Technological choices of Chinese taxi drivers under e-hailing : conventional occupation groups under the impact of digital automation and post-fordism

Abstract

With the development of information and communication technologies (hereinafter “ICTs”), industrial robots, and internet-based platform algorithms, etc., the current wave of digital automation has raised increasing public concerns about future prognostics of potential mass unemployment not only in the conventional low-skilled manufacturing works, but in the relatively high-skilled professions. In this thesis, I contribute to this discussion by a case study about conventional licensed taxi drivers in mainland China under the impact of the e-hailing (ridesharing) technology and business. Drawing on primary sources, documentary analysis, and above all one-year of ethnographic fieldwork research with licensed taxi drivers and e-hailing private car drivers in Xi’an, China, I analyze taxi drivers’ technological choices, their job choices, and their attitudes towards the sociotechnical systems of taxicab driving and e-hailing. My analysis focuses on a number of aspects including the socioeconomic background and skills of drivers, the technical practicalities of driving and managing cars, the intermediary parties that provide business support, and the companies and governments with their different policies or regulations. This thesis shows that licensed taxi drivers in Xi’an have a working-class background as predominantly SOE-laid off workers and rural migrant workers, and this socio-economic background shapes their technological choices and job choices. Most licensed taxi drivers favor the existing conventional sociotechnical system of taxicab driving, as opposed to becoming e-hailing private car drivers, because the sociotechnical system of taxicab driving is more compatible with their class-shaped value system and ethical expectations in terms of stability, social support, state endorsement, and conventional professional identity. Beyond this question of the technological choices of licensed taxi drivers, I argue that the current wave of digital automation as represented by the recent rise of e-hailing companies is fueled not only by technological advancements, but also by capital. For this reason, the ultimate purpose of automation is not the entire substitution of human labor. Instead, it is to use capital to manipulate the content and value of human labor through technologies, and achieve profit maximization. This is not to say that we are witnessing the end of conventional occupation groups. The case study analyzed in this thesis suggests that society is holding on to the notion of conventional occupation groups and is resisting the capitalist push for labor displacement through technological advancement. Therefore, a reasonable prediction for the near future is to say that automation technologies will transform, rather than replace conventional professional occupations and structures of labor.