April 5, 2011: Discussion Questions: Sharing and the New Collaborative Consumption

[Emilie Dubois]

Laurie Michaelis, “Commuity, reflexivity and sustainable consumption,”
in The Ecological Economics of Consumption, edited by Lucia A. Reisch
and Inge Røpke, (Cheltenham, UK: Egward Elgar), pp. 151-171. 207-232.
Nelson, Michelle R., Mark A. Rademacher, and Hye-Jin Paek. 2007.
Downshifting consumer = upshifting citizen? An examination of a local
freecycle community. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science 611 (1): 141–56.
Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, 2010, What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of
Collaborative Consumption, chs 4,6, pp. 67-93, 123-169. (New York:
Harper Business) Latitude Group, 2010, “The New Sharing Economy”

[Tom Laidley]

The novelty and value of the concept of collective ownership lies in its circumvention of the simple calculus of how to reduce overall rates of material consumption. Just as discussions of carbon dioxide emission reduction usually center upon either greater technology and efficiency, or the principles of austerity and sufficiency, the only real way to dramatically lessen the impact of material consumption is through enhanced technologies (no panacea to be sure), and lower levels of personal consumption (unpopular with many). Collective ownership at least partially addresses these concerns- it allows for abundance with relatively minor logistical strictures. More complicated will be the rampant ongoing gravitation toward individualism, especially in the U.S. Still, I see a difficult proposition here. There’s a reason we still read Durkheim, and among others, one is that (at least in my mind) his contentions about the evolution from mechanical to organic solidarity were spot-on, to say the absolute least. The problem is that a move toward collective ownership (especially of durable goods, home ownership, etc.) needs to be situated within this macro-context, and to me at least it begs for these more traditional social ties which allow for a stronger sense of community. To me this is not a bad thing per se, obviously (it’s difficult to critique community- you’d do better complaining about ice cream, puppies, and babies). Nevertheless, there are *lots* of good reasons why we have made that transition from traditional ties to the ones we exhibit now, and quite frankly, not all of the social conditions wrought by this rampant individualization are bad. No longer do we need to operate under the stultifying conditions of social, economic, cultural, and racial homogeneity. No longer do we need to express some common faith (nothing against anyone’s religion, but we all know the sometimes sordid history of what happens when we are compelled to organize around scripture, rather than choosing it for ourselves, and potentially rejecting it). No longer do we need to castigate out-groups based on these arbitrary distinctions that paradoxically solidified social ties and communities (sure, we still do this today, but I dare anyone to argue it wasn’t far worse even relatively recently in historical terms). I’m not suggesting building social cohesiveness requires these mechanisms for its formation. I’m just saying 1) it’s easier when they are there, and 2) that illustrates the difficulty of doing this goes beyond culture and politics.

[Hyemi]

This week’s articles deal with collaborative consumption as a new
rising mode of consumption. As demonstrated in this week’s articles, I
agree that collaborative consumption is a completely beneficial way to
reduce financial cost, to contribute to the protection of the
environment, and to escape from materialism instead of ownership.
Actually, collaborative consumption is not really new. Our ancestors
used to share. However, there are clear differences between our
ancestors and us. Today’s collaborative consumption is based on the
development of high-technology and the internet. Therefore, we do not
return to the past, but reach to a new age. There is some concern
about the new collaborative age.

Despite the good points above, I worry about the issues. One issue
regards the possibilities of reorganization of this kind of commune-
oriented transformation started from consumers themselves or local
business that grew into giant capitalists. Jeremy Rifkin’s "The Age of
Access: The New Culture of Hyper-Capitalism, Where All of Life is a
Paid-For Experience" shows the issues of collaborative consumption and
reminds me of this sort of problem. He predicts that selling products
could be replaced by selling service, experience, or culture in
contemporary society. His age of access means the acceleration of the
commercialization of all humans’ experiences. His claims still have
implications about the transitions into fully established
collaborative consumption. Even though collaborative consumption
provides many benefits to us in terms of our civic lives, if it is
subjected to capitalism, such as other co-ops, this seems to be no
better than the advent of the stronger governance of capitalism. Also,
there is a risky dichotomy between ”bad” individualism and ”good”
civicism. To be sure, civicism is a needed value for contemporary
people. However, the discourse eliciting strong connections to moral
judgment and individualism/civicism without enough explanation keeps
us from recognizing the merits or the demerits of both, respectively.
For example, we can envision self-realization in a context of
individualism despite the various ills derived from hyper-
individualism.

