274. Uber’s Politics of Low Expectations (ft. Katie Wells, Kafui Attoh)

We are joined by Katie Wells and Kafui Attoh to discuss their new book – Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City – which offers a rich analysis of Uber and its operations in Washington DC as a case study in the political economy of urban crisis. We get into how Uber thrives by taking advantage of the low expectations that people have of their city governments, public services, and the economy. The common sense of neoliberalism means that decision-makers and consumers understand Uber as the most obvious solutions to social problems, and cannot imagine any other alternatives, despite the fact that relying on Uber means settling for a system that addresses existing problems by only causing different ones. ••• Disrupting DC: The Rise of Uber and the Fall of the City | Katie J. Wells, Kafui Attoh, and Declan Cullen https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691249759/disrupting-dc ••• Follow Katie: https://twitter.com/KatieJWells ••• Follow Kafui: https://twitter.com/AttohKafui Subscribe to hear more analysis and commentary in our premium episodes every week! https://www.patreon.com/thismachinekills Hosted by Jathan Sadowski (www.twitter.com/jathansadowski) and Edward Ongweso Jr. (www.twitter.com/bigblackjacobin). Production / Music by Jereme Brown (www.twitter.com/braunestahl)