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Platform Capitalism – Boon or Bane to Society? رأسمالية المنصات – نعمة أم نقمة على المجتمع؟

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  • Abdulkader Cassim Mahomedy

    (School of Accounting, Economics and Finance University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa)

Abstract

In this essay, the rise of platform capitalism and its claims to a utopian economic world is explored. Using the tawḥīdī worldview, I trace its emergence within the context of the growth of modern capitalism itself. The study reveals that there are certain core elements within the institutional framework of the modern economy that empowers capitalism to hegemonize society and its structures. In its drive to create and capture value, it grows rapidly, but destroys other institutions, including its own in the process. However, it always protects its inner core so that it is able to reincarnate itself in some new form. Platforms and its basket of newly emerging technologies thus represent this next frontier in the capitalist agenda, subsequent to its spectacular collapse in 2007-2008. Though some have hailed the emergence of platform capitalism as the dawn of a new age in material prosperity for all, this article demonstrates that this claim is nothing but subterfuge to deceive the world into embracing the digital age wholeheartedly. Global capitalism recognizes only one agenda: the need to feed its insatiable appetite to accumulate material wealth; all else is irrelevant. It is only an ethically-based Islamic system of economy, which embraces the precept of tawḥīd , i.e., an ontology and epistemology of systemic oneness in everything, that can offer hope to the world at large. في هذا المقال، يتم استكشاف ظهور رأسمالية المنصات ودعوى تطورها إلى عالم اقتصادي مثالي. باستخدام نظرة العالم التوحيدي، أتتبع ظهورها في سياق نمو الرأسمالية الحديثة نفسها. تكشف الدراسة أن هناك بعض العناصر الأساسية في الإطار المؤسسي للاقتصاد الحديث التي تمكن الرأسمالية من الهيمنة على المجتمع وهيكلته. في سعيها لإنشاء القيمة والسيطرة عليها، فإنها تنمو بسرعة، ولكنها تدمر المؤسسات الأخرى، بما في ذلك مؤسساتها نفسها. ومع ذلك، فإنها تحمي دائمًا جوهره الداخلي حتى يتمكن من إعادة تشكيل نفسه بشكل جديد. تمثل المنصات وسلة التكنولوجيات الحديثة الناشئة عنها الأبعاد الجديدة في جدول أعمال الرأسمالية، بعد انهيارها المذهل في 2007- 2008م. على الرغم من أن البعض قد أشاد بظهور رأسمالية المنصات باعتبارها فجر عصر جديد في الازدهار المادي للجميع، إلا أن هذا المقال يوضح أن هذا الادعاء ليس سوى خدعة لخداع العالم في تبني العصر الرقمي بكل إخلاص. تعترف الرأسمالية العالمية بجدول أعمال واحد فقط: الحاجة إلى إشباع شهيتها الغير متناهية لتراكم الثروة المادية؛ كل شيء آخر غير ليس له أهمية. إنه لا يمكن لأي نظام أن يقدم الأمل للعالم بأسره في مواجهة هذه التحديات سوى نظام الاقتصاد الإسلامي القائم على أساس أخلاقي، والذي يحتضن مبدأ التوحيد، أي علم الوجود ونظرية المعرفة للتوحيد المنهجي في كل شيء.

Suggested Citation

  • Abdulkader Cassim Mahomedy, 2020. "Platform Capitalism – Boon or Bane to Society? رأسمالية المنصات – نعمة أم نقمة على المجتمع؟," Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute., vol. 33(1), pages 71-82, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:abd:kauiea:v:33:y:2020:i:1:no:5:p:71-82
    DOI: 10.4197/Islec.33-1.5
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Burton-Jones, Alan, 2001. "Knowledge Capitalism: Business, Work, and Learning in the New Economy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199242542.
    2. Abdulkader Cassim Mahomedy, 2013. "Islamic economics: still in search of an identity," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 40(6), pages 556-578, May.
    3. Jack Reardon, 2020. "Platform Capitalism, Big Data, and Data Ethics رأسمالية المنصات، البيانات الضخمة، وأخلاقيات البيانات," Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute., vol. 33(1), pages 59-69, January.
    4. Magdoff, Harry, 1970. "Militarism and Imperialism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 60(2), pages 237-242, May.
    5. Abdulkader Cassim Mahomedy, 2013. "Islamic economics: still in search of an identity," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 40(6), pages 556-578, May.
    6. Masudul Alam Choudhury, 2007. "The Universal Paradigm and the Islamic World-System:Economy, Society, Ethics and Science," World Scientific Books, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., number 6344, January.
    7. William Lazonick & Mariana Mazzucato, 2013. "The risk-reward nexus in the innovation-inequality relationship: who takes the risks? Who gets the rewards ?," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 22(4), pages 1093-1128, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Capitalism; Platforms; Economics; Islam; Tawḥīd الرأسمالية، المنصات، الاقتصاد، الاقتصاد الإسلامي، توحيد.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • B40 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - General
    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies
    • P4 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems

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