So I came across an interesting discussion today about the gig economy, and whether it's bad for the left, and I figured it would make a nice blog post given my current ideological clearings post election, as I feel like I have shifted my opinions on this in recent months as I have fine tuned my beliefs a bit.
Why the gig economy is bad
The big problem with the gig economy is that it bypasses almost a century of regulation intended to improve the conditions of workers within our forced participation economic system. Capitalism used to be unregulated, and it was horrible for people. People would work 16 hour days in terrible, unsafe conditions day in and day out just to survive, and they would be paid poorly. But then the great depression happened, and FDR came along and reformed things, "saving capitalism." He passed ideas like the 40 hour work week, minimum wages, and workplace safety laws, reforming capitalism's labor standards into what they are today.
It seems clear, in retrospect, that these standards were intended to evolve over time. People in the 1930s-1960s were so optimistic about the future and how we wouldn't have to work as much and how our standards would be high. it was clear that FDR's legacy was not intended to be an end all to be used 80-90 years later. But...here we are.
All of these labor standards revolve around what was acceptable circa 1938. The 40 hour work week being standard, minimum wages and full employment economies, this was all necessary at the time. And our standards not being updated since then have locked us into a cycle of no progress ever being made. We still expect people to work 40 hours a week. The minimum wage is set at a level assuming full time work, and it often fails even at that. Employer provided health insurance is tied to a forty hour work week. Everything about the system is intended to make everyone work forty hours a week, and if the system cannot sustain a system of forty hours a week, it has problems.
Which is where the gig economy comes in. The gig economy is the employer's way of skirting labor laws. We valorize working forty hours a week or more, but here's the thing, EMPLOYERS DO NOT WANT TO PAY PEOPLE. We have a societal goal, everyone works forty hours a week. They get wages to live on, and they get healthcare. Even Bernie argues that "no one who works forty hours a week should live in poverty." It should be noted he doesn't say "no one should live in poverty", he says "who works forty hours a week", implying that that is the standard that should be met my individuals. But, employers don't want to employ people for forty hours a week. They're cheap, they desire to minimize costs. And the gig economy is their way around those standards. Instead of having a tightly regulated taxi industry with high wages and the like, we have Uber now, which does the same thing, but all workers are "independent contractors" who use their own vehicles. This externalizes the risks from the company, cuts back on worker compensation in terms of wages and health care, and makes their "employees" use their own vehicles or "taxis." On the flip side though, uber drivers in my experience report being able to make some serious money in the short term, despite these obvious precarious conditions. However, most who like it seem to be working part time and looking to pick up money on the side.
Let's also look at a lot of part time work as it exists. We dont have workers often working stable 9-5 shifts any more in retail, full time. We have workers working part time, so they can't get healthcare, while having little control over their schedules, and working for low wages. You cannot live on these sorts of jobs, so people need to work multiple jobs just to survive.
And that's the problem. The promise of this whole forty hour a week social democratic ideal seems to just fail miserably in practice. We try to regulate, regulate, regulate companies to try to make them pay workers decent wages, give them good hours, give them healthcare, and treat them well. But employers don't want to treat their workers with care, they want disposable slaves. This valorized 1940esque ideal just doesn't hold up to the 21st century economy. And now with gig work becoming more and more prevalent, people live in more and more precarity. Less consistent work schedules, less reliable pay. Workers can't live like this. Instead of working less they gotta scrounge and work more, often working tons of odd jobs just to keep their heads above water.
...But is it REALLY bad?
I mean depending on your perspective, if you're on the left, the answer will likely always be some form of "yes". If you're a liberal or social democrat it's bad because it leads to mistreatment of workers, and if you're a socialist it's bad because it downgrades employees even more and gives them even less room at the table in terms of owning the means of production.