I was deeply excited to see a new vision that sheds light on daily
consumption as a critical transformation for our communal living .
Also, I would like to discuss these issues with my classmates.

[Margaret Lister]

I found the discussion of sharing as a culturally learned behavior particularly interesting. Though some cultures share much more than others (Aboriginal Austrailans vs. US citizens), the cultures who share the most are those for whom it is in their best interest economically. Sharing is something that we are all capable of and learn to do at a young age-- we have this foundation, but how can we structure society so that it is in our best interest to share? I feel like Americans are so focused on individual prosperity that communal prosperity is overlooked both in its own right and as a means to individual prosperity. 

I was also very interested in the discussion of idea-sharing, especially its relation to our previous social network discussion. Can these social networks be the basis for sharing-- the hubs of the social network would be important both in the creation and maintenance of the sharing organization. 

[Monique]

This week’s readings provided many examples of ways that groups of
people are reducing consumption and increasing both the efficiency and
utility of discrete material objects by sharing them rather than
purchasing them.

Nelson, Rademacher, and Paek found that the freecyclers in their
sample were motivated to participate in that online community for both
self-interest and environmental reasons. The authors conclude that
“The politicizing of consumption has transformed some consumers into
individuals who consciously consider the consequences of consumption
(p152)”. As noted by the authors, in what ways do practices based on
such a consciousness reflect a form of civic engagement in itself? On
a more technical note, I wonder if the “offline civic participation”
construct might have been a better indicator if there were more
components of the construct.

Botsman and Rogers highlight the ways in which technology and the
internet support the development and growth of a number of
“collaborative consumption” arrangements that would otherwise be
difficult if not impossible to establish. They argue that
technologically mediated shared consumption helps to not only increase
efficiency by reducing the “idling capacity” of under-used objects and
spaces but is also helping to build trust and community among people
who would otherwise be strangers. This all sounds like a great shift
in consumer culture – I especially love the example of the garden
sharing – but I wonder how much of the material benefits should be
“discounted” by the costs of maintaining the technological gadgets and
systems that are required for operating such sharing arrangements.

[L Carfagna]

Collaborative Consumption, as presented by the articles, breathes life into some of the barriers to sustainability discussed earlier in the course, but I take issue with the research as it currently stands (or more accurately, as I currently understand it).  First, Botsman and Rogers (B & R) fall into an allegorical trap by referencing the Stone Age as some magically simpler era when sharing was necessary and essentially we were much better versions of ourselves (like bottlenose dolphins).  The comparative move to take a system of provision and consumption out of context and conflate it to our current times is not only wishful, but inaccurate.  Sure, it makes sense to say that "we did this once and it worked" as if to reference our capability, but as Sociologist I don't doubt our capacity to share.  I wonder instead about how we are socially organized and how that capability is deemed unthinkable and our capacity goes untapped.  Another move made by Belk was to reference Australian Aborigines who "learn sharing at an earlier age and more thoroughly than they learn possessiveness" (130).  Again, the move here to reference a society that approximates these earlier magical times with better versions of ourselves is again out of context.  Not only that, it conceptually invalidates things like racism and colonialism, which we as Sociologists don't typically glance over as incidental.  I doubt the authors referenced glanced over these issues, but its always striking to me when a social scientist can reference such groups out of context, without at least a symbolic disclaimer to the workings of power and privilege.  That brings me to my third point, which is that we're always so quick to reference animals, the good old days, indigenous people, cultural "others" in an international context (read between the lines, references to other cultures, even modern or Westernized cultures, typically have a sense of othering to them), but yet we completely skip over any references to collaborative consumption or sharing or whatever in communities of color, immigrant communities, and working class communities in our own countries.  Don't get me wrong - I believe in collaborative consumption as positive and transformative, but let's not make the mistake of appropriating something as novel when it is practiced by said subordinated communities without fancy websites and without Iphone apps.  Methodologically, I believe there is an ethical imperative to any research on collaborative consumption precisely because of the race and class components (and any others I'm leaving out).  Sure, some of these practices are "new" in their current form, that is their internet and organized forms.  However, I see a slippery slope where this literature might disguise cultural appropriation, exoticise economic insecurity, and write alternative thinking middle to upper class white people as the heroes of an era soon to be defined by ecological crisis.  

