Hugo Guyader and Julian Agyeman: Analysis: The sharing economy is often lauded with offering a number of opportunities, from access to cheaper and more convenient consumption alternatives to new revenue streams for on-demand services. Next to the economic benefits are promises of sustainability and social inclusion. Unfortunately, not everybody stands equal in this emerging economy. Several academic papers have started to document evidence of discrimination in the sharing economy. Here we focus on racial discrimination.

In 2015, Harvard Business School researchers designed field experiments: They created fictitious Airbnb profiles to interact with real hosts and observed that requests from guests with African-American sounding names were 16 percent less likely to be accepted than identical guests with white-sounding names. Previously in 2012, they also established that black hosts in New York City had a harder time at finding guests such as they priced their rentals 12 percent cheaper than hosts who were not black. More recently, the analysis of Airbnb listings in the U.S. and Europe (2014-2015) showed that hosts from minority groups charged 3.2 percent less for comparable listings within the same neighborhood.

Another recent study of Airbnb listings in the U.S. (2015-2016) revealed that participation as a host is lower in areas with higher concentrations of minority residents: That is, a typical white neighborhood would have twice more listings on the platform (four listings, at $120 per night, and 96 percent rating) compared with a non-white neighborhood (two listings, at $107 per night, and 94 percent rating). That is, not everybody has equal opportunities to participate as a host on Airbnb.

A similar experimental study (i.e. fictitious Airbnb profiles) conducted in 2016-2017, showed that requests from guests with African-American names (vs. white names) were 19 percent less likely to be accepted. So despite Airbnb’s efforts  — community commitment, removing host pictures in the initial search — these studies document that racial discrimination has always been and is still a critical issue today. There’s even a study specifically focused on Airbnb’s change of layout last year, comparing daily bookings and price data before and after the implementation of the “anonymity” policy, but it only shows a negligible increase in bookings for black hosts, and only in New York City — not in Los Angeles, New Orleans, or Philadelphia.

The issue applies to other sectors in the sharing economy. For instance, a study of Uber and Lyft ride-hailing companies indicated a similar pattern of discrimination: Drivers canceled the hailed rides twice more for passengers with African-American sounding names. In the context of freelancing marketplaces like Taskrabbit and Fiverr, a database study observed that black workers received significantly less ratings, as well as lower ratings, compared with other workers with similar attributes. So we know that both sides of sharing economy platforms — peer-consumers and peer-providers of services — suffer from racial discrimination.

Interestingly, the most recent of the Airbnb experimental studies shows that reputation and social trust play a critical role in how discrimination plays out: Guests with only one peer-review vs. no review from a previous Airbnb experience are considered similar, whether they have white or African-American-sounding names. Similarly, another recent study with real Airbnb users showed that profiles with higher reputation score are rated as more trustworthy, regardless of the other demographic information. The problem is that to get a reputation, people need to get to use the services in the first place. This is a vicious circle.

To date, sharing economy research on racial discrimination seems to be more focused on Airbnb, probably due to the media exposure brought by #AirbnbWhileBlack on Twitter, or Noirbnb.com and Innclusive.com (and more recently, Muzbnb.com). It is tempting to call for further research, outside the Airbnb-Uber-Lyft nexus in order to enable sound policy recommendations, but what is “enough” in terms of evidence? Future studies should investigate different geographical contexts because racism is not only a phenomenon in the U.S. but is a global issue. For instance, in 2016, a Swedish radio program sent 200 requests to hosts in the country’s three largest cities from a black person’s guest account: 42 percent were rejected because of unavailability, but when these hosts were re-contacted from a white person’s account, a third of these listings were suddenly available and the requests accepted. Since then, Airbnb has changed its policy so that hosts cannot rent a period that has previously been denied to other guests.

Racial discrimination is a structural issue that permeates society as a whole and is not limited to sharing economy markets. Thus the context in which sharing economy markets are embedded is biased so platforms’ efforts at self-regulating will fail. What short-term mechanisms can be put in place to thwart societal biases and make the sharing economy opportunities available to everyone and not only to the privileged white upper and middle classes? Digital companies have demonstrated their agility in implementing change faster and more easily than traditional brick-and-mortar companies. One can also note that current papers investigate racial discrimination in the sharing economy from a business perspective. Further research should be intersectional, using Critical Race Theory (CRT) in conceptualizing the role of power, institutions, norms, and emerging economic models when it comes to racial discrimination.

Other forms of discrimination in the sharing economy include gender and LGBT-based discrimination. In the study on freelancing mentioned earlier, women were shown to receive 10 percent fewer reviews than men with equivalent work experience. Another Airbnb study in Dublin, Ireland, in 2016 found that LGBT guests were approximately 20-30 percent less likely to be accepted than other guests: hosts basically ignore their requests, without actually rejecting them. To provide a coherent, evidence-based critique of discrimination in the sharing economy, more research is necessary on discrimination for disability, age, religion, and other factors. Having a wide-ranging evidence base across a range of discriminatory activity might speed up the kind of change we know the sharing economy is capable of.

