The Relationship of the State and Corporations in the Age of “Platform Capitalism”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the transformation of relations between the state and corporations in the emerging digital economy. In recent years, politicians and experts have actively discussed the need to revise international and national rules governing the activities of transnational corporations. The emergence of platform companies in the framework of the digitalization of the economy has created legal lacunae and political difficulties in the tax policy of most states. The lack of a coherent policy does not allow to stop the “tax competition” between countries, which destroys the foundations of the tax system. Under these conditions, the most mobile capital, “tax competition”, the presence of numerous offshore and the threat of transferring production creates effective mechanisms of constant pressure on governments. In this regard, there is a need to develop new principles of regulatory policy at the international and national levels. The article discusses the conditions and factors that contributed to the formation of platform companies in the period after the 2008 financial crisis. Ideological concepts accompanying the development of the platform economy model are considered separately. One of them is “sharing economy”, promoted by platform companies as a cooperative space for cooperation and resource sharing. In addition, a description and analysis of the negative socio-economic and political effects created by the “platform capitalism” model are given. In particular, the transformation is analyzed by platform companies in various fields (urban governance, online trade, taxi services, courier delivery). The article shows concrete examples of how «platform capitalism» enhances the socio-economic and political negative effects inherent in neoliberalism (“corporate market take-over”, the formation of a technocratic governance model, precarization of employment, city gentrification). The article, based on a study of the structural contradictions of the platform economy, demonstrates the reasons for the rise of a new wave of mass protest by trade unions and social movements united by an anti-corporate agenda.