# The dark side of the gig economy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835 "2017-03-23T14:09:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/61 "2017-03-28T14:25:55Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Now, it turns out the whole economy does better when I (and by extension the rest of the workers) get closer to 8 dollars an hour, because it means more people able to buy the shit that’s being sold and a more functional, fluid economy. It means my life is better, because I can actually save money, or buy things I want beyond bare subsistence. But it’s clearly worse for my employer, because if he pays me 8 dollars an hour, that’s 7 dollars not going into his pocket per hour, compared to the $1 wage. So why the hell would he do that? There’s nobody forcing him to. So instead, we continue this race to the bottom, with wages bottoming out at the point where starving to death occurs whether you work or not. > > This is why we have things like the minimum wage. Because everyone _except the single person who holds the power in the employee-employer relationship_ benefits when we do. Or, to make it even more succinct, arguments such as **WillFarnaby** ’s are attempts to disguise the old “socialize costs, privatize profits” shell game as a legitimate free market competition. ---
**Author:** ![mazinger\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/62 "2017-03-28T14:54:14Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > This comes pretty close to being self-cancelling gibberish. > > In what system do “bureaucrats” define jobs or require any person to take a specific job… or any job? > > That a gig economy works (and has always worked) for some subset of flexible workers with low security requirements and a “marketable skill” to sell does not mean it’s adaptable beyond that subset. I would guess my years as a freelance writer/publishing consultant could be called “gigging” except that there was no app and I didn’t find my clients in Home Depot parking lots. > > That gigging is being promoted as some new thing, accessible to all and as a valid (and somehow ethically/morally better) than working a stable, secure job is ripe old horseshit, as even successful giggers find out soon enough. Ok, then, what are you complaining/debating about? That people use their time and seek compensation in a way you don’t agree with? That people, given such freedom, may make poor choices? Do you want to do away with gigging opportunities? My point is that the positives out weigh the negatives. My point about my family is that they had to start somewhere. Does it happen for everyone? No. But, if a person with no marketable skills can find a way to be employable, on their terms, then more power to them. ---
**Author:** ![mazinger\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/63 "2017-03-28T15:15:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > You want the bureaucrats to get off your back and give you the freedom to work eighty hours a week for a dollar an hour? Because that’s the choice most people made back before the government stepped in. > > It’s great to have something like Uber driving or babysitting as your first job. But it shouldn’t be your only job. Do you think your father would be a millionaire if he had been an Uber driver all his life? The kind of economy that gave your father the opportunity to rise is what’s disappearing. Nowadays a lot of people start at the bottom and find they can’t leave the bottom. So, then, let me ask again: what is a better system? Who’s responsibility is it to make workers more marketable? People should sort this stuff out for themselves. People will major in underwater basket-weaving without thinking about marketability. Other people will put more forethought into their decision-making and find themselves more marketable. Do you want to do away with the gig economy? Do you want to prevent apps that facilitate the gigs? Btw, my dad made his money buying distressed property and flipping it to buy more expensive distressed property. He got his investment money by saving. All the work he couldn’t do, he contracted out, gigging, if you will. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/64 "2017-03-28T15:21:26Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > Ok, then, what are you complaining/debating about? That people use their time and seek compensation in a way you don’t agree with? That people, given such freedom, may make poor choices? Do you want to do away with gigging opportunities? My point is that the positives out weigh the negatives. My point about my family is that they had to start somewhere. Does it happen for everyone? No. But, if a person with no marketable skills can find a way to be employable, on their terms, then more power to them. Well, IMVHO, you’ve almost completely missed the point of the discussion here. First of all, gigging almost wholly consists of selling \*some \*marketable skill. Standing around Home Depot’s parking lot or using an app is all the same if you’re only good for unskilled brute labor. Gigging assumes you have something to sell to someone who wants to buy it (as cheaply as possible and on the least binding terms). And yes, everyone’s free to make poor choices. However, it’s the word “choice” that everything pivots on. If your “choice” is no income at all or working piecemeal for whoever will hand you a fiver, it’s not really a choice, is it? My point, at least at the outset, is that all of the gushing and cooing over the gig economy tends to focus on skilled to highly skilled workers who are self-managing and collecting hefty fees on a freelance basis for guitar tuning or mural painting or brain surgery or whatever. That we have always had such freelancers is overlooked. That nothing has really changed except There’s An App for That! is forgotten. That some very large number of giggers are scratching after subsistence income doing something commodity and competitive - meaning there’s always some schmuck who will do it cheaper - is dismissed. That “the gig economy” is the socioeconomic equivalent of a jetting arterial wound and not a pretty fountain is my point, I guess. It’s a symptom of a very sick and broken consumer/worker economy, and nothing to celebrate. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/65 "2017-03-29T01:05:37Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > If you have nothing to offer in a thread but threadshitting, you would be better off just not posting. > > You are the only one bringing up “liberal” as an issue and your red herring post appears to be attacking a position that no one has offered. > > This is inappropriate. Stop it. > > [/Moderating] > > > [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > > > Excuse me, if this were Walmart, all we would hear is how Republicans exploit the working class and how they need food stamps to survive working there… Now that we see Uber and Fivver and Rover and Groupon run from Silicon Valley doing the exact same thing we don’t hear a peep. :rolleyes: Seriously, dude? You new here? That’s par for the course around here. You’re only allowed to say this about conservatives. You gotta know whose turf you’re on. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/66 "2017-03-29T02:22:57Z")
Back in 1966 (approx) I had a summer job running a spot welder - take two pieces of sheet metal, hold them together in proper position and place between two massive electrodes. Kicking the pedal raised the bottom electrode. When a current was running from electrode to metal to electrode, a spark was created, making a welded spot. It was called “spot welding”. Tesla released a video of three robots picking up sheet metal parts, holding them in correct position and spot-welding them. Those robots not only took my old job, but the job of the person who had placed the parts together for me to weld. My old employer shut down years ago. The question of "Who’s going to have money to buy the stuff produced at absolute minimum cost (i.e. “untouched by human hands”) is the crux of the coming New Economy - if you can no longer find any employment, how do you pay the rent? You can maybe undersell the foreign competitors who still use humans to produce their product, but then they will automate and the race to the bottom will heat up. Eventually, there will be stasis - just as American and United could forever compete without ever having one dominate the other, manufacturing will get deadlocked - China, North America, and Europe are all big enough to support domestic markets large enough to have local manufacturing. If Russia ever gets its act together, it could rival the Big Three in market size. But all will face the problem: people are no longer tied to a job they hate but need. Go People! No job, so how _ **do** _ I get the money for not only a roof over my head and food on the table, but a new TV, car, and all the other stuff being produced for the “consumer market”? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/67 "2017-03-29T02:49:08Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > That “the gig economy” is the socioeconomic equivalent of a jetting arterial wound and not a pretty fountain is my point, I guess. It’s a symptom of a very sick and broken consumer/worker economy, and nothing to celebrate. No. A significant fraction of the population doesn’t want to be a slave to a time clock–and for these people gigging works nicely. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/68 "2017-03-29T02:51:20Z")
I’m curious as to what people are asking for? Should companies be forced to keep people employed, even though there is no business use for them? Ban certain inventions because established industries might be disrupted? Personally, I think the idea of a “gig economy” is a lot better than one where people are tied to the same employer their entire life and are considered “unhirable” if they quit or get laid off. Because to a certain extent, that was how it was in the old days of “stay with the company 40 years”. > [@usedtobe](#): > > Back in 1966 (approx) I had a summer job running a spot welder - … > > Those robots not only took my old job, but the job of the person who had placed the parts together for me to weld. But I’m sure they created other jobs and made spot-welded sheet metal more accessible to the masses. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/69 "2017-03-29T03:51:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Could you break that down some? > > Are you claiming I made up the fact that slave owners made this argument? Because it’s historical record. > > Are you claiming it’s not accurate to say the argument is partly true? If it’s not partly true, do you feel it’s completely true or completely false? > > Do you feel it’s not accurate to say an employer and an employee have unequal power? Can employers fire employees? Can employees fire employers? > > Do you feel that you can negotiate a mugging and keep your money? Explain how that works. > > So I’m curious. How is it you feel what I said isn’t accurate? Point out to me the inaccurate parts. I think in a free market with voluntary exchanges the employer and employee each have power. Who’s to say whose is greater? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/70 "2017-03-29T04:04:23Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I think in a free market with voluntary exchanges the employer and employee each have power. Who’s to say whose is greater? Well here’s a simple test. What’s the worst thing that can legally happen to me as an employee due to something my employer does? What’s the worst thing that can legally happen to them as an employer due to something I do? Not a _perfect_ heuristic, but it does sort of display the power dynamics here. If I say, “fuck off, Wal-Mart, I quit”, you know what Wal-Mart does? It replaces me. Usually with virtually no hassle and within a few days, during which time it doesn’t really suffer at all - at most, my former coworkers have a little more work to do. If Wal-Mart fires me, you know what I do? I _scramble_ to find another job I’m qualified for, because if I can’t find one quickly, I stand to be evicted. Now, who’s more powerful in that situation? Who has all the leverage? This really isn’t a hard question. At all. It’s _incredibly_ basic to establish that the employer has the lion’s share of the power in almost all employee-employer relationships (the rare exception being employees that are critical to the company’s continued function, a situation which a good employer will avoid at all costs). It’s really not until you get pretty far up the company’s hierarchy and it becomes pricy or difficult to find someone with your skill set to replace you that this dynamic shifts. Even _then_ you rarely have the lion’s share of the power, because the employer is still able to fire you if they find someone better, and then you’re left scrambling in the lurch, trying to figure out what to do to make rent. This is why unions are (or at least were) a thing. Because without them, individual employees had _nothing_ resembling the amount of power that their employer had, and that lopsided dynamic was bad for almost everyone. