Gig-Economy Workers Are the Modern Proletariat
I know it pays little and is repetitive. But my question with this kind of analysis is always: why do they keep finding people to do it?<p>There is another problem which I find more worrisome: we are expecting gig workers (and most other workers) to subject to hardcore competition for their jobs, wages and terms. The argument (also my argument above) is that it leads to efficient and honest outcomes because it involves little to no coercion.<p>But at the same time, governments are colluding with and bailing out the financial elites with every market crash. We did it with LTCM, in 2001, in 2008 and who knows when again. The bailout involves mass coercion of savers and an implicit punishment of those who were careful.<p>It may have profoundly changed the mentality of the wealthy. For the last 10 years, "if it gets bad enough, there will be a bail out" has become standard investment wisdom.<p>Socialism for those who own, free markets for those who don't. This contradiction is what'll ultimately do us in.