My question is this: Has there been any empirical work that has fleshed out some of my concerns re: race, class, citizenship and collaborative consumption?  Do institutionalized forms and organized forms of collaborative consumption have inherent barriers to these communities?  Are there cultural barriers to these practices?  In an American context, it concerns me that these communities seem to be left out of any analysis - or perhaps I am just looking in the wrong place?

[Emilie Dubois]

The importance of trust in collaborative consumption's expansion stood
out to me for two reasons. First, the way we live today makes
historical models of trust mediation (kinship networks, neighborhood
coalitions, etc) unlikely. Second, in this age of isolation and
privatization the internet has come to stand in as a medium through
which collectivism can rehabilitate itself. Online communities that
facilitate innovative product service systems are actually quite
intuitive and historically based. Redistribution markets like ebay
and Craigslist sometimes rely on the exchange of goods for money, but
would cease to function without trust. Other redistribution markets
like SwapTree (http://www.swap.com/) completely divorce the
'ownership' element of consumption in favor of a model that features
need fulfillment. Much like their historical predecessors,
collaborative lifestyles feature dense ties and local connections.
One divergence from historical models featuring dense ties is the
leveraging of online communication to extend ties over time and
space. (Citizen Space: http://citizenspace.us/ Hub Culture:
http://www.hubculture.com/ Shared Earth: http://www.sharedearth.com/
LandShare: http://organicgardenproject.com/blog/tag/land-share/) These
links feature local and less than local solutions for sharing
everything from gardens to work space. Trust is the crux of all of
these physical and metaphysical (online) collectives. I am belaboring
this point because it flies in the face of much of what's been written
in the cannon of economic sociology over the past half century.

I have some global questions for our discussion tomorrow. What does
this departure in individual and group responses signal about the
insufficiency of our mode of production and consumption? Where has
trust been infused into this new model for shared living? How has this
generation's relationship to technology made possible this modern
interpretation of age old practices? Finally, what does all of this
mean for the academy's notion of the "rational economic actor"?
Becker (1993) famously wrote that rational choice theory could be the
grand unifying theory for social science if the definition of
rationality was expanded beyond calculations based on self-interest to
encompass a richer set of values and preferences that guide
individuals in their decision-making where they seek to maximize their
“welfare as they conceive it” (p. 386). Are the systems of sharing in
Botsman and Rogers' account symptomatic of a recognition that
individual welfare is, in fact, hinged upon our collective
welfare?

[John Petroff]

The concept of borrowing websites such as bagborrowsteal.com is
fascinating to me. These sites allow people to consume as much, if not
more, than they would like while simultaneously decreasing the amount
of resources used in production. By offering more selection at a lower
price, these sites effectively raise utility with an identical or
perhaps reduced budget. Furthermore, these sites lead to a positive
environmental impact without having to rely on the environmental or
ethical sales pitch; they make economic sense. These borrowing
networks seem like they could play an important role in the potential
shift to sustainable consumption.

I am interested to see how people relate consumption to ownership
however. We have looked at the utility associated with consumption in
wealthy countries, and I wonder if there is an additional satisfaction
that comes from ownership of a consumed good. Does owning an item give
higher satisfaction even though that item would be consumed
identically if it were borrowed?

Finally, I wonder how these sites relate to our discussions of a low-
growth or no-growth economy. Would a drastic increase in this kind of
service be enough to replace the GDP loss that would result from lower
production? In other words, would the dollars gained from the provided
service replace the dollars lost from having fewer goods provided? It
seems to me that these borrowing networks could potentially serve as a
middle ground for those who demand a growing economy and those who
argue that a perpetual-growth economy is not feasible.

