BothAndBlog Forum

Giggers : Employees or Contractors . . . or Serfs?
https://uberpeople.net/threads/giggers- ... st-4392379

https://www.economist.com/finance-a...- ... -overblown

This recent article in The Economist reviews the current state of the Gig Economy, and concludes that there's not much to worry about. Except for how humans, and their institutions, can manage to adapt to ever more rapidly changing economic mechanics. Of course, wage workers have always futilely resisted changes that do away with traditional employment niches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite But, after a period of turmoil, sometimes a generation or two, most workers settle-down and adapt to their new roles as slaves to the machine. The problem today is that radical changes are coming in wave after wave, leaving little time for those knocked over to get back on their feet. As usual, those most desperate for work will accept the ever lower wages in order to eke-out a living from day to day. But unregulated Darwinian economic forces will tend to force wages to spiral downward, until the weakest workers are no longer "fit" to survive.

"But others fear the gig economy will bring an end to steady, decently paid employment for ordinary people."
In some ways, the "gig economy" is a good thing for unskilled or otherwise compromised workers, who can't compete for higher paid work. Except that their incomes will continue to be depressed by competitive economic pressures toward the minimum necessary to keep body & soul together. This reminds me of freed slaves who worked for their former masters, because there were no better options. As independent "contractors", they were masters of their little rental farms, which they could exploit as they saw fit. Yet they were now self-employed & isolated, still beholden to the boss, but no longer benefiting from membership in a large synergetic organization. The most ambitious eventually managed to work their way up to a more comfortable lifestyle, but the majority remained in the limbo of a perpetual underclass.

"The gig economy overturns that model. It relies on “two-sided markets”, which cater to two groups—workers and customers."
In the modern freelance economy, Gig workers are also independent, but isolated. No longer integral components of a system with a vested interest in their welfare. They are not really employees in the traditional sense, and they are not really independent contractors. Like share-croppers, ride-sharers are deeply dependent on the masters who control their options & opportunities. Consequently, their ambiguous status leaves giggers in limbo, at the mercy of merciless Capitalism. Neither fully independent, nor fully integrated, they are barely in control of their own welfare. They are entrepreneurs in the wasteland.

Since the Gig Economy is not going away any time soon, a government tasked with the general welfare of its citizens, may have to redefine their traditional categories of Workers and Employees. Employees are entitled, by law, to a minimum living wage. But gig-contractors have no such guarantees, and little control over their own incomes. Left unchecked, ruthlessly efficient Capitalism, like a fine-tuned soulless machine, always tends to maximize profits and minimize the cost of doing business.

That's why regulators may need to create incentives, for middle-man businesses like UBER & LYFT, to make human interest a necessary investment, not an optional expense. But how can you mandate a living wage for independent sole-proprietor businesses? The middle-man businesses would be forced to re-calibrate the interests of both workers and customers. That's why objective lawmakers may have to help them decide what to do. Maybe it would help to redefine Gig-workers as "semi-independent contractors", or "Serfs", or Medieros (spanish for share-croppers). It may take years of polarized political warfare though, for lawmakers to reach a workable compromise, like Social Security and Minimum Wage, somewhere between the soulless machine of coldly-efficient Capitalism and the bleeding-heart of sketchy Socialism. Meanwhile, us gig-serfs will just muddle along. ;)

Giggers, continued . . .

" Meanwhile, us gig-serfs will just muddle along. ;) "

Furthering the analogy with ancient economics : The Gig-economy may be a modern revival of the old medieval Feudal system. In a sense, the Landlords, who owned the means of production, were middle-men. They lorded over the Serfs, who as vassals produced the actual goods & services. But the Lords were also subjects to the King, who was the top-level customer for the services (soldiers) & products (food) of the common men.

The primary difference today is that, in a service economy, fertile soil is no longer essential to the means of production. Instead we are farming information. The UBER lords own the App, which controls the exchanges of crucial information that flows between Drivers (producers of transportation) and Riders (consumers of transport services). The app knows where the providers and the buyers are. And they sell that information to both parties for a price regulated only by the "ideal" invisible hand of the unfettered economic system.

The less-than-ideal Feudal system emerged from the breakdown of the stable centralized Roman government. Which allowed local warlords to appropriate the lands of their fiefs. Which they then parceled out to their loyal lesser lords. Similarly, I suspect that the gig-economy has resulted from the decentralizing effects of the free frontiers of the Information Age. Like the American Wild West though, the unregulated information economy seems to be romantic, chaotic, anarchic,and violent. Back then, every man with a gun was a law unto himself. Today, every man with an app is a lord of his domain.

But that free-spirited lawless era came to an end when the common folk (serfs) began to demand "back east" government protection from the gunslingers (lords). That's when the marshals were sent in to establish law & order, and fences were erected to settle property rights. Likewise our own age of internet freedom and net neutrality is coming to an end, as more & more centralized regulations are imposed. So the serfs (drivers) and lords (app owners) may have to accept a little less freedom in return for order (living wages) and peace (with rebellious drivers) .


The proud and unfeeling landlord views his extensive fields, and without a thought for the wants of his brethren, in imagination consumes himself the whole harvest ... [Yet] the capacity of his stomach bears no proportion to the immensity of his desires ... the rest he will be obliged to distribute among those, who prepare, in the nicest manner, that little which he himself makes use of, among those who fit up the palace in which this little is to be consumed, among those who provide and keep in order all the different baubles and trinkets which are employed in the economy of greatness; all of whom thus derive from his luxury and caprice, that share of the necessaries of life, which they would in vain have expected from his humanity or his justice...The rich...are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

Giggers, continued . . .

