What's Yours is Mine by Tom Slee

Author:Tom Slee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BUS000000, BUS073000, BUS090010
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2017-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

8. Open Wide

Silicon Valley is deeply committed to the idea that sharing and commerce go together. Beyond the Sharing Economy, there are many examples, some of which we saw in Chapter 7: Lawrence Lessig’s idea of the “hybrid economy” 1 relies on amateurs and professionals working side by side, often on for-profit platforms; Social Enterprises are organizations that apply commercial strategies to maximize improvements in human and environmental well-being; Benefit Corporations such as Etsy, the online craft trading marketplace, are firms “that want to consider society and the environment in addition to profit in their decision making process.”

The related idea of social entrepreneurship uses markets to scale up efforts to create social good. Groups such as Markets for Good (a wing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and Google.org, the charitable arm of Google, put these ideas into practice.

Steven Berlin Johnson’s idea of “peer progressives” was mentioned in Chapter 1. It highlights both for-profit and not-for-profit peer-to-peer networks as a framework for solving social problems, and seeks to position digital platforms and their communities for social good.2

Pierre Omidyar is one of the most vocal proponents of the social enterprise model. Omidyar founded eBay, one of the direct ancestors of the Sharing Economy. eBay took what was a neighborhood activity (the yard sale) and scaled it up by putting it on the Internet, with massive success. eBay made Pierre Omidyar a billionaire and he has put that money to active use. Together with his wife Pam Omidyar, he created the Omidyar Network, which blurs the line between giving and investing (it calls itself “a philanthropic investment firm”) and the line between profit and social good (it invests in “entrepreneurs who share our commitment to advancing social good”). It is “dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives.”

A common thread of these initiatives, many of which are linked to successful technology entrepreneurs, is that they insist entrepreneurship (rather than, for example, service) is the right way to solve social problems. They believe profit and social good can not only coexist, but can benefit each other so long as the motivations of those in charge are pure.

In the world outside Silicon Valley, views about the effects of markets on other forms of social interaction are more mixed. Two traditions reach back to the 18th century and the ideas of Adam Smith. One sees the market as civilizing, harnessing Smith’s belief that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Another sees the market as corrupting and prefers a different quote from Adam Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Along another dimension, some see the market as “feeble” in its effects on society, neither particularly civilizing nor destructive, while others, like Omidyar, see markets as mechanisms for bringing about desired social and political change.

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