[LUM#2] Towards the uberization of society?

[LUM Magazine] - Published on May 10, 2016 in Science-Society

Digital technology is changing your daily life. But perhaps not in the way you imagined. Welcome to the world of the collaborative economy.

17h00. In a few minutes, it will be time to leave the office. But your working day is far from over. Around the corner, an alert on your smartphone informs you that two high-school students are waiting for you at the next traffic light for an express carpool, organized on the fly via a geolocation platform. Back home, you check your AirBnB account: your daughter's room, on vacation abroad, has been booked for the next night. 20h30. Before collapsing into your month-rented sofa, you check one last time the details of your morning round, which will take you on your way to work to three of your neighbors seduced by the boeuf bourguignon simmering quietly in your kitchen.

Free sharing and business sense

Driven by the explosion of the mobile Internet, the spread of digital technology is paving the way for new forms of inter-individual relations. A fundamentally flexible society is taking shape, made up of hybrid citizens who are both consumers and producers, employees and self-employed workers. The symbol of this new order is Uber. In just a few years, this Silicon Valley start-up has become the standard-bearer for these new giants, skilfully combining the ideology of free sharing with a formidable business sense. Having established its position in the chauffeur-private hire market, Uber now aims to extend the principle to the whole galaxy of services. Uber's business? To anticipate and map needs, and turn everyone into a potential customer or employee. More than just a service, it's a model for society, to the point that some people no longer hesitate to speak of a veritable "Uberization".

Professor at the Faculty of Economics and keen observer of the emergence of this so-called collaborative economy, Michel Garrabé urges us to be wary of a catch-all term behind which we tend to lump two models at opposite ends of the spectrum: "On the one hand, we need to distinguish between a truly collaborative, non-market economy, such as Wikipedia, conceived as a place where people organize themselves to create a common good, and on the other, companies in the classic market economy, such as Uber or Airbnb, which have shareholders and aim to maximize their profits," analyzes this specialist in the social economy.

Nomadic and horizontal

In the wake of Uber, Airbnb and France's BlaBlaCar, there are countless start-ups riding the wave of a nomadic, horizontal economy, tending to substitute the notion of use for that of ownership. From healthcare to transport, from housing to banking services, no sector seems set to be spared. A revolution that is not without its share of resistance: unfair competition, some say, in the image of the cab drivers' revolt against Uber, the risk of a rise in self-employment against a backdrop of widespread casualization, others warn... On the side of the players in the collaborative economy, there is no shortage of good-faith arguments: Optimization of goods and reduction of ecological costs, as in the case of shared cars, creation of value in saturated markets such as tourist accommodation in Paris... Above all, the collaborative economy would enable everyone to offer themselves a complementary activity, in a context marked by mass unemployment and erosion of purchasing power.

New deal

There remains the particularly sensitive question of the status of workers in an ecosystem that is still poorly defined. For Paul-Henri Antonmattei, the rise of Uber and its ilk is merely the manifestation of a fundamental trend, which makes it essential to rethink a legislative framework that is now outdated: "Labor law was built on a single model, that of the factory. Unity of time, unity of place, unity of action, strong employer power... But this is no longer the model for the ^21st century". According to this specialist in labor law, who was a member of the Combrexelle commission tasked by the government with considering labor law reform, the way out is to develop new instruments such as company-level collective bargaining. " A solution that would make the rules more adaptable to the diversity of companies, profiles and career paths," he explains. Is the Labor Code ready for the closet? "Of course, the law has a role to play, and we need to maintain a common legal basis, but it is impossible today to respond with a single, general, impersonal and permanent standard. In search of the famous "flexicurity", a delicate balance between employee protection and labor market fluidity. " A real economic and social new deal, and a formidable challenge," sums up the law professor.

Towards "flexisolidarity"?

For Michel Garrabé, the dangers of Uberization are very real, particularly for those who decide to make it their main mode of activity: "we see people working 10 hours a day for less than the minimum wage" notes the economist. An opinion shared by Paul-Henri Antonmattei: "the Uber system cannot become a model for society, because it remains a back-up system, a makeshift economy. We certainly can't expect a young person to work for 45 years in this way...". Other problems remain unresolved, such as the taxation of companies that are quick to relocate their domestic profits to low-tax countries. " We're still in a pre-institutional situation on these issues, but setting up a regulatory mechanism is essential," confirms Michel Garrabé. The future of the collaborative economy has yet to be invented. And it could hold a few surprises in store. In his book "The New Zero Marginal Cost Society", published in 2014, American economist Jeremy Rifkin imagines an alternative path: that of workers federating within cooperatives to develop their own matchmaking platforms, contributing to a truly equitable redistribution of profits. Or when technology and the market economy make Karl Marx's dream come true.

Key words : Economy, LUM#2, LUM Magazine, Company