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'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

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Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#161

Post by Bartweiss »

refurb wrote: post #14
gambiting wrote: post #3

I was mostly agreeing with the article until this part: "His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000. The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone." The medalions are stupid and shouldn't exist. Relying on their…

To be honest, I actually feel bad for medallion owners, even if the medallion system is a bad one. The gov't sets ups a system, tells you the rules and says "if you buy an expensive medallion, you can drive a cab and make a living". The value of the medallion is purely based on the gov't promise to maintain the system. So you buy one (or many) and a few years later someone does a work around and the gov't says "oh we…

Yep - I really don't understand the failure of sympathy towards cab drivers themselves.

Was the medallion system bad? Yes. Creating good jobs by enforcing random scarcity in a handful of markets is a ridiculous system.

But the people who bought these medallions didn't implement that system - they wanted to provide a service, and likely would have driven outside the medallion system if they could. Now they can, but they're broke because they happened to be in business while the government stopped screwing up their industry. They're victims of stupid regulation, not perpetrators.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#162

Post by JulianMorrison »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #146
JulianMorrison wrote: post #40

If we get a universal basic income set equal to a living wage, then the "gig economy" can go back to being actual gigs, that is, people doing a bit extra to get a bit extra.

I think if we get a universal basic income, all prices will just increase to compensate. I don't believe it'll be possible. It would need to be at or above minimum wage. It would have to be adjusted to location, so someone in SF would make $100K / year off basic income. And that in turn would cause fraud, e.g. registering you're living in SF while living somewhere cheap. It's some weird Star Trek utopic vision, but I…

A lot of the problem could be solved with public provision in such a way as to force the price down. A "national housing service" charging break-even rents would make it impossible for private landlords to capture UBI with a raised rent, for example.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#163

Post by tjr225 »

reading-at-work wrote: post #67

"The reign of the all-powerful capitalist class has returned with a vengeance. The job conditions of working men and women, thrust backward, will not improve until they regain the militancy and rebuild the popular organizations that seized power from the capitalists." ... "The ruling capitalists will be as vicious as they were in the past. Nothing enrages the rich more than having to part with a fraction of their obs…

I don't see anything wrong with those comments. You and I may be on the good side of capitalism but most people are not.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#164

Post by reading-at-work »

wmeredith wrote: post #118
reading-at-work wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, have you taken a cab lately? Can you honestly say you prefer that experience to what Uber or Lyft provides? I understand what that quote is saying, but I feel it's a false equivalency. There are already cars on the road in NYC. It's not like adding 10,000 horses to Central Park. Overall, the regulations on the taxi industry are the reason Uber and Lyft have been so successful - because they ski…

The fact that you prefer one experience over another doesn't make it profitable, sustainable, preferable, safe, etc... I myself prefer Uber to cabs, but I'm under no illusions that without VC money subsidizing my experience there would be no Uber rides for me to prefer.

Even if cabs and Uber rides were the same price, I'd still prefer Uber. Wouldn't you?

That said, I doubt the VC money will dry up. Companies can operate in the red, sustained by VC money, for a long time before becoming profitable. Look at Netflix, for example. Or Amazon until recently.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#165

Post by 345655433 »

sokoloff wrote: post #71
JulianMorrison wrote: post #40

If we get a universal basic income set equal to a living wage, then the "gig economy" can go back to being actual gigs, that is, people doing a bit extra to get a bit extra.

What's a living wage? $30K/yr? How many Americans are there (or just American adults)? 325M / 250M What's those two figures multiplied together? 9.8T / 7.5T What's the total federal tax revenues in 2016? 3.5T To what multiple would we need to raise taxes to pay for such a program? Raise to 3.8x current taxation levels / raise to 3.1x current taxation levels. All that assumes that basic prices wouldn't rise in an envi…

Some quite simplistic assumptions here. Obviously anyone making more than say, $150K would be taxed around $30K more (5% of US income tax payers). They would be net-net no worse off than before, but wouldn't add to the cost of this.

Most of the burden would fall on even richer people. There aren't many of these, but they make a lot of money.

But UBI would replace a lot of things currently funded mainly by rich people through either tax or philanthropy. Not just the whole welfare bill, lots of healthcare and law enforcement spending, but things like grants for the arts. Artists, musicians, etc would either live off their basic income or only require small payments for things like orchestral performances, commissions. Research where the cost of wages is a significant part of the cost (mathematics rather than rocket science) would enjoy a similar subsidy.

Many rich people spend a lot of time and money trying to either improve society or assuage their guilt for becoming rich in various anti-social ways. It might be somewhat worth it to them to have a society which they feel more positive about, but also have fewer threats to their well-being, such as from crime or populist politics.

You would expect some inflation, but tax receipts/GDP would also rise in line with inflation.

Some things would become much cheaper. For example, lots of people don't particularly want to live in run-down apartments in New Jersey. But they have to, because New York is where the work is. Those people might go and live much more cheaply elsewhere and have reduced housing costs.

The cost of artistic work would plummet, in line with the reduced demands of artists for money. (There are probably enough people who would want to make video games if they didn't have a day job that you could spend the rest of your life playing video games you enjoy for free.)

There wouldn't necessarily be much increased consumption of many things. If everyone eats dinner everyday, they would probably go on eating one dinner rather than three. If some people can't afford dinner currently, consumption and therefore prices, should rise. But some people not having food seems like a problem we should fix anyway.