Header image of Airbnb building, by Open Grid Scheduler/Grid Engine via Flickr

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Building a ‘human economy’

Co-ops have a key part to play if the world is to move to a “human economy” says Oxfam after it revealed that eight people are now as wealthy as the poorest half of the world’s population. The charity’s report on global inequality said eight men share $426bn (£350bn) between them.

Tax evasion and widening pay differentials are to blame. Oxfam called for a “human economy” which works “for the 99%”. This would include environmental sustainability, gender equality and more worker-owned businesses.

Enrich Sahan, head of the charity’s private sector team, said: “Co-operatives fit in with our work with social enterprise and Fairtrade”. “It’s part of our DNA, for instance when we helped set up Cafédirect, to be supporting enterprises around the world that are co-owned.”

He added: “We have been supporting enterprises in Nepal, Ethiopia and Rwanda, for example,” said Mr Sahan.

“It’s a big part of our approach to inequality… Profits aren’t going to line the pockets of billionaires, they go to the workers.”

How can co-operative women be bold for change?

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day was “Be Bold For Change” – but how did the co-op movement taking up the baton? We spoke to leading woman co-operators to learn how co-ops can be bold.

Ruth FitzJohn, president of the Midcounties Co-operative, said “Bang on about it: Let’s be bold and persistent in getting the repeated message out there. We do not have gender equality. This is not fair. This is not efficient. This is wrong. It is our job to do something about.”

Dr Chiyoge B Sifa of the International Co-operative Alliance

 

Dr. Chiyoge B. Sifa the regional director of the International Co-operative Alliance Africa, said “Be clear about what need to change in our lives and surroundings. Be clear about the change we want to see and what our share in it. Act confidently as agents and advocates of the change we what to see in the World. Be courageous in confronting challenges on the road to change. Change may be resisted and roadblocks put to hamper our quest for a better world. Determination is key to any successful ending. Winners are not quitters and quitters are not winners.”

Claire McCarthy, general secretary of the Co-operative Party, said “The history of the co-operative movement shows that women with a passion for change, can’t sit on the sidelines. Mary Barbour, Margaret Bondfield and Joyce Butler were just the kind of strong women, restless for change, that Donald Trump would disapprove of. If you don’t like the increasingly reactionary, intolerant, and frankly unco-operative nature of our political discourse in Britain, then get involved and be a part of changing it.”

Platform co-ops

“Inequality is one of the most important problems facing our society,” said Trebor Scholz, a scholar-activist who first coined the phrase ‘platform co-operative’ – a digital organisation owned and managed by an online member community. He added: “With the decline of the power of unions and the growth of unbridled capitalism and ecological degradation, we have seen extreme intensification and acceleration of inequality.”

Co-ops aren’t the sole solution, but he believes they are one of them, alongside peer-to-peer networking, new roles for unions and technologists and a commitment to commons open source. These are types of collaboration that see people working together to “respond to the failure seen over the last
40 years”.

Using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

Alyson Slater, chief network engagement officer at Global Reporting Initiative, said “The SDGs provide us with a globally agreed set of goals and targets for creating a better world. They are generally being embraced by the business community, and governments have made it clear that we cannot reach most of these goals without business engagement.

“Co-ops are in a unique position when it comes to the SDGs – they have  designed their business models to try to have a positive impact on some of the toughest goals – things like inequality, zero hunger, and life on land. If co-ops can demonstrate their contributions to these goals they may very well inspire other businesses to scale up their action too.”

Filmmaker Ken Loach at the Co-op Ways Forward conference:

“Co-ops embody values of common ownership, equal access, equality, that’s what we have to stress.”

Amelia Cargo, volunteer chair of the Group’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender network, LGBT+ Respect:

“The Co-op Group has a really good reputation of being LGBT-friendly. We have been in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index since 2005 and are the only retailer to have given evidence for equal marriage at Parliament. I was drawn to the Co-op’s commitment to local communities and its reputation as one of the most LGBT-friendly employers.”

• More from 2017 at 2017 In Review

Photo by CasparGirl

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Everywhere we see the atmosphere of grievance. Racists, sexists, xenophobes and homophobes, they say, are right to feel affronted at attacks on their bigotry. And even if the criticism is valid, marginalized people should still have tried to be less confrontational in order to avoid alienating all the working class white people whose support we needed to defeat fascism. For real: a Greek anarchist literally asked me last spring if standing up for principle on gay rights was worth the increased risk of losing an election to a fascist. Freddie DeBoer is pushing this line of crap now, although he uses weasel words like “liberals with academic vocabularies” because he won’t come right out and say black and LGBT people should be quiet so working class whites won’t be offended.

But the cultural Right’s sense of grievance is utter nonsense. For people who complain so much about the “politics of victimhood,” they play the victim card better than anybody else.

Long ago, as a child, I can remember hearing old folks complain that “this country’s been going to pot ever since all these people started screaming about their ‘rights.’” And that’s still the attitude of those who talk about “taking our country back.”

