In the current historical period, logistics has been elevated to the category of a key variable for understanding the political economy of territory, alongside others such as finance, advertising, consumption and information. In the face of the relentless pursuit of competitiveness and increased fluidity that characterizes economic globalization, logistics has transcended its military scope and has become a field of interdisciplinary studies primarily focused on the actions of large corporations.
The purpose of this brief essay is to propose a typology of logistics based on geographical theory, based on Castillo’s (2017) logistics proposal and the circuits of the urban economy (SANTOS, 2004), as well as to propose an interpretation on platform logistics. The following discussion is in its early stages, and as such, it is hoped to engage in dialogue with experts in the field to identify the possibilities and limitations of this analysis. Therefore, the existence of three distinct types of logistics is considered: 1) logistics “of” the upper circuit; 2) logistics of the lower circuit; and 3) logistics “for” the lower circuit (provided by the State or the upper circuit).
Logistics “of” the upper circuit
According to Castillo (2007), corporate logistics is aimed at serving the interests of large hegemonic companies in their pursuit of rationalizing material flows and subsequently expanding into international markets. The strategies for this have proven crucial as factors of competitiveness to the extent that, according to the author, logistics has become a sector of economic activity with service providers, various categories of agents, and specialized training programs for a technical workforce capable of dealing with the complexity of supply chains and distribution.
Most studies on Brazilian geography regarding corporate logistics approach the subject from the perspective of globalized agribusiness (ELIAS, 2011) and how hegemonic agents impose new uses of territory, conceived as a resource. According to Castillo (2007), the corporate demands of these agents put pressure on governments and link public budgets to a narrow definition of logistics, primarily conceived as overcoming historical transportation deficiencies and constantly seeking to enhance competitiveness.
Large companies appropriate fundamental infrastructures, such as telecommunications, electricity, and transportation, through privatization programs, concessions, and public-private partnerships, all in the name of increasing fluidity and making places, regions, and territories more attractive for productive investments and services (CASTILLO, 2007; BRAGA; CASTILLO, 2013). Logistic nodes are a good example: large companies and states are responsible for the creation and use of these geographical fixed assets, which are exclusive to the current technical-scientific-informational period (SANTOS, 1994), and are unevenly distributed throughout space, forming part of the structural basis of hegemonic circulation in the Brazilian territory (BRAGA; CASTILLO, 2013).
Logistics “of” and “for” the lower circuit
On the other hand, one can address the logistics “of” and “for” the lower circuit of the urban and agrarian economy. In the first case, logistics “of” the lower circuit refers to the strategies and solutions invented by the agents of this circuit themselves to bring rationality to their material flows and meet time, cost, and quality demands in terms of collection, storage, and delivery of goods, both within and outside the city.
In the second case, logistics “for” the lower circuit is seen as a service provided by third parties to the agents of the lower circuit, enhancing their geographic mobility and potentially affecting territory accessibility. By third parties, we mean the existence of two exclusive agents responsible for ensuring such logistics services: 1) the State, through institutional markets and public policies; and 2) companies, through logistics outsourcing and fourth-party logistics.
The discussion about the capacity and even the responsibility of the State in providing logistics services, at least in the Brazilian case, is more developed for agents in the lower circuit of the agrarian economy[1]. Although the number of published works is still limited, there seems to be an acknowledgment that the State, through public policies, particularly institutional markets, can articulate and promote productive inclusion of non-hegemonic agents in productive circuits dominated by large corporations through logistics (FORNAZIER, 2014; GUIDE, 2018; LOPES, 2021).
The logistics service provided by companies, on the other hand, has traditionally been offered to agents in the upper circuit in terms of outsourcing and fourth-party logistics, primarily for intermunicipal cargo transportation. However, the recent expansion and consolidation of digital labor platforms have introduced a new modality that consists of the implementation of corporate logistics apparently serving agents in the lower circuit.
The delivery of ready meals via app is a notable case of the effectiveness of such logistics, because the platform becomes responsible for providing the technical conditions for agents of the various circuits of the food retail business, including the lower circuit, to distribute their goods. To do so, platforms recruit the work of independent couriers who, guided by algorithms, operationalize the collection and distribution of production from small bars and restaurants in the territory.
Thus, within the platform economy, large corporations have sought to achieve greater efficiency in the circulation of goods and services by mobilizing local resources of the agents themselves and through sophisticated technical-informational intelligence that monitors and intervenes in all directions. The charging of a “toll,” that is, an operational fee from suppliers and couriers, is the counterpart demanded by the company, which can reach considerable amounts and make the business unviable for a fraction of these agents.
It is interesting to note that this category of logistics promotes a supposed inclusion of agents in the lower circuit of the urban economy without the interference of the State in expanding the mobility of these agents. This is something unprecedented and needs to be studied, both due to the growing volume of goods and services circulating under the tutelage of these large corporations and the worrying number of workers who daily take to the streets of cities to keep up with the speed of this new economy. The large number of small and medium businesses that find in the platforms a distribution channel for their products and services, sometimes as the only possible way, also highlights the relevance of the issue.
