Economy

The arrival of the smart-phone application Uber has thrown the taxi industry into a state of disarray. First launched in June 2009 in San Francisco, the application has spread rapidly and today finds itself in over 300 cities in approximately 58 countries. While it offers many advantages over traditional taxis, including lower rates, it is having serious effects on the living conditions of taxi drivers. 

The International Monetary Fund has been forced, not only to repeatedly downgrade its growth forecasts, but to now predict a fall in World GDP in dollar terms, the first since 2009. This is a reflection of the crisis-ridden world we are in.

In the final part of his series on the rise of the sharing economy, Adam Booth reviews Paul Mason's new book, PostCapitalism, about the impact of information technology and its contradictory contribution within the crisis-ridden capitalism system. What is the way forward for society in order to utilise the abundance of technology and wealth we see around us today?

Part two of this three part article will examine the impact that new technologies and business models will have on the future of employment and work.

In the first of a three-part article, Adam Booth examines the rise of the sharing economy, which has featured heavily in the media because of firms like AirBnB and Uber. These new models are presented as offering a revolutionary new dynamic phase in the life of capitalism. But the reality under capitalism is far from this utopian promise.

The world economy teeters on the brink and the global capitalist system has entered its deepest crisis since the 1930s. Governments around the world are scrambling to stabilize the economy, but by doing so they are disrupting the already fragile social and political equilibrium.