Socrates Schouten: More and more opinion leaders are mistaking a few big corporate platforms for the collaborative economy. We need a pro-active policy framework that bends the collaborative economy towards the public good.

Today the sharing, or collaborative, economy in which ordinary citizens swap products and co-create ideas and services, enjoys widespread attention. This enthusiasm not only comes from the citizens themselves, but also from businesses and governments. From these circles springs a dazzling stream of traditional policy reports and advice papers seeking to get a grip (quite literally) on the activities in the collaborative economy. As firms and governments have great influence on economic life, the angle they take on the sharing economy determines its future direction. That turns out to be ill-fated: the old economy is mapped onto, and smothers, the true potential of the collaborative economy.

By discussing two examples from the European policy context, I will explain why collaborative economy is misinterpreted on many levels. Let’s start with ‘An economic review of the collaborative economy’, a policy brief by the influential Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. In the text, three aspects stand out. First, the basic viewpoint of the Bruegel report is that collaborative economy initiatives fulfil market functions. Collaborative platforms, we read, ‘broker supply and demand’ and ‘increase economic efficiency’. The fast-growing collaborative platforms help meet ‘consumer preferences’ and ‘increase competition’. This free-market language is all over the report, while social ideas and incentives are hardly touched upon.

Secondly, Bruegel’s discussion of collaborative initiatives is heavily tilted towards the big corporate players. When demonstrating that Europe is ‘far behind’ on the collaborative economy compared to other continents, for example, Bruegel cites a number of a meagre 27 platforms – but with a combined worth of nearly two hundred billion dollars and boasting over 100,000 employees! Given the average value of $ 7 billion per platform, this must be the collaborative economy’s ‘1 percent’: the handful of top players owning nearly the whole ‘collaborative’ market. The other 99 percent are not in their view.

Thirdly, the report recurrently refers to the collaborative platforms as ‘intermediaries’. That is striking, because one of the intended merits of the sharing and collaboration movement was that of taking out the middle man (‘disintermediation’, in jargon). Of course, we know that the new mega-platforms are quite happy with their central, intermediate position. But it’s surprising how much they find allies in economic policy circles.

Collaborative? Or economy?

In fact, I wonder what’s collaborative about all of this. Bruegel’s collaborative economy amounts to a highly capitalist industry, a far cry from the “happy sharing, friends making” narrative so often heard in sharing economy circles. What we see here is a plain case of what Tomáš Sedláček calls ‘subject-object reversal’ in economics. We start with a genuine, heartfelt aim: an economy with ‘a sense of community, collective accountability and mutual benefit’ (I’m still citing the Bruegel paper here, actually). To get there, large digital platforms could be instrumental. However, the former is a messy target from a regulatory perspective, while the platforms are quite solid and good to analyse and administer.

So, next moment we find the platforms have become the collaborative economy. The corporations are what economists and policy makers bend their minds on and what are encouraged to thrive. Consequentially, the collaborative economy’s bigger social potential for economic life – the deep value brought to citizens and communities – is neglected and wasted.

Public good

The second document, the European Commission’s agenda for the Collaborative Economy, suffers from similar shortcomings. The Commission formally puts the attention where it ought to be: on the public interest, a.k.a the common good. The document maintains the official policy mantra that regulation should not impose more restrictions than is necessary to safeguard the public interest. That sounds beautiful, but results in a rather defensive strategy. When a new player, technology or disruptor enters the scene, regulators wait and see. Early ‘weak’ signals of dissatisfied citizens do not warrant a defence of the public interest. Only when negative impacts grow to unambiguous heights and the poo hits the fan, regulators spring to life. But having arrived at that point, their scope stops at rearguard action: patching up, limiting the harm done, frolicking for ‘case-by-case’ solutions. As a result, the public good is always one (big) step behind.

Collaborative economy policies have been staring too much at what’s coming out of the glass towers, and in the process forgot about the larger social sphere, where the magic actually happens.

