Geoffrey Upton UC Berkeley Department of Political Science
Of Commercialization and Moral Law: Airbnb and the History and Theory of Hospitality
“Remember that many of your guests will be far from home, so try to anticipate what they’ll want, what they’ll find confusing, and how you can offer help and guidance.” — Airbnb hospitality standards1
I. Introduction: From Berlin to San Francisco
In 2015 Germany announced it would accept as many as 800,000 asylum seekers
fleeing conflict in Syria and other areas of the Middle East, and that it had allocated $6.7 billion to handle the influx — a stark contrast with other nations’ more tepid response to the crisis. Britain said it would take in 20,000 Syrian refugees within five years, while France pledged to admit 24,000 asylum seekers over two years.2 Germany’s open door policy toward refugees was justified as an ethical obligation to offer hospitality to those in need, leading to German Chancellor Angela Merkel “being hailed as an angel of mercy and her country as a paragon of virtue for flinging open the doors to a massive influx of refugees.”3
Merkel’s open door policy has not been universally well-received; in fact it is partially blamed for electoral setbacks suffered by her Christian Democratic Union party in early
2016 elections in three German states. Nonetheless, Merkel vowed to press on with her open door policy.4
1 https://www.airbnb.com/hospitality. 2 Henry Chu, “Germany's open-door policy in migrant crisis casts nation in a new light,” The Los Angeles Times, Sept. 7, 2015 3 Chu, “Germany's open-door policy in migrant crisis casts nation in a new light.” 4 Orlando Crowcroft, “Angela Merkel: Will Germany oust the Iron Chancellor over her 'open door' for refugees?,” International Business Times, March 16, 2016.