Some things definitely would go up in price a lot. Things which have a high cost component of labour, and the people doing that labour don't particularly enjoy it. So you would have to pay people a lot to wait tables, and the cost of restaurants would reflect that. But there still might be lots of people who wanted to be maitre d's or helicopter pilots, at least for part of their lives. The flipside is that if you enjoy cheap food delivery, restaurants and taxis, you are currently being subsidized by welfare and other social care services which allow people to do crappy jobs for less money than it takes to live.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#166

Post by wildmusings »

cptskippy wrote: post #95
huffmsa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's purely based on artificial scarcity. Which historical never lasts. PanAm went bust because they banked on price fixed airline tickets. USPS benefited from national mail logistics only being available to government level endeavors. DeBeers is about to get crushed by artificial diamonds which are both cheaper and "better diamonds" than the massive stockpile they've accumulated. The rocket industry has long la…

> USPS benefited from national mail logistics only being available to government level endeavors. What Kool-Aid are you drinking? The Post Office didn't benefit from anything, it was mandated because no such service yet existed. Prior to the Office of the Postmaster General being established, postal service was disjointed and limited at best in the colonies. In the 1600s you had 2 routes in the colonies, Boston to En…

>The Post Office was mandated by the founding fathers under the principle that everyone has the right to secure, efficient, reliable, and affordable mail service.

The founders would not have talked about postal service as a "right". A good idea? Yes. Stupid to not have one? Yes. A right? No.

>The most recent being the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 which required the USPS to switch from a Pay-As-You-Go to a Pre-Funded model for it's retirement plans.

Congress saw the writing on the wall—that the Postal Service was probably going to suffer permanently declining revenue in the long run. They took steps to make sure that the financial burden of paying for unfunded pension liabilities did not fall on the taxpayers.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#167

Post by Sileni »

sokoloff wrote: post #71
JulianMorrison wrote: post #40

If we get a universal basic income set equal to a living wage, then the "gig economy" can go back to being actual gigs, that is, people doing a bit extra to get a bit extra.

What's a living wage? $30K/yr? How many Americans are there (or just American adults)? 325M / 250M What's those two figures multiplied together? 9.8T / 7.5T What's the total federal tax revenues in 2016? 3.5T To what multiple would we need to raise taxes to pay for such a program? Raise to 3.8x current taxation levels / raise to 3.1x current taxation levels. All that assumes that basic prices wouldn't rise in an envi…

Adjust down to 10k-15k; the wage doesn't have to be livable in a single apt with no partners, but it should be enough that you can split out living expenses in a cheap midwestern city with 2-3 roommates. Welcome side effect, we spread people and wealth more evenly across the country in a small way. People are encouraged to find the cheapest possible living arrangements, which will include developing currently unwanted land.

Recognize that most people are going to be put off from the bare minimum arrangement, and that you don't have to pay people making above some arbitrary line, something like 6-7x the UBI.

Many of the social programs currently running could be shut down with UBI.

And all of these are based on the assumption that automation will continue to increase efficiency. Right now, it would be nearly impossible, especially with the legislation that exists. It's dependent on taxing the owners of businesses with high automation, recognizing that we're not far out from some truly massive automated systems, the most immediate being logistics and transport.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#168

Post by icebraining »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #153
icebraining wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't actually be raising taxation to those levels, because you're immediately returning much of the money. If you apply a $32k tax and a $30k refund on the tax statement, you only raised the tax $2k effectively (for that person).

You're returning it to different people though. At least if you have the common sense to tax the rich. And in fact, that money is likely to be more economically useful in the hands of ex-poor-now-comfortable people (who will use it to study and start their dream small businesses) than being frittered or sat upon by the very wealthy.

You're returning it to different people though. At least if you have the common sense to tax the rich.

The rich would still get $30k, like everyone else. It's just that their increase in taxes would be bigger than that.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#169

Post by bbddg »

Fins wrote: post #142
deft wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think everyone is well aware of that. In a successful socialist state neither party elites or bureaucrats should exist. In a capitalist state or authoritarian system those are designed and necessary groups. Most people's objections to socialism are exactly what socialism is attempting to remove. Lenin, Stalin etc. did a terrible job.

But isn't it at least a little bit curious that any and everyone trying to implement it did an equally terrible job?

Back when people were trying to overthrow monarchies to introduce democracy and capitalism it didn't exactly go smoothly either. Capitalism in America might not have even been possible without the extensive use of slave labor and the genocide of an entire continent of people. There is such an ahistorical bend to anti-socialist rhetoric that is so pervasive in our society it's nearly impossible to see.

Re: 'The Gig Economy' Is the New Term for Serfdom

#170

Post by reading-at-work »

grasshopperpurp wrote: post #123
reading-at-work wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but in the context of this article it's just embellishment to whip up the reader's anger at the supposed injustice of Uber and Lyft. It doesn't contribute to any fact-based arguments and it shows the author as incredibly biased against big business in general.

Well, which parts do you disagree with? Or, do you just disagree with the sensationalist language?

I agree that humans in general with unchecked power can become dictatorial maniacs. I disagree that the CEOs of ride-hailing companies specifically will become dictatorial maniacs. I think that kind of sensationalist language discredits the article to a large degree, and doesn't contribute to the author's argument in a concrete way. It's an appeal to emotion, not a rational and defensible argument.
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