So what do we need? We should develop a pro-active policy framework that bends the collaborative economy towards the public good. A framework that starts from the citizen, and allows civil servants to look for common benefit and make political value judgments. I’d like to kick off by suggesting two framework components:

1. What you give attention to, will grow. So let’s focus on the adjective in ‘collaborative economy’, instead of the noun. We have done enough of helping big companies make more profits. Now it’s time to shift gears. Invest in digital social innovation: the bottom-up generation of connective ideas and practices that generate sustainable value for all, instead of eroding the basis and enriching the few.
2. Let’s shake off the public’s cheerless self-image of being just the total number of residents in any corporation’s blast range. Today, ‘public’ is a rest category, an incoherent policy checklist. All too often the public interest is interpreted as merely consumers’ interest. But it’s the bread and butter of society, and a moving target at that. We should constantly make effort to redefine the public interest and let it determine, instead of receiving the blows of, technological developments. I therefore suggest the Commission, next to the ‘Digital Single Market’, launch the ‘Digital Single Public’: a forum and agenda to reinvent social values in the digitizing world. This Public will be ‘single’ in its connectedness and sympathy to the European spirit; but diverse and dynamic in its people, solutions and ideas.

At Waag Society, we are constantly looking for tools and interventions to widen the view on the collaborative economy, like our friends from FairBnB, who want to bring the community into the local tourism platforms, and keep the value there.

I hope you will join our mission to make the European public ‘great again’.

Images: cc Waag Society 2017

The post How to see the people in the collaborative economy appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Amsterdam. September 2-3, 2016

Peer Value: Advancing the Commons Collaborative Economy is a conference integrating conversations and plans of action for shaping and connecting the Commons on a global level.

Our final program is listed below,  please join us in Amsterdam!

The conference is organized along three tracks:

• Track 1: P2P: Inclusive Politics, Activism and Law for the Commons
• Track 2: Decentralized Tech and Beyond:Global Design,Local Production
• Track 3: From Platform to Open Cooperativism

We will explore questions such as:

• What are the conditions that encourage communities to work as peers, creating commons?
• What are the best practices communities can adopt to safeguard their resilience?
• Decentralization – why is it important, and how is it implemented and maintained?
• How can the working methodologies honed by well-established digital communities act as transitional guidelines for sustainable “material” manufacturing?
• What about social innovation and livelihoods – how does contributory and open accounting work with the systems of value creation found in CBPP?
• How can civil society participate in recommending policy proposals that support CBPP for governments at the local, regional, national – even global – levels?

Join your peers, add your voice and take part in the growing conversation about the Commons as an important, emerging collaborative social model.

Register here

SCHEDULE:

