Open Sesame? The Paradoxical Development of C2C E-commerce in China

Abstract

In this article, I analyze the paradoxical development of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce in China by investigating three dimensions in its ecosystem: the rent extraction of the platform capital, the labor-intensive mini-enterprises under the demand-driven supply chain of e-commerce, and the widespread commodification and dispossession. I argue that its development has deepened and broadened the exploitative relationship among various forms of labor and capital. To a great extent, although the largely unregulated development of e-commerce has created more employment and provided opportunities for some previously marginalized places and social groups, especially during the early stage, it has quickly engendered malicious competition, notorious counterfeiting, and shrinking profits and bankruptcy for mini-merchants and mini-entrepreneurs, while on top of that a few huge monopolistic e-commerce platform companies have arisen and expanded rapidly. JEL classification: O11, O33, O53, P21