Adam Smith And Marx Case Study

Theory in Action: How Adam Smith and Marx & Engels understand UberX business model
Uber, a smartphone application connecting Uber drivers and customers directly, enables customers to request an Uber cab to pick them up on site by simply tapping on their screen. Recently, Uber Company is undergoing waves of protests from drivers of UberX, a subdivision service of Uber in which drivers use their own vehicles. Drivers contend that they are earning much less than the company claims. This paper will first examine Adam Smith’s theory of the division of labor in the successful business model of UberX, and then apply Marx & Engels’s perspective to the wealth gap between the company and its drivers. My argument is that the mode of operation of UberX challenges Smith’s idea of extensive division of labor leading to …show more content…
The reason for this customer favor is not so much a general preference of the new technology as the fact that UberX is actually more efficient than taxies in the way of picking up clients. The superiority lies in the very fact that UberX cars are not sent or controlled by the company, but set off from drivers’ instantaneous locations, therefore allowing a wider dispersion of available cars. This feature allows a customer to call an UberX in a less busy neighborhood at where it usually takes much more time for a taxi to arrive. In summary, in the case of UberX, less division of labor is carried on than that of regulated Taxi companies, yet reality proves that UberX is more efficient and productive than taxi companies. This situation challenges Adam Smith’s idea of more division of labor leading to more productivity, and implies that tailoring to the specific demand of the market, in this case being the customers’ need for immediate service in remote neighborhoods, is a factor other than the amount of division of labor that influences industry’s