Significant changes have occurred in the means of production since the time Marx wrote about class and capitalism. A subset of these changes involves the development of the sharing economy, a group of apps and websites which serve as a platform for individuals to contract services directly from one another. This may seem like either an emerging sphere of communist exchange within the capitalist economy, with individuals providing goods to one another without the mediation of the extractive capitalist class, or a simple continuation of established class inequities. I instead contend that the rise of the sharing economy constitutes a radical intensification centralization of ownership by the bourgeoisie which will heighten the interior tensions
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As with the property-owning proletariat, these contractors do not sell their labor in fixed increments to capitalists but for a duration of their own choosing. Capitalists cannot extract increase profits by either lengthening the working day, which Marx called absolute surplus value, or by increasing the productivity of the contractors through technological improvements to the means of production, or relative surplus value. Instead, the bourgeoisie must extract surplus value from the contractors of the sharing economy in a new way. As discussed already, ownership of the property used in generating profits is not the defining boundary between classes. Rather, the criteria for being part of the bourgeoisie in the sharing economy is ownership of the platforms on which individuals contract their services to one another. Surplus value is extracted as a premium for access to the platforms, or marketplaces, which coordinate the buying and selling of services. Labor is still formally free, as it must be in a capitalist economy, as individuals are by no means compelled to sell their labor on any of these platforms. However, the bourgeoisie have come to own the marketplace for labor itself, so that whatever choice to sell her labor an individual makes occurs under the conditions set by capitalist market ownership. The capitalists therefore can extract …show more content…
There are four distinct mechanisms operating in the sharing economy which increase the political capacity of the proletariat and make revolution more likely. The first is that the sharing economy makes the social aspect of production highly apparent as members of the proletariat are exchanging their labor directly with one another rather than value being “stored up” in commodities and therefore obscured by commodity fetishism. When laborers exchange their labor directly with one another, even as surplus value is being extracted from them, they are more likely to recognize that they are mutually subordinated by the bourgeoisie and class consciousness resultingly becomes stronger. Secondly, the property hierarchy that the property-owning proletariat exist within makes the extent of their exploitation clear to them, so they are more inclined to revolutionary measures as capitalist means of material improvement are obviously unattainable. Thirdly, the new form of surplus value extraction operating at the point of entry in the labor market intensifies the material deprivation of the proletariat, again making them more inclined to revolutionary measures. Finally, the combined trend of the middle class being transformed into the property-owning
As with the property-owning proletariat, these contractors do not sell their labor in fixed increments to capitalists but for a duration of their own choosing. Capitalists cannot extract increase profits by either lengthening the working day, which Marx called absolute surplus value, or by increasing the productivity of the contractors through technological improvements to the means of production, or relative surplus value. Instead, the bourgeoisie must extract surplus value from the contractors of the sharing economy in a new way. As discussed already, ownership of the property used in generating profits is not the defining boundary between classes. Rather, the criteria for being part of the bourgeoisie in the sharing economy is ownership of the platforms on which individuals contract their services to one another. Surplus value is extracted as a premium for access to the platforms, or marketplaces, which coordinate the buying and selling of services. Labor is still formally free, as it must be in a capitalist economy, as individuals are by no means compelled to sell their labor on any of these platforms. However, the bourgeoisie have come to own the marketplace for labor itself, so that whatever choice to sell her labor an individual makes occurs under the conditions set by capitalist market ownership. The capitalists therefore can extract …show more content…
There are four distinct mechanisms operating in the sharing economy which increase the political capacity of the proletariat and make revolution more likely. The first is that the sharing economy makes the social aspect of production highly apparent as members of the proletariat are exchanging their labor directly with one another rather than value being “stored up” in commodities and therefore obscured by commodity fetishism. When laborers exchange their labor directly with one another, even as surplus value is being extracted from them, they are more likely to recognize that they are mutually subordinated by the bourgeoisie and class consciousness resultingly becomes stronger. Secondly, the property hierarchy that the property-owning proletariat exist within makes the extent of their exploitation clear to them, so they are more inclined to revolutionary measures as capitalist means of material improvement are obviously unattainable. Thirdly, the new form of surplus value extraction operating at the point of entry in the labor market intensifies the material deprivation of the proletariat, again making them more inclined to revolutionary measures. Finally, the combined trend of the middle class being transformed into the property-owning