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A Better Account of Constitutional Contractarianism Implies a Cooperative Form of Governance of the Sharing Economy: Critical Assessment of Hielscher, Everding, and Pies’ (2022) “Ordo-responsibility in the Sharing Economy: A Social Contracts Perspective”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2024

Pietro Ghirlanda Open the ORCID record for Pietro Ghirlanda [Opens in a new window]  and
Lorenzo Sacconi Open the ORCID record for Lorenzo Sacconi [Opens in a new window]
Pietro Ghirlanda
Affiliation:
University of Milan, Italy; University of Pavia, Italy
Lorenzo Sacconi
Affiliation:
University of Milan, Italy
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Abstract

This commentary aims to discuss the article “Ordo-responsibility in the Sharing Economy: A Social Contracts Perspective” from a sympathetic viewpoint toward its implementation of a constitutional contractarian approach to business ethics and due consideration of digital platforms as institutions resulting from a social contract. Nevertheless, the commentary also wants to criticize the article’s interpretation of constitutional contractarian theory and institutional reconstruction of the phenomenon, and thus even the governance structure it is proposed for sharing platforms. The commentary presents another understanding of constitutional contractarianism, referring to both the ex ante agreement and the ex post compliance problem. Moreover, it reframes the history of the evolutionary process of institutions’ selection within the domain of the sharing economy consistently with the idea that the Internet should be framed as a common pool resource. In this way, the commentary suggests an alternative governance structure for sharing platforms, that is, platform cooperatives.

Keywords

sharing economyconstitutional contractarianismcompliance problemcommon pool resourcesplatform cooperatives
Type
Commentary
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Business Ethics

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