Search results

This open access book provides an overview of urban digital platforms such as Airbnb and Deliveroo, which, along with Amazon, Google, Facebook, and other IT companies, constitute by now the infrastructures for other businesses to operate on and for our social life to go on. These platforms serve as standards-based techno-economic systems that simultaneously capture cooperation through remote coordination and organize labor via algorithm management. Based on a three-years research project, this contributed book outlines a general theory of platform capitalism that conceives these platforms not only as technical devices, but as generative engines that operate at the interface of several aspects, such as digitalization of forms of social cooperation; algorithm-based management of labor and participation; and private and vertical appropriation of profits. These elements are somehow iconic of the capitalist evolution of the last decades, and they open up a reflection on new forms of "primitive accumulation" (in particular regarding data), on the mechanisms used to capture and extract social surplus value, and on the logistic-financial dimensions of capital. Finally, in light of the transformations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors examine how platforms can evolve into hegemonic organizational structures. Assuming we are all already living in the age of the platform, this book takes a multifaceted approach—combining sociology with urban studies, and political sciences with economics—to grasp the challenges our societies face in terms of ensuring fair economic growth, adequate social protections, and labor rights. It will appeal to anyone interested in digital platforms and how they are changing the organization of labor, urban spaces, and forms of governance.

Intro -- Acknowledgement -- About This Book -- Introduction -- References -- Contents -- Editors and Contributors -- 1 Neoliberalization and Mega Events: The Transition of Rio de Janeiro's Hybrid Urban Order -- 1.1 Introduction -- 1.2 Neoliberalism, Governmentality, and Contestations -- 1.3 The Hybrid Urban Order of Rio de Janeiro: Different Logics in the Production of Space -- 1.4 The 2016 Olympic Games: Inflection Point in the Hybrid Urban Order -- 1.5 Consolidating the Space of Capital: The Expansion of Barra da Tijuca -- 1.6 The Recapture of the City Center by Big Business: Redeveloping the Port District -- 1.7 Building Entrepreneurial Favelas -- 1.8 Conclusion -- References -- 2 When the Lights Turn off. Rio de Janeiro's Wannabe Global City Trajectory -- 2.1 Introduction -- 2.1.1 A Global History -- 2.2 Wannabe Global City -- 2.3 Globalizing Rio -- 2.3.1 Logic of Urban Development -- 2.4 The Legacy of the Globalizing Strategy -- 2.4.1 What Scale? -- References -- 3 Public-Private Partnerships in the Context of Mega Events -- 3.1 Introduction -- 3.2 Types of PPPs and Their Diffusion in Brazil -- 3.3 Political Game and Market Solution -- 3.4 Neoliberal Project and the Use of PPPs -- 3.5 PPPs in the Context of Mega-Sporting Events -- 3.5.1 Urban Interventions and the Olympic Project Costs -- 3.6 The Olympic Park PPPs -- 3.7 The Legacy of the Olympic Park -- References -- 4 A Mega Event Called Official Carnival: City, Culture, and Party for the Market -- 4.1 Introduction -- 4.2 Carnival as an Essential Element of the Global City Project -- 4.3 The Carnival Reinvented by the Market: The PPP Carnival -- 4.4 The Illegitimate Norm: The Antilaw Regulating the Carnival -- 4.5 Final Considerations: Popular Resistance and the Worsening of the Neoliberal Logic -- References.