Disruption, embedded. A Polanyian framing of the platform economy

Abs­tact

Digi­tal plat­forms disrupt — not just incum­bent indu­stries, but also aca­de­mic ima­gi­na­tions abo­ut the futu­re cour­se of capi­ta­lism. Whi­le some scho­lars envi­sion the next gre­at trans­for­ma­tion towards the ulti­ma­te mar­ke­ti­za­tion, others anti­ci­pa­te a post-capi­ta­lism based on digi­tal­ly revi­ta­li­zed notions of com­mu­ni­ty and reci­pro­ci­ty. Star­ting from this con­tro­ver­sy, the artic­le advan­ces a Pola­ny­ian per­spec­ti­ve to push bey­ond the osten­si­bly anta­go­ni­stic dyna­mics of more or less the mar­ket. More spe­ci­fi­cal­ly, the emer­gen­ce of digi­tal plat­forms is per­ce­ived from the angle of three key dri­vers that pro­pel­led the gre­at trans­for­ma­tion towards mar­ke­ti­za­tion: tech­no­lo­gy, scien­ce, sta­te. Whi­le the bre­ak-thro­ugh of mar­ke­ti­za­tion, in Polanyi’s view, was promp­ted by the ste­am engi­ne, the emer­gen­ce of plat­forms is dri­ven by the digi­tal infra­struc­tu­res of clo­ud com­pu­ting, big data, and algo­ri­thms; and whi­le mar­kets were scien­ti­fi­cal­ly legi­ti­mi­zed by eco­no­mics, plat­forms deploy network the­ories that, thro­ugh the­ir far-reaching appli­ca­tion, per­form social reali­ty. Just like mar­kets, howe­ver, plat­forms are nothing natu­ral but are objects of ongo­ing poli­ti­cal con­te­sta­tions that for­ge the embed­ding of the plat­form eco­no­my into the regu­la­to­ry fra­me­work of society.