Sharing economy; sustainable development, human interaction, sociology of work

We are sharing cars, coworking spaces, music, apartments, clothes or services: Thanks to the Internet and the stagnant economy, the so-called sharing economy experienced an incredible boom since the 2000s. It has become a popular vision of how to achieve a fairer distribution of finances, how everyone can share profits, how to overcome rigid hierarchies of companies and work collectives. Sharing Economy promises sustainable development, evokes the idea of a functioning neighborhood in smaller cities and the production of a “surplus value” with a human dimension or human interaction. The following paper is a review article and the presented analysis is based to a large extent on theoretical considerations referring to studies of other authors. It aims to present different forms of sharing economy and to think about the opportunities and pitfalls of using them. The article focuses especially on the situation in the Czech Republic and answers the question if our social and state systems from the sociological point of view ready to deal with these new forms and to which extent we need its regulation.