent sharing economy that sits like a
backdrop to our reality.
So what is the real sharing economy? It includes libraries and
buses, roads and parks, power systems and water supplies,
courts and rummage sales, charity shops and bulletin boards,
community gardens and universities. This is not just about mobile
apps. We estimate the entire sharing economy represents
well over $ 15 trillion in assets. To put things in perspective,
the headline-grabbing, venture-backed “sharing economy” is
worth about $ 130 billion. That is less than 1 percent of the
broader sharing economy. To allow the “sharing economy” to
be understood as Uber and Airbnb would be to understand
the “music economy” to be Taylor Swift and Adele.
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Global Compact International Yearbook 2016