Sunday Posts

There is this lovable term used in England - The Flat White Economy! For the uninitiated, this comes from the variety of coffee the twenty-something geeky youngsters working in the 'creative economy' in London, one of the world's leading. This, an uninspiring vision of placid coffee, seems to capture the great promise of economic renewal of industrial wastelands of North England, as well as the inner city precints of London: It no doubt offers me a catchy term to make my point about the City economies. But, to clarify, while I like the term, I use it literally. As a lover of good coffee, the term conjures up milky blandness rather than exciting aroma, and regardless of the implicit euphoria behind its coinage, I see it for what it is - the really 'flat' growth in a mix that lacks proportion or equity, obscuring the inevitable disappointment in frothy rhetoric and pricey labeling (I usually order a White Americano!).  This is not a resentment of a new taste...

As far as euphemisms go, one can't do much worse than calling something a Sharing Economy which is neither about sharing nor an economy in the usual sense of the term. Consider the beginnings, all that excitement about technologies of connection and collaboration being available cheaply and at a global scale, which was thought to have the potential of unlocking the gift economy, those little things that we do for one another without necessarily expecting anything in return, and give it a scale and scope not otherwise possible. However, the Sharing Economy, as the idea was usurped, became exactly the opposite, a mad rush for monetising every little thing - a death sentence for 'sharing', that is.  And, this is hardly an economy. An economy is a system, not just one for commission-for-everything deal making. It involves people, winners and losers, yes, but not one where only bookies stand to win at everyone else's cost. And, indeed, it involves relationships, eve...