Whatever they think of marginalized people demanding their rights, they sure aren’t modest about the rights they claim for themselves. They think they have the right to decide what languages people speak, what religious garb they wear, who they marry, and what bathrooms they go to. And when they talk about PC as an assault on their freedom, what they’re referring to is their freedom to prohibit other people from doing things they disapprove of. You can’t even say “Happy Holidays” to them without them whining about a “War on Christmas.” For all their mockery of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings,” they’re the most emotionally fragile and easily offended people in existence.

They actually talk about “Thought Police,” and sidle up to other white males with “I guess we’re not allowed to say this any more, but…”

If you compare their complaints to the complaints of the marginalized people they criticize, they’re completely asymmetrical. Women in hijabs have to worry about being verbally and physically assaulted when they leave their homes. Unarmed black people have to worry about being shot in the back and having drop guns planted on their bodies, or being killed in “nickel rides” by sadistic cops. Gay and trans people have to worry about being stomped to death.

So if you think you’re living in a totalitarian nightmare because you have to worry about somebody giving you a dirty look for saying the n-word, or because you’re expected not to throw a tantrum when you see a woman in a hijab or two men kissing, I’ve got the world’s smallest violin. And if you think that’s a sufficient grievance to justify voting for a crypto-fascist just to “teach ’em a lesson,” then yes, you are deplorable.

On top of all this, treating the concerns of marginalized people as secondary for the sake of anti-fascist unity is really stupid from a purely strategic point of view.  The fight for basic human rights for justice by people of color, women, LGBT people and immigrants isn’t a ruling class strategy to divide the producing classes. Rosa Parks didn’t refuse to give up her seat, the people at Stonewall didn’t decide to stand up and fight, because they’d been paid by elites to do so. But racism, sexism and homophobia themselves really are ruling class weapons to divide us against each other. It isn’t marginalized people fighting for their dignity, their very existence, who are being “divisive” and playing into the hands of the capitalist ruling class. The divisive ones, the dupes of the ruling class, are the people who would vote for a fascist just out of spite for having to coexist with people they disapprove of.

Besides, throwing simply marginalized people under the bus by de-prioritizing their issues won’t appease the bigots. They won’t be satisfied by anything but our active collaboration in oppressing them. So long as they know people they disapprove of even exist, they’ll feel victimized by the fact. As my Twitter friend @lbourgie says:

Over the years there have been several studies and polls that show skewed perception of majorities toward minorities…. Women speaking 15% and being perceived as talking equally as much. Male hiring managers falsely thinking they employ an equal number of women. People in the US and Europe believing there are exponentially more Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent in their countries. Straight people who think they’re being bombarded with gay propaganda if 2% of people on TV are LGBT. Christians who sincerely believe they’re unfairly penalized and the most disadvantaged group in the US. Knowing all this, why would you embrace a gut emotional reaction that minority group politics — “ID politics” — has drowned out real issues?

That Niemoller poem — “first they came for the socialists…” — isn’t just a cliche. When you throw marginalized people under the bus, they won’t be there when you need them. That’s the significance of the Wobbly slogan “an injury to one is an injury to all.”

Abandoning marginalized people is also strategically stupid because it was marginalized people themselves, alienated by Clinton’s neoliberalism, who were some of the most likely voters to stay home and vote third party. A lot of ardent Clinton supporters liked to frame the left-wing opposition to HRC as “privileged white males.” But the people doing this framing were themselves disproportionately the upper-middle-class white professional types who are the demographic core of establishment liberalism. To the extent that they adhered to any kind of racial or gender politics, it was the outmoded 1970s model of one-dimensional “identity politics” that focused exclusively on putting women and People of Color into the existing power structures, and ignoring class issues, rather than dismantling the power structures themselves.

This ideology is almost the direct opposite of the adhered to by the so-called “SJWs” the cultural Right hates. The left-wing opposition to Clinton is full of People of Color, women, LGBT people (including transgender women excluded by so many second-wave feminists), sex workers, and destitute people from the working poor. Clinton’s biggest upper-middle class liberal worshippers — Amanda Marcotte, Peter Daou, Sady Doyle, Clara Jeffery and their ilk — were likely to insult or block such marginalized critics on social media, and continue to insist that they didn’t exist, that only right-wingers and “Berniebros” had a problem with Hillary.

African-American voter turnout was actually quite depressed compared to 2012 — perhaps because they just couldn’t get very enthusiastic about a candidate who endorsed her husband’s crime bill and welfare “reform” and talked about “super-predators,” and whose campaign put out all kinds of racist dog-whistles about Obama in 2008.

And Trump’s victory hardly reflects a surge of white racism in response to “political correctness run amok.” Trump got two million fewer voters than Romney in 2012. Clinton was rejected because she pursued an economic and foreign policy two microns to the left of the Republican mainstream, and nobody wanted to stand in line 90 minutes for a garbage candidate like her. Period.

So don’t blame marginalized people for Clinton.

The society we’re aiming for — that we should be aiming for, anyway — is one in which human beings are treated as ends in themselves, and not as means to an end. As the saying goes, the means are the end in progress. You don’t build a free and just society by treating some people as more expendable than others.

Photo by Olivier H

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