SHARING ECONOMY AND UBERIZATION OF WORK: UTOPIAS OF OUR TIME?

Abstract

Contextualization: The changes that have occurred in the world of work, aggravated after the financial crisis of 2008, show that capitalism increasingly reinforces its contradictions and, in an attempt to overcome its crises, reorganizes itself, under the aspect of the financialization of capital, making use of tools such as digital technology and the internet, to deepen the precariousness of labor relations.

Objectives: In view of the technological transformations underway, this study aims to investigate to what extent alternatives, such as the shared economy, can be seen as a transforming utopia in the sense of giving workers a dignified living and working condition. Some conceptions of utopia are sought in order to reflect on the role of the Sharing Economy, analyzing how it may influence labor relations. One of the best known cases is investigated, that of the company Uber, because this model has the potential to replicate itself rapidly to the entire market of new services.

Methodology: The methodology used was qualitative, with a deeper understanding of a social group, the app drivers, and of an organization, the Uber company, as well as bibliographical research of an exploratory nature.

Result: The article shows that an appropriation of the essence of the shared economy is occurring, camouflaging a labor relationship, affecting the worker more and more. The growing number of unemployed or underemployed people and the strong increase in informality contribute greatly to the maintenance and expansion of the uber phenomenon, because without a place in the labor market, workers submit themselves to increasingly precarious conditions of income and work.