Sharing economy: la socializzazione fonda lo scambio economico

Sharing Economy : Socialization Founds Economic Exchange

Abstract

The sharing economy expresses a new consumer culture in which the “reuse” and access will replace the purchase and ownership, dispelling the dividing line be-tween public and private. This new model is being developed as a spontaneous economic phenomenon to meet the challenges generated by the crisis. The object of sharing economy are, in the start experiences, goods, tools, space, services, skills, ideas: from co-working to car-sharing, from co-housing to crowdfunding. Jeremy Rifkin provides authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the ongoing phenomenon when he states that we are witnessing the birth of a new economic paradigm that is shaped by the enormous reduction of marginal costs, generated by the technological infrastructure; a reduction that prefigures a new “participatory economy”, made possible by digital technology, within “freedom of access exceeds the ownership, sustainability supplants consumerism, cooperation ousts competi-tion. An economy where the logic of the delegation is overcome and all the actors interact and release new resources in order to identify and implement answer to their needs”. The aim of this work is to advance a reflection on how the sharing economy can help shape new forms of welfare, where social ties are increasingly the foundation of economic exchange and cooperation.