tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-748201379147327978.post2847962999497791467..comments2023-09-29T03:35:13.694-07:00Comments on Royal Holloway MA Marketing & MA Consumption, Culture & Marketing: Alan Bradshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15565941596605941758noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-748201379147327978.post-69839533552538642952015-09-21T20:02:52.974-07:002015-09-21T20:02:52.974-07:00Alan Bradshaw has provided a wonderful lucid summa...Alan Bradshaw has provided a wonderful lucid summary of Paul Mason's influential book released in the summer of 2015, and also shown us the potential related newer dimensions of post-capitalism that are being explored; including in the important work that scholars such as Alan Bradshaw, Detlev Zwick and Adam Arvidsson are doing. <br /><br />I want to point out some disturbing aspects of the class of information technology innovations that attract fancy labels like "disruption" and "sharing economy". Uber and AirBnB are prime examples of these. The claim is that these innovations disrupt moribund and non-innovative markets (taxi fleets, hotel chains) via technology and bring about an efflorescence of pro-consumer innovations that really delight: affordable cars at our doorsteps via tapping an app; and convenient rooms and apartments anywhere in the world. The convenience aspects and affordability aspects, from the consumer perspective, largely ring true. But these are achieved by the use of underpaid and overworked contractual services of Uber drivers and AirBnB apartment and home owners. These folks, to eke out extra income in today's tough economic times, forgo the decent wages and benefits that organized taxi and limo drivers and hotel workers (including managers) enjoy. Instead, these so-called quasi-entrepreneurs (the Uber drivers, and apartment owners) turn into "chief, cook and bottle-washer; all rolled into one". These contractual workers, euphemistically dubbed as entrepreneurs, put in twice or thrice the efforts of similarly-tasked organized sector workers; at lower hourly pay rates, and with no health or other employment benefits. They also deploy their own assets (cars, apartments) for which they -- unlike the big asset-owning capitalists -- receive no or very low returns.<br /><br />Of course, for Venture Capitalists and Financial Wizards of New York and London, these disruptive so-called "innovators" bring in the wafting sweet smell of mega-money. Uber is valued at over $50 billion, which is more than the valuation of the venerable Sony with 132000 well-paid and benefits-endowed employees. The new innovation formula is simple: make money for smart Finanzkapital whiz-operatives by providing attractive-to-consumer services while decimating the established well-paid employment base of the "staid old-guard companies". <br /><br />If post-capitalism is merely the destruction of what has sometimes been dubbed the "labor aristocracy" via the use of overworked-underpaid contract workers, then we need to rethink harder about how to transcend the system that is steadily (and now rapidly) concentrating wealth in the hands of 1/100th of the top 1-percent.<br /><br />Nikhilesh Dholakia<br /><br />Rhode Island, USA - Sep. 21, 2015Nik Dholakiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09246937594453269684noreply@blogger.com