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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

#231

Post by turc1656 »

bbddg wrote: post #205
turc1656 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how every single profitable business operates. It's not a bad thing, it's a requirement. If a business pays you exactly the value you bring to them, then they do not earn anything from employing you, and have no profits to reinvestment into the business or reward investors for taking the risk of investing in the business. For this reason, not a single person who isn't self-employed ever gets paid "what they ar…

Yeah thanks, I understand how it works. I happen to think it is a bad thing.

Why is it a bad thing? What is the alternative? To have every single person in the world work for themselves? That's really the only other alternative besides not allowing businesses to retain any earnings for growth and expansion.

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

#232

Post by sokoloff »

Sileni wrote: post #167
sokoloff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unwante…

> Adjust down to 10k-15k; the wage doesn't have to be livable in a single apt with no partners,

I agree with you (and would support an even lower UBI if it meant it had a chance for the math to work out). The "fight for $15" people probably disagree, though.

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

#233

Post by troupe »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #143
cryoshon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then why are 1 in 7 people food insecure in the US?

And why do 12-14% live under the poverty line? https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-un... There were articles a few years ago where people had to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet - if at all. Nowadays they still do, but the jobs no longer exist and they're being replaced with gigs. At least the jobs had some guarantee of number of hours people could work. And I mean look at me - I'm…

As someone who grew up well below the poverty line, I suggest you look into what is actually considered poverty in the United States. It is an extremely high threshold in terms of absolute poverty and reflects an ever-increasing dollar amount rather than a standard of living. If you look at the number of people today who have a standard of living at or below what was considered poverty in 1918 I think you'll find the percentage has steadily decreased over time. As people get further and further from real poverty we just raise the standard. I'm not saying that is necessarily bad, but most people who talk about the poverty line don't really think about how much the standard of living at that level has improved over the past 100 years or so.

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

#234

Post by troupe »

eganist wrote: post #60
WhompingWindows wrote: post #6

Serfdom is not a good comparison. Serfs were essentially slaves required to work the land, they did not choose to do so at hours that suited them, which is a key "feature" of the gig economy. They also were required to work mines, logging, or whatever service the lord of the manor wished. Let's say you worked for ride-shaes the same hours as a serf, something like sunrise to sunset. If you drove an Uber in my city fo…

> they did not choose to do so at hours that suited them Aside from being particularly banal, the assertion that employees partaking in a gig economy can reasonably choose their own hours is provably false. People relying on gigs to make a living are effectively obligated to follow demand; choosing your own hours is only an option when the revenue is no longer necessary for sustenance. Don't take my word for it -- th…

> the assertion that employees partaking in a gig economy can reasonably choose their own hours is provably false

Having talked with a number of Uber drivers, I know that many of them like Uber specifically because they can choose their own hours. Of all the things they have told me they DON'T like, choosing their own hours is the one thing they all DO say that they like.

Some take off when their kid has a baseball game. Others like working new years eve because it pays well. Others don't like dealing with drunks on new years eve so they don't think it is worth it to them to work it and take the evening off even though they have to work more hours on other days to make the same amount of money.

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

#235

Post by Micrococonut »

Maybe people should increase their human capital by perhaps developing some sort of valuable skill. The fact is their skills are practically worthless because almost every adult can do what they do. Instead of crying that their so-easy-a-caveman-could-do-it job driving a car isn't making them enough money, they should do something else that generates more value and thus pays them more.

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

#236

Post by shusson »

samastur wrote: post #24
shusson wrote: post #7

> Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber and one of the founders, has a net worth of $4.8 billion. I agree that the working conditions of workers should improve but I never understand the comparison to the value of CEOs. Travis Kalanick isn't sleeping on $4.8 billion, it's in the economy.

Why does that even matter? Admittedly people like me have a larger proportion of our wealth pinned down in things like real-estate, but it's not like most of us stuff cash in shoe boxes around house. Once you discount accommodation and personal cars, most of us have the rest "in the economy".

I think it matters because people blame individuals rather than the system.

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

#237

Post by smileysteve »

anonetal wrote: post #171
Lavery wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People constantly cite self-driving cars as Uber's salvation, but never really seem to think through the implication. Hypothetically, let's say that self-driving cars are invented next year. Necessarily, these will start in high-end vehicles (as nearly all new car features do) before getting rolled out to the broader ecosystem. Now if you're Uber you face one of two choices: 1) You enter into perhaps the most capital…

Regarding (1), they could just lease the cars from the car manufacturers. As I recall, that was one of the reasons why GE invested so heavily in Lyft.

*GM

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

#238

Post by itchyouch »

humanrebar wrote: post #188
stevenwoo wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This author made the mistake of trying to overgeneralize from the New York taxi industry, but most American job growth since 2005 has been temp work/contracting, Uber/Lyft are just the most visible for one industry - this kind of explains the general unease/longing for the past we saw in a sizeable percentage of the electorate expressed in the 2016 election in both parties. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/m…

Arguably full-time employment is: * more like serfdom than having several bosses you can replace as needed * historically more of an anomaly than juggling a few side hustles like fishing and delivering mail and giving boat tours Besides, it seems like employment law is more to blame for the lack of full time jobs. At least more to blame than companies that hire part time workers. If, economically, we want more full t…

Perhaps tax law could penalize part-time work while rewarding full-timers?

Maybe companies have to pay into a health-care tax for part-time workers that would get covered by medicaid, plus a part-time worker fee/tax.

I wonder what the unintended ramifications of this would be. People end up working as full-timers for a contracting company that gigs out its individuals like current employment agencies? Companies try to classify everyone as a 1099 contractor? Probably not...

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

#239

Post by reading-at-work »

jonhendry18 wrote: post #219
reading-at-work wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investment dollars aside, there's hard data to show that Uber and Lyft reduce drunk driving in any area where they operate, for one thing. It's a tangible addition to the general consensus that the apps are much better from a user experience perspective. Additionally, plenty of expanding companies are subsidized by investor money. You could say the same of Netflix and, until recently, Amazon. The point is that invest…

"there's hard data to show that Uber and Lyft reduce drunk driving in any area where they operate" More cabs would likely do the same.

Maybe, maybe not. What's the big difference between cabs and Uber? Price and convenience. Uber and Lyft are successful because they fill a huge need in the market that the overregulated taxi industry couldn't (or wouldn't). If there's clearly a need for more cabs, and the answer is just to add more cabs, why do you think nobody addressed that concern?

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

#240

Post by reading-at-work »

emodendroket wrote: post #208
reading-at-work wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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" Rolling my eyes pretty hard at that one. Can you elaborate? Do you really think the whole system would have failed without slave labor? How was the capitalist economy different back then, such that free labor was absolutely necessary for it to be sustained? "There is suc…

Counterfactuals are difficult, but surely you'd agree that the Triangle Trade was important to the economies that actually ended up leading the Industrial Revolution. Although I have not read it, I think Eric Williams's Capitalism and Slavery is an influential work well known for forcefully arguing for a link between the eponymous phenomena (of course not everyone agrees with its claims).

Of course it was important, but I disagree that the system depended on it to maintain its very existence. If slavery didn't happen, the market still would have evolved around that fact. Capitalism would still exist, just with higher labor costs. Maybe cotton prices would have been a little higher as a result, and maybe the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened as quickly. Still would've happened though. I don't see much evidence to suggest otherwise, but I'll have to check out that book and see if the arguments are any good.
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