There's a social tolerance of it because we sort of think, well, first of all, we have a prestige factor. And you could argue that the rise of the tech firms in Silicon Valley and Seattle, their ability to extract our data and sell to third parties is not threatening. We just say, well, of course they want to make money and I get the free product and it's okay. But when I highlight some of these issues brought by commodification, simply because I'm aware it brings potentially an important societal change for which we are not maybe prepared.
Economist and author Branko Milanovic of the Graduate Center, CUNY, talks about his book, Capitalism, Alone, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. They discuss inequality, the challenge of corruption in the Chinese system, and Milanovic's claim that in American capitalism, the texture of daily life is increasingly affected by the sharing economy and other opportunities.