On Apr 11, 10:30 pm, Emilie Dubois <emilie.anne.dub...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> The importance of trust in collaborative consumption's expansion stood
> out to me for two reasons. First, the way we live today makes
> historical models of trust mediation (kinship networks, neighborhood
> coalitions, etc) unlikely. Second, in this age of isolation and
> privatization the internet has come to stand in as a medium through
> which collectivism can rehabilitate itself.  Online communities that
> facilitate innovative product service systems are actually quite
> intuitive and historically based.  Redistribution markets like ebay
> and Craigslist sometimes rely on the exchange of goods for money, but
> would cease to function without trust.  Other redistribution markets
> like SwapTree (http://www.swap.com/) completely divorce the
> 'ownership' element of consumption in favor of a model that features
> need fulfillment.  Much like their historical predecessors,
> collaborative lifestyles feature dense ties and local connections.
> One divergence from historical models featuring dense ties is the
> leveraging of online communication to extend ties over time and

> space.  (Citizen Space:http://citizenspace.us/Hub Culture:http://www.hubculture.com/Shared Earth:http://www.sharedearth.com/

[Noel Munoz]

The readings for this week were very informative because I learned about a lot of these sharing and swapping websites for the first time. The article "Community, Reflexivity and Sustainable Consumption" really got me thinking about how people are taught to believe that they "need" items when in fact they truly only desire them. Not until taking this class and Shop Till You Drop had I ever thought about the amount of influence groups can have on people's spending habits. As members of an american society dominated by consuming we are constantly pressured to conform, which usually results in buying something. I think that Michaelis makes a good point of stating how in order to develop a ecological and economical sustainable lifestyle a support system is crucial because that has been the same way that we have been pressured to consume. It was good to read about the group of Quakers in the UK that have been so successful in their objectives, but as I read I had a very pessimistic thought. Americans or people here in the states will never be able to make such a drastic lifestyle change? Quakers already come from a culture of a tight knit community, they are accustomed to helping and sharing each other. When will Americans stop thinking about only themselves and think in terms of the bigger picture, the global community? Certainly some people are making strides as was evident from the readings in the "What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption" but that is only a very small percentage of the population. In addition, the amount of reflexivity and sharing of ideas and thoughts among the Quakers was referred to as one of the biggest reasons for their success. Is there ever going to be a time when people in America will stop and just "think" about what they are doing? Too many times I personally feel like I am running on automatic, as if my brain is shut off and I am just going through the motions. Only in class do I really every sit down with a group of people and express my ideas. I go home and my roommates are usually blankly staring at the television, rarely if ever stopping to talk about events going on or issues that are concerning them. Sometimes it scares me to think about how easily people can be distracted by movie pictures on a screen.

The "What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption" was by far my favorite reading this week. The quote that stuck with me throughout the reading was that, "habit changes have to be easy and desirable for the average person, while creating value for the business and society." This is completely true and I saw this idea being used by those people who created websites like couchsurfing.com and Ven. Many of the ideas that actually became successful did seem idealistic, simply because of the large amount of trust that is needed to participate in Collaborative Consumption. Its very difficult nowadays to find people who are looking to genuinely help others but many of the ideas that are launching now do find these people. It's also easy to believe people want to help each other when they are receiving something of equal value in return. 

[Gemma]

I thought the article “Why Not Share Rather Than Own?” was well written and very informative. I never thought about how beneficial sharing could be in community. Like the example of the drill, there are so many items in my own home back in California that we never use, like power tools. Sharing is defined as “an interpersonal process and is sanctioned and prescribed by culture” (130). I found the impediments to sharing very true, but depressing. Our society encourages possessiveness, materialism, and the perception that resources are scarce (131). The incentive to share tangible goods comes from the belief that a particular good is unlimited. It is when “we believe that the supply is fixed that we become selfish and try to retain our possessions” (135). I find this idea conflicting when it comes to the environment. Most economists see the world as an unlimited good, pulling natural goods from the environment until that particular source becomes depleted, but this belief doesn’t encourage sharing. I think our worldview has to change completely, specifically in the realm of economics. Belk sums this up in his statement, “trust in money and things have supplanted trust in people, and economic capital has become more important than social capital” (135). I am just not sure how we can confront peoples’ needs to cling to possessions. I do see some hope in the chapters we read from What’s Mine is Yours. The growth of collaborative consumption and the drive to make these businesses the social norm will be key in creating a sustainable future.