The Emancipatory Politics of eCommerce

In this paper we explore buyers’ and sellers’ automobile transactions in traditional and electronic commerce (eCommerce) as forms of social action. By interpreting commercial transactions through the lens of a social-theoretic approach based on Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action (TCA) (1984, 1987), we aim to find out and explain how the changing trade conditions of eCommerce impact on traditionally asymmetric power relationships between buyers and sellers and on fairness of trade practices. By drawing on empirical studies of automobile sales, we demonstrate how the new trading conditions brought by eCommerce improved the strategic position of buyers and produced more equalized buyer–seller power relations that lead to fairer trade. Furthermore, by showing how the new trading conditions increased the capacity of buyers to take autonomous actions and free themselves from deception, coercion and control by sellers, we demonstrate the emancipatory implications of eCommerce.