In the construction industry, General Contractors work directly for the Customer. In that position they are indispensable to completion of the project. But Sub-Contractors work for the GC, and are less essential to the project, because they can be replaced without seriously disrupting the project.

In the Ride-share industry, the App-owners work directly for the Riders, and have direct access to their credit cards. So, they are essential to the ride-hailing project. The drivers, who do the actual work, are more like Sub-Contractors. As a group, they are necessary to the completion of the transaction. But, as individuals, they are inter-changeable, and replaceable. So, like Pawns on a chess board, their value is primarily in their large numbers. The system works best if there are more drivers than riders, guaranteeing short waits for pickups. But that means the drivers are competing among themselves for not-enough rides. Which, like low-bidding sub-contractors, tends to drive their incomes down toward the bare minimum for survival, and contributes to a high drop-out rate.

That's the beauty of the Free-Enterprise economy. Riders, at the top of the pyramid, get expeditious low-cost transportation, and the General Contractor middle-men make a steady income. Unfortunately, those masses of Sub-Pawns, as bottom-feeders, are fodder for the system, with low life-expectancy. That's why tiny little fish tend to school together, in order to minimize the chances of their quick demise. But independent drivers don't instinctively herd together to further the interests of the group. So it might take some outside force, like the regulatory rules of fair play in construction bidding, to make system more viable for the little guys.

Why The Animosity?
https://uberpeople.net/threads/why-the- ... ty.329705/

Aw Jeez said:
It constantly amazes me to read on these pages the words of drivers who genuinely hold our passengers in contempt.

I suspect that it's not really the passengers that are held in contempt, but the drivers who feel self-contempt for their menial role as a servant to "superior" people who have real jobs. In psychology, that's called "projection".

Self-loathing people sometimes engage in self-defeating behaviors, such as trying to sabotage the source of their minimal financial livelihood -- killing the goose that lays their sh*tty eggs.

"Psychological projection involves projecting undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else, rather than admitting to or dealing with the unwanted feelings. "
www.everydayhealth.com

Psychological Projection: Dealing With Undesirable Emotions
Are you guilty of psychological projection? Learn about psychological projection and find out how to avoid engaging in this common defense mechanism. The latest hot topics from LifeScript.com.
www.everydayhealth.com www.everydayhealth.com



Stephen Uno said:
Every job give a raise....... Every man have a right to their point of view and if you don’t like it don’t post.

UBERing is not a career path, it's a temporary dead-end employment, like pizza delivery. If you want cost-of-living raises, you need to get into a different line of work.

The original poster expressed his opinion. If you don't like it, exit. :smiles:




jhearcht said:
Self-loathing people sometimes engage in self-defeating behaviors, such as trying to sabotage the source of their minimal financial livelihood -- killing the goose that lays their sh*tty eggs.

The opinion article below discusses the self-sabotage of ride-share workers. They are venting their frustrations with the capitalist system in a manner similar to 19th century textile workers, who destroyed the machines that were taking their jobs. Such acting out of anger probably made them feel better in the short term, but it didn't bring back their obsolete jobs. Eventually, the economy produced new kinds of jobs for those displaced by technology. But it's getting harder to imagine what 7 billion people will find to do, that machines can't do better. :frown:
en.wikipedia.org
Luddite - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Article : "UBER is an example of what goes wrong when algorithms become our bosses."

Those of us on the bottom tier of the employment ladder are rapidly being replaced by machines that are quicker and more accurate, but don't have all the irelevant needs & feelings of humans. Futurists have been wracking their brains for decades, trying to plan for a future when the majority of people are unnecessary for the functioning of the capitalist economy. Just as horses were made superfluous by horseless carriages, UBER & pizza drivers will eventually be replaced by driverless cars or drones. This general trend of market forces mandating lower prices (and lower wages) may spark a revival of Communism, in hopes that politicians can mandate the welfare of the masses better than the "invisible hand". Or maybe the machines will just take over, as in The Matrix. :unsure:
www.nbcnews.com
Opinion | How Uber and Lyft drivers are using the companies' algorithms against them
Community is more powerful than technology.
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com

JustTreatMeFair said:
They would create algorithms that allowed log-ins based on THEIR needs at the time. Fewer people would drive because it would take some logic and reasoning for most to get ON the clock and those forced out of the mix would disappear over time.

It's not just UBER, but cyber-commerce in general, that is changing the old ways of personnel and time-management. Since the advent of modern capitalism, each new way of doing business has benefited the capitalists, and put downward pressure on the laborers' income and freedom. In theory, competition will keep the bosses from exploiting their slaves to extinction. But, in radically new systems, the field is too wide-open to put back-pressure on the executives. Hence, the government usually steps-in with trust-busting socialist sanctions -- poisoning the goose that lays the profitable eggs. Is that what we need, or want, now? Or do we want to preserve what's left of Net Neutrality? It's the old conundrum -- how to choose between freedom and order (control).

gizmodo.com
The Ruthless Reality of Amazon's One-Day Shipping
Amazon has rapidly expanded its internal shipping services as the company shifts toward one-day delivery shipping from its default two-day shipping service. The company is pledging to spend $800 million this quarter to achieve one-day delivery as the default shipping option for all prime...
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com

Net neutrality - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org