Juhana VenäläinenPhD, postdoctoral researcherUniversity of Eastern Finlandjuhana.venalainen@uef.fi

Between exchange and gift-giving?Economic moralities of self-organised long-distance ridesharing

13th European Sociological Association Conference / RN05_RN09_07b_P_JS: JOINT SESSION: Re-thinking Market Capitalism: The Rise of Alternative Forms of Economic Exchange I / Athens, Greece / 31 August 2017

� Part of a Kone Foundation funded project "Rights, excludability, and the social production of value in the modelsof the new economy”

� Sub-study: Ridesharing as an interface to the ”sharingeconomy”

� Research topics:� Social dynamics of the ridesharing groups and the role of technological

platforms in shaping them� Motivations of the providers and users, and the understandings of the

"economic" characteristics of ridesharing� The potential tensions with traditional public transport services and

the more business-oriented understandings of the sharing economy

� 1. Contextualizing self-organisedlong-distance ridesharing in Finland

� 2. Economic moralities of ridesharing,and the problem of a just price

� 3. Concluding remarks:Political undertones of ridesharing

� In 2010s, long-distance (i.e. city-to-city) ridesharing in Finland has been mostly organized through Facebook groups established and moderated by individual persons

� Over 250 000 members in ca. 160 groups (c.f. population of 5m in Finland)

� Groups typically named either by destination, origin, area, or certain route

”Journey starts from Joensuu around six in the morning. The route goes through Lappeenranta. There is space for two passengers in the car.”

� A system of co-operation and peer production between strangers

� Provides means of subsistence with less dependence on money

� Upscales and de-personifies traditional practices of mutual aid

� Contributes to a kind of ”transport commons” / mobility “commoning” (see De Angelis 2017)

� The self-organized model contrasts with the commercial mobile-app based sharing platforms (such as BlaBlaCar) popular in many European countries

What kind of economic moralities characterise ridesharing as an

institution of sharing?

David Graeber (2014): ”On the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations. A Maussian Approach.”

"I wish to propose three fundamentallydifferent moral logics lying behindphenomena that we class together as ’thegift’. These exist everywhere in differentforms and articulations, so that in anygiven situation there are several kinds of moral reasoning actors could apply. "

no reciprocityunilateral generosity

inequalityHIERARCHY

COMMUNISMaltruistic mutuality

permanent ”indebtness”economy as conviviality

EXCHANGEcalculative mutuality

temporary transactionsindependence

David Graeber (2014): ”On the Moral Grounds of Economic Relations. A Maussian Approach.”

� Research material: Three conversations (related to polls) about the acceptable price of a ride from the Finland’s biggest ridesharing group in 2014–2015

� 387 posts

� Arguments identified and classified in two iterations (#1: 12 categories, #2: 4 categories)

CO-PRODUCTION (DOING TOGETHER), COMMUNALITY, SOCIABILITY, ECOLOGICAL VALUES, GOOD SPIRIT, CHATTING, TRAVEL COMPANION, SHARING THE LABOUR OF DRIVING

� ”It feels like the nitpickers in this group have lost this certain principle of communality […] like that you do something together, and then at the same time, both will get something for themselves, like a good mood, a little bit of money for gasoline, or nice companion. […] You don't have to take ridesharers, if the motive is to make them pay for the expenses of your car.”

NOMINAL FEE, "SOMETHING FOR ONE'S PAINS", "PAY WHAT YOU WANT", POSSIBILITY TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY, NO PROFIT MOTIVE, NO BUSINESS, NO EARNING, NO BILLING OF ACTUAL EXPENSES, ONE MAY ASK FOR MONEY BUT NOT DEMAND IT

� ”I have always written in my own posts that a ridesharer may decide to pay or not to pay a sum of his/her choice. Every time someone has paid something, but my principle is that if someone needs a ride but doesn't have money, they can still join in.”

FIXED PRICE PER KILOMETER, PRICE BASED ON AVG. CONSUMPTION OF FUEL, PRICE BASED ON MILEAGE ALLOWANCE RELIEF, FIXED PRICE FOR A ROUTE, A "REASONABLE" OR "RIGHT" PRICE

� "There is a law mandating that one can only share the fuel expenses. I myself divided the average consumption [of fuel] between passengers based on how many kilometers they travelled. […]"

QUESTION OF FAIR PRICE AS ”EVERYONE’S OWN BUSINESS” OR ”SOMETHING NOT TO BE DISCUSSED ABOUT”, NEGOTIATION OF THE PRICE AS A MUTUAL CONTRACT, PRICE AS A NATURAL OUTCOME OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND

� ”I think it gets too complicated if you start to think about the price in too much detail. Things get messy if soon no one knows how much to ask or how much to pay for a ride. Just settle it with mutually with the driver, vice versa, and that’s it.”

COMMUNISMaltruistic mutuality

permanent ”indebtness”economy as conviviality

EXCHANGEcalculative mutualitytemporary transactionsindependence

COMMUNISMaltruistic mutuality

permanent ”indebtness”economy as conviviality

EXCHANGEcalculative mutualitytemporary transactionsindependence

1. Producingcommon

good

2. Minimalmoney-

mediatedness

4. Individualizedquasi-market

3. Calculativefairness

social production of extra-economicvalue as a goal in

itself

money as a nominal”token” that

expresses trust and prevents free-riding

pricing based on allegedly objective

criteria

pricing as a privateaffair between theridetaker and the

ridegiver

� Discussion about money and the just price of a ride brings about the political undertone of ridesharing� Ridesharing is influenced by various (and partly conflicting) forms

of economic reasoning� The ”communist” moral logics in ridesharing emphasize ”extra-

economic” priorities and motivations such as subsistence, care, mutual aid, distribution of surplus, and conviviality

� In this sense, ridesharing is not only about tackling the obvious inefficiency of the transport system based on private cars, but about a practical experimentation of trying to rethink, reframe and re-experience ”the economy”

Thank you!juhana.venalainen@uef.fihttp://juhanavenalainen.net

� De Angelis, Massimo (2017) Omnia sunt communia. London: Zed Books.

� Finnish Transport Agency (2012) National Transport Survey 2010–2011. Helsinki: Finnish Transport Agency. http://www2.liikennevirasto.fi/julkaisut/pdf3/lr_2012_henkiloliikennetutkimus_web.pdf

� Graeber, David (2014) On the moral grounds of economic relations: A Maussianapproach. Journal f Classical Sociology 14 (1), 65–77.

� Light, Ann & Miskelly, Clodagh (2015) Sharing Economy vs Sharing Cultures? Designing for social, economic and environmental good. Interaction Design and Architectures 24, 49–62.

� Cover photo: Ant_S95: M30 Traffic light trails (Flickr.com, cc by-nc)