Day One: Friday 2/9/2016

8:30: Registration and Welcome coffee
9:00: Opening and Intro Day 1, Frank Kresin
9:30: Commons policy for collaborative economy & knowledge Plenary Session – Mayo Fuster, moderator. Steve Hill, Vasilis Niaros, Speakers.
9:30: Blockchain for the commons and Foundups – Amanda Jansen
10:30: Break
11:00: A Lab for the Urban Commons and the City as a Commons: LabGov AMS and the CO-Ams process. Debate – Moderator: Sophie Bloemen. Speakers: John Grin (UvA), Stan Majoor (HvA), Faiza Dadi (Gemeente Amsterdam), Christian Iaione (LabGov Bologna), Thomas de Groot (Deelraad Amsterdam West, Piraten Partij), Joachim Meerkerk (Pakhuis de Zwijger).
11:00: Online Participatory Cultures Plenary (90min), Q&A (20min) – Moderator: Frank Kresin. Speakers: Lisha Sterling, Craig Ambrose, Rachel O’Dwyer, Samer Hassan, Pablo Oranguren.
11:00: Design Global, Manufacture Local Plenary (90min), Q&A (20-30min)
13:00: Lunch
14:00: Is the EU only a problem or can it also be part of the solution?
Debate – Moderator: David Hammerstein. Speakers: Sophie Bloemen, Michel Bauwens, Carmen Lozano, Mayo Fuster, Melanie Dulong, Jaromil.
14:00: From Platform to Open Cooperativism.
Plenary – Moderator: Josef Davies Coates. Speakers: Jessica Gordon Nembhard , John Restakis, Alex Pazaitis, Douglas Rushkoff (VOIP), Trebor Scholz (VOIP).
14:00: A Lab for the Urban Commons and the City as a Commons: LabGov AMS and the CO-Ams process.
Presentations and panel
14:00: Design Global, Manufacture Local.
Plenary – Moderator: Michiel Schwarz. Speakers: Vasilis Niaros, Tiberius Brastaviceanu, Lisha Sterling.
15:30: Break
16:00: Policies and Law for the Commons. Presentation and panel – Moderator: Lisha Sterling. Speakers: Janelle Orsi (via VOIP), David Bollier.
16:00: Licensing for the Commons.
Plenary – Moderator: Vasilis Niaros. Speakers: Bruno Carballa, Baruch Gottlieb, Michel Bauwens.
16:00: A Lab for the Urban Commons and the City as a Commons: LabGov AMS and the CO-Ams process.
Workshop – Joachim Meerkerk
16:00: Empowering People: Renewable energy as a commons. Workshop
16:00: Workshop Pro commons policy & collaborative economy. Workshop – Moderator: Mayo Fuster.
16:00:  EU and the Commons: Proposals for European policy to promote the common. Workshop 2
17:10: Wrap up of Day 1, Frank Kresin
17:30: Closing drinks.

DAY 2: Saturday 3/9/2016

9:00: Registration and Welcome coffee
9:30: Welcome and Intro day 2, Frank Kresin
9:30: Sustainable Livelihoods and Alternative Financing Plenary – Moderator: Stacco Troncoso. Speakers: Sarah de Heusch, Carmen Lozano Bright, Lisha Sterling.
10:00: (Em)powering People: Renewable Energy as a Commons
Plenary. – Moderator: David Hammerstein. Speakers: Cecile Blanchet, David Bollier, Abdelhulheb Choco (tbc), Zuiderlicht (tbc).
11:00: Break
11:30: State Power and Commoning: Transcending a Problematic Relationship Plenary
11:30: Workshop (Em)powering People: Renewable Energy as a Commons. Workshop. – Host: David Hammerstein.
11:30: Meta Economic Networks. Plenary. – Moderator: Stacco Troncoso. Speakers: Dmytri Kleiner, George Dafermos, Genevieve Parkes, Stephanie Rearick.
13:00: Lunch
14:00: From Platform to Open Cooperativism. Plenary, – Moderator: Josef Davies Coates. Speakers: Donnie Maclurcan, Josef Davies Coates, Nathan Schneider (VOIP), Pat Conaty.
14:00: State Power and Commoning: Transcending a Problematic Relationship. Plenary. – Moderator: Alex Pazaitis. Speakers: David Bollier, Michel Bauwens, Jessica Gordon Nembhard, John Restakis, George Dafermos, Mayo Fuster.
14:00: State Power and Commoning: Transcending a Problematic Relationship. Q&A Lounge
15:30: Break
16:00: Introducing the European Commons Assembly. Plenary. – Moderator: Lisha Sterling. Speakers: Martin Kirk, Bayo Akomolafe, Hilary Wainwright.
16:00: Ditigal Democracy for the Commons by Oview App. Plenary. – Moderator: Amanda Jansen. Speakers: Coby Babani.
16:00: Sustainable Livelihoods.
17:10: Closing remarks. Plenary. – Speaker: Michel Bauwens.
17:50: Wrap up, Frank Kresin
18:00: Closing drinks

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