But, I would like to offer a different view on it. As I've kind of hinted throughout this whole thing, maybe the real problem is that we still expect people to work like it's still 1940? Again, These labor standards were implemented in 1938. It's 2021. We're 9 years from the date of John Meynard Keynes' "Economy Possibilities of our Grandchildren", and I don't see our 15 hour work weeks. These labor standards were implemented 8 years after that was written, and we're now 9 years from 2030, and we're still working like it's 1940.
The big problem with the economy these days, in my opinion, is that there are never enough jobs for people and the jobs that exist aren't enough to live on. We struggle to find work to employ people for forty hour weeks, and businesses quite frankly don't want to if they have to actually pay their employees and give them healthcare. So we end up with tons of 25 hour a week crap jobs that pay poorly and have no healthcare. And because we still coerce people to work under the threat of poverty if they don't, well, things aren't working so well.
These are arguments Yang has been making for basic income, and I have to concur. Automation and other shifts in the economy due to technology over the last few decades have made jobs more precarious. Well paid factory work is being replaced with low wage service work, and a lot of jobs, including the crap ones being created, are at risk of further automation in the future. It's possible the future of work for many people IS going to be precarious. For the top 20%, the economy is looking better than ever, but for the other 80%, eh, we should be worried about the future of the economy for them. The fact is, we are on track for work reductions predicted by the utopians of the past, the problem is that our standards are still the same ones they used almost a century ago, and they just don't work any more.
We need to update our social conventions, and first and foremost, that involves weaking the link between work and income. If people can have SOME income and other basic needs taken care of without work, then it's good for both employers and workers. Employers wouldn't have to worry about providing healthcare to people, and workers won't have to worry about getting their entire paycheck from precarious jobs. It would largely favor workers because workers could just...you know...quit, if work conditions suck, and I think that if people find their conditions intolerable and exploitative, they might.
It's possible we might see the positives of gig work be the positives of all work. Gig economy workers often set their own hours and work at their own pace, rather than being told to come in at a certain time. This is a good thing. I mean, who really wants a boss to cut their life up into segments for them and tell them what parts of their lives they own? Maybe if we could have basic income, workers would be free to set their own hours and work as much or as little as they want? And from there, it all comes down to motivation. The exceptionally unmotivated will likely not work at all, living off of a meager UBI. Many people might decide to only work one job at $10-15 an hour for 25 hours a week. This would give them, $250-375 a week, or $200-300 after the UBI tax, multiplied by 50 weeks that's $10,000-15,000 a year. So they would go home with $23,200-28,200 a year. Some might be more motivated and work harder and longer. That's their choice. As long as the UBI is sufficient, it doesn't matter to me what people do, as long as they choose to do it of their own accord without the threat of poverty.
Conclusion
That said maybe the future of work really IS gig work, and maybe that's not a bad thing. The problem is trying to insist we must employ every able bodied individual between, say, 16-66, and have them work 40 hours a week. That system doesn't actually work, and it will always fail a portion of the populace. Given the future of work, it might fail them even harder than it has for the past century.
We have a choice. We can cling to our past and glorify labor like we always have, trying to make this kind of work illegal and try to ensure everyone has $15 minimum wage and works forty hours a week at a job that provides healthcare, or we can realize that this system is garbage, it's becoming antiquated, and maybe the work-income link should be weakened, and maybe people should be given the basics without work, with people working part time odd jobs to make a bit more on the side to cobble together that mystical "living wage" standard that Bernie and the like valorizes. We can all work a bit less, we can have our needs taken care of, and we can still eek out an existence worth living that way. Idk, it seems kind of appealing to me.
That's not to say other goals of the left aren't worth pursuing, by the way. It's possible a UBI will not be sufficient to truly "live" on and some economic coercion will still exist, if so, regulations, minimum wages, etc. will also likely need to exist. But, if we had a UBI and medicare for all, we could actually see the economy for what it is, recognize that expecting it to provide a living in exchange for work is a fool's errand, and we could likely rely less on a regulatory state that apparently only gets overhauled once a century. The choice is ours.
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