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Negotiating the Sharing Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Democracy in the Era of Neoliberal Capitalism By Geoffrey C. Upton A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Wendy L. Brown, Chair Professor Sarah Song Professor Robin L. Einhorn Fall 2017 © Copyright by Geoffrey C. Upton 2017 All Rights Reserved Abstract Negotiating the Sharing Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Democracy in the Era of Neoliberal Capitalism by Geoffrey C. Upton Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Wendy L. Brown, Chair Since its emergence in 2008, the “sharing economy,” which includes such platform companies as Uber, Airbnb, and TaskRabbit among many others, has transformed entire industries and changed the lives of millions of workers, commuters, and tourists worldwide. It has also introduced new opportunities for and challenges to democracy. Foremost among the opportunities is the sharing economy’s potential to increase personal encounters between strangers in the semi-private, semi- commercial spaces it creates. Such encounters offer the possibility of enhanced mutual trust and understanding among citizens, each of which is critical to successful self-government in a pluralistic society. Yet the commercial sharing economy also threatens democracy, in three main ways: first, by requiring participants to rate and review, and thus engage in mutual surveillance of, each other; second, by creating new avenues for often hidden discrimination against others, circumventing existing anti-discrimination law, and third, by perpetuating a notion of the individual as a competitive, maximizing, economic being, even as the companies often couch their services in the language of sharing. This dissertation investigates these opportunities for and challenges to democracy, and considers the way in which the pressures and incentives of financial capitalism have caused the sharing economy to develop, over its first decade, in a manner that has exacerbated the challenges while diminishing the opportunities. !1 Negotiating the Sharing Economy: Challenges and Opportunities for Democracy in the Era of Neoliberal Capitalism CONTENTS Abstract .................................................................................................................................. 1 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. iv Introduction: Pinning Down and Opening Up the Sharing Economy ............................. v 1. The Sharing Economy’s First Decade ........................................................................ vi 2. On a Sharing Spectrum ............................................................................................... xii 3. The Economic, Social and Political Context: Neoliberalism and Financialization .... xv 4. Aims and Method........................................................................................................ xviii I. Sharing in the Wake of Financial Crisis: New Channels for Capital, New Avenues for Austerity ........................................................................................................................... 1 1. After the Financial Crisis: Austerity and the Sharing Economy ................................. 2 2. A Spare Room for Financial Capital .......................................................................... 8 3. Standardization Under the Sway of Venture Capital ................................................. 11 4. Abandoning the Peer, Embracing the Marketplace ................................................... 17 II. Win One for Yourself: Sharing Platforms and the Neoliberal Game of Life ............ 27 1. What Neoliberalism Thinks the Self Is, and Wants it To Be ...................................... 29 2. Don’t Stop Calculatin’: Maximizing the Self Through ‘Sharing’ ............................... 35 3. By Hook and By Crook: How the Sharing Economy Ensnares the Self .................... 39 4. The Challenges of Coming Together in the Sharing Economy .................................. 42 III. The Dark Side of Trust: Horizontal, Vertical, and Liquid Surveillance in the Sharing Economy ....................................................................................................... 49 1. Building Trust Through Ratings ................................................................................. 49 2. Scoring the Person: What Reputation Systems Are Really Doing ............................. 55 3. If You See Something, Say Something (But Only in a Rating or Review) ............... 63 4. Surveillance from Up Above ..................................................................................... 66 IV. Talking to Strangers in the Sharing Economy: The Promise and Perils of the Face-to-Face Encounter ....................................................................................................... 73 1. Levinas and the Encounter with the Other ................................................................. 75 2. Hospitality, Risk, and Reciprocity: The Problem of Stranger Danger ....................... 87 3. Commerce and the Encounter ..................................................................................... 91 4. Sites of the Encounter: The Agora and the Modern City............................................ 95 !i V. Anti-Discrimination Law in a Semi-Private Space: Sharing Platforms, Equality, and the Encounter with Diversity ....................................................................................... 100 1. Discrimination by Users of Sharing Economy Platforms .......................................... 101 2. Applying American Anti-Discrimination Law ........................................................... 106 3. Questioning American Anti-Discrimination Law ....................................................... 112 4. The Trade-Off Between Association and Equality ..................................................... 118 VI. Conclusion: Negotiating the Sharing Economy from Inside and Out: Small Steps to Revitalize Democracy and Temper the Ills of Neoliberalism .................. 123 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 131 !ii For my mother and grandmother !iii Acknowledgments This project would not have been begun or completed without the support, guidance, caring, and patience of Professor Wendy Brown. Its completion may well have been delayed by my lack of eagerness to leave her warm, welcoming, and (needless to say) intellectually stimulating orbit at UC Berkeley. Likewise, Professor Sarah Song has been a source of unending personal and intellectual assistance and inspiration, generously advising me as to my graduate school career even before I had applied to Berkeley, and continuing to do so for all the years since; her astute suggestions immeasurably improved this project. Professor Robin Einhorn was also of vital importance to this dissertation, providing incisive, critical comments that caused me to rethink my approach and to substantially improve both its content and style. A number of fellow graduate students at UC Berkeley have been steady friends and colleagues over the years, including Ali Bond, Adam Hill, Jack Jackson, and Ryan Phillips. In particular, I am tremendously grateful to Nina Hagel, whose constant encouragement and unending willingness to answer all of my questions about graduate school—including concerning all aspects of the dissertation writing and job search processes in recent months—was essential to the completion of this project and degree program. I am thankful for the support, financial and otherwise, of the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, and would especially like to recognize the staff in the department office, some of whom have been especially helpful over the years: Maria Castelli, Michelle Dylla, and Charlotte Merriwether most recently, and earlier, Suzan Nunes, Janet Newhall, and Andrea Rex. Thanks also to Professors Kinch Hoekstra, Shannon Stimson, Nadesan Permaul, and Eric Schickler for their assistance and advice; to the Berkeley Center for the Study of Value, the Metro New York Leaders’ Fellowship Fund, and UC Berkeley’s Graduate Division and Graduate Assembly for financial support; and to the many hard-working, spirited, and engaging Berkeley undergraduates I have been fortunate to have met and taught over the years. (As the saying goes, the kids are all right.) I am also very thankful for the consistent care and encouragement provided by Karen Harber, Nancy Kaplan, Jamie Moran, and Annie Hope. I would be remiss not to thank the many friends outside of Berkeley who have urged me on from near and far, with a combination of patience and well-meaning impatience (i.e., needling)—especially Tanya Barnes, Gary Chow, Michael Dang, Katie Gallagher, Tom Pyun, Boris Rapaport, Wendy Kai Sung, and, above all, Althea Wasow, whose words of encouragement (and morning phone calls) were critical to getting this project done. My family has also been steadfast in their support, including my father Elliott and stepmother Sally, my brother Jack, and my loving aunts, uncles, and cousins. My mother Helen and grandmother Edith would doubtless have been proudest of all