Logistics as an attribute of territory accessibility
Logistics, therefore, appears as a link between the parties, promoting the interconnection of numerous couriers responsible for circulation, many of whom are independent and non-professional, with retail establishments responsible for the supply of goods, all registered and mediated by the platforms. This constitutes the new paradigm of goods circulation in the city and has been referred to in the literature as “crowd logistics” (ODONGO, 2017; CARBONE; ROUQUETE; ROUSSAT, 2017) or “platform logistics”[2] as we have proposed. This new manifestation of logistics can be understood as something intermediate between the two main forms of logistics, i.e., that of the upper circuit and that of the lower circuit.
Despite appearing inclusive and democratic, this aspect of logistics conditions small agents to follow the rules and rhythms of the major platforms, both in terms of production and distribution, preventing their effective economic emancipation. On the contrary, the platforms promote local income extraction and capture enormous amounts of information that are subsequently used to enhance and make their control over agents, flows, and territories even more efficient.
As Arroyo (2008) warns, although the built environment of cities is theoretically available to all, it does not serve everyone because each economic agent has its own speed according to the circuit in which it participates. Therefore, unequal mobility conditions designate different uses of the territory. In the case of agents in the lower circuit of retail, they are more tied to specific places, and the circulation of their goods occurs on reduced geographical scales. However, the action of digital platforms has the ability to extend the reach of the distribution of goods from the lower circuit not only to other parts of space but also to new fractions of social classes.
Castillo (2017) asserts that agents in the upper circuit, through a corporate use of territory, are capable of converting potential fluidity into effective fluidity, resulting in geographic mobility gains. Meanwhile, agents in the lower circuit encounter great difficulty in achieving the same, which restricts the scale of their actions in terms of circulation. According to the author, geographic mobility is an attribute of agents in their ability to move or cause the movement of goods, merchandise, and information.
This conception allows for the analysis of agents in the circuits of the urban economy and assigns them varying degrees of mobility based on their level of capitalization, technology, and organization – defining criteria of the circuits of the urban economy – as well as their intrinsic conditions (SANTOS, 2004; CASTILLO, 2017). There are also a set of external variables, specific to each space fraction and at different geographic scales, according to Castillo (2017), which can be referred to as accessibility. This concept encompasses the combination of material means, regulations, and services, attributed to both social agents and places, regions, and territories.
The unequal mobility of delivery agents
With that being said, the advent of digital platforms in places promotes the expansion of geographic mobility for a fraction of agents, mainly because it introduces a new external variable to accessibility: logistics services. Small food suppliers that do not have delivery systems and consequently have limited mobility can make use of the sophisticated logistics provided by the platform for the distribution of their production across the territory.
The platformization of the delivery service supposedly takes into account a new set of possibilities for the coordination between different social agents in innovative ways, without relying on the actions of the government or the effort to expand the density of the built environment. In the terms discussed, since the intrinsic mobility conditions of agents often depend on factors that go beyond the actions of the major platforms, geographic accessibility becomes a fertile field for platform investments.
Considering the tripartite aspect of accessibility[3], since interventions in the material sphere (geographical form) and regulatory (legal form) depend on a complex play of forces given by the hybrid regulation of the territory[4], which would bring slowness to the actions of platforms, which are guided by speed and aggressiveness, these large technology companies have found a supposed “solution” to the problem of geographical mobility in the sphere of services. Therefore, “as-a-service” logistics is a remarkable element to be considered as an attribute of space and as a differentiation factor between agents of the urban economy circuit.
As emphasized by Vecchio et al. (2022), platforms intensify the unequal use of territory practiced by distinct fractions of social classes. According to the authors, higher-income classes, due to facilitated access to consumption through delivery systems, move less around the city to consume goods, becoming more “immobile” at the expense of increased circulation among lower-income classes, which are endowed with “hypermobility” by platforms to serve market interests.
For Vecchio et al. (2022), mobility is an exclusively individual activity but inevitably requires interdependence with other individuals. The “hypermobility” of workers increases the circulation of goods in cities while also being one of the main causes of precariousness within the delivery system, promoting informal working conditions and greater exposure to risk.
In summary, it is necessary to consider the multiple interconnections between the material and immaterial realms of urban mobility within the platform logistics context, as well as between the realms of labor and capital. According to Popan (2021), in the case of delivery, a clear dichotomy is revealed: for the delivery worker, the platformized delivery service is responsible for feelings of fatigue, exhaustion, frustration, and low pay, while for the platform and its users, it is seen in terms of speed, efficiency, and convenience.
References
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[1] Or what was originally referred to as “small” (BECKER, 2007), but is preferably referred to as the lower circuit of the urban and agrarian economy.
[2] The national and international literature refers to it as “crowd logistics” or “crowdsourcing logistics”. The term “platform logistics” serves to better refine the term in the context of this research, especially in the debate surrounding the “platform economy.”
[3] “(…) a set of material means, regulations (norms) and services that, brought together in a given subspace, allow the local or regional population to be offered the possibility of moving or having goods and information moved to specific places, central or peripheral” (CASTILLO, 2017, p. 646)
[4] ANTAS JR. (2005)
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