There's a whole lot of buzz about the #sharingeconomy. Many seem to think it is something new, with some calling for a 'new economics' to explain it while others deride the 'gig economy' as a higher level of exploitation, inequality, and poverty. Neither is a good analysis. First things firs: the sharing economy was facilitated by advances in technology alongside consumer preferences changing from goods to services and thus from ownership to lease. These are not separate processes, but mutually constituting changes where each increases the other.

Scarcity is a somewhat misused term in policy and popular-economic commentary because it is used in the sense that something is scarce if it is valuable and we have "almost run out" of it. Hence "post-scarcity" is made out to mean "we have plenty." But scarcity as "almost out of" is a terrible definition for actual analysis, and thus not how it is used in economics. Because "almost out of" is relative actual use or actual existing reserves - or both. And it assumes value as an objective aspect of the resource, given technology. Any analysis based on such

The term #capitalism is highly confusing. The definition is clear enough: the private ownership of the means of production (capital). But the implications are very different depending on one's political or economic perspective. Both are right and wrong. Let's take a look at them. Politically speaking, private ownership of the means of production provides owners with power. Why? Because society is dependent on production of value, and production is undertaken using capital. Whoever has ownership of capital can then influence society. Consequently, it is

Three commonly held but untrue views seem to nicely summarize this "report":
1. Selling your goods below cost is a success strategy
2. Being "big" means you cannot be disrupted
3. Government wants to save us from "market power"

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#1 only produces a return if one can then raise prices and still sell big volumes *and* no one else can enter the market. How can firms "protect" their staked-out market space? Without government privilege there's only one way: by offering goods of higher quality at lower prices.