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/71 "2017-03-29T04:12:35Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > the gilded age labor market is octopus’s wet dream I’m a little late to this and given it’s been a few days, I’m not going to make this a warning though if I saw it immediately I would have. A reminder from the [rules sticky:](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=818217) > [@](#): > > Sexualizing posters and their arguments - Do not say or imply that your fellow posters achieve sexual gratification or soil themselves in glee/distress due to recent news reports, political iconography, contemplation of ideological positions, etc. Do not do this again. * * * > [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Seriously, dude? You new here? That’s par for the course around here. You’re only allowed to say this about conservatives. You gotta know whose turf you’re on. A couple points here - first, you modified the quote by switching the order and quote boxes when you nested them. It appears unintentional but please be circumspect when doing nested quotes. Second, commentary about moderation belongs in ATMB. [/moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/72 "2017-03-29T04:25:02Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I think in a free market with voluntary exchanges the employer and employee each have power. Who’s to say whose is greater? I told you how to tell. Go in to work tomorrow and walk into the CEO’s office and tell him he’s fired and has to leave the premises. He’s probably going to tell you you’re fired and have to leave the premises. The guy that gets escorted out of the building and doesn’t collect his next paycheck is not the guy with more power. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/73 "2017-03-29T12:04:28Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Back in 1966 (approx) I had a summer job running a spot welder - take two pieces of sheet metal, hold them together in proper position and place between two massive electrodes. > Kicking the pedal raised the bottom electrode. When a current was running from electrode to metal to electrode, a spark was created, making a welded spot. > It was called “spot welding”. > Tesla released a video of three robots picking up sheet metal parts, holding them in correct position and spot-welding them. > Those robots not only took my old job, but the job of the person who had placed the parts together for me to weld. > > My old employer shut down years ago. > > The question of "Who’s going to have money to buy the stuff produced at absolute minimum cost (i.e. “untouched by human hands”) is the crux of the coming New Economy[…] If the increasing automation of manufacturing is the coming New Economy, it’s been here for decades. The percentage of workers employed in manufacturing has been decreasing since 1953 (see FRED series MANEMP and PAYEMS – Note: nonfarm). 92% of us employed folks do something else, as of last month. Since you held that job, we’ve added more than 80 million jobs; that’s more jobs than existed in 1966. And never mind the quality of life improvements. More in line with the OP, either a related phenomenon or part of the same is “just in time” scheduling for (usually) retail workers, in which shift information is provided only at the last minute, and workers may be asked to leave or come back as needed. When I put on my mustache-twirling robber-baron hat, as I often do in threads like this, I feel it is totally reasonable for people to work 70-hour weeks at minimum wage. But you cannot work two 35-hour jobs without a regular schedule. You cannot accept a single 35-hour job if it often turns into a 15-hour job when your commuting costs are $14/day (which I think is the ~maximum WMATA metrorail + bus fare.) Most childcare is not “just in time” in my limited experience. ---
**Author:** ![mazinger\_z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mazinger\_z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mazinger_z)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/74 "2017-03-29T13:19:25Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Well, IMVHO, you’ve almost completely missed the point of the discussion here. It seems like your “argument” is merely ranting something that you don’t like, which really isn’t much of a debate. Then you move on to _[snip non-argumentative description of gigging]_ > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > And yes, everyone’s free to make poor choices. However, it’s the word “choice” that everything pivots on. If your “choice” is no income at all or working piecemeal for whoever will hand you a fiver, it’s not really a choice, is it? Ok, so what is a better system? What does the world like where someone’s choice isn’t in quotes as to denote a faux choice? > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > My point, at least at the outset, is that all of the gushing and cooing over the gig economy You mean the advertising and marketing by people who are in the industry of producing such apps? > [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > tends to focus on skilled to highly skilled workers who are self-managing and collecting hefty fees on a freelance basis for guitar tuning or mural painting or brain surgery or whatever. That we have always had such freelancers is overlooked. That nothing has really changed except There’s An App for That! is forgotten. That some very large number of giggers are scratching after subsistence income doing something commodity and competitive - meaning there’s always some schmuck who will do it cheaper - is dismissed. > > That “the gig economy” is the socioeconomic equivalent of a jetting arterial wound and not a pretty fountain is my point, I guess. It’s a symptom of a very sick and broken consumer/worker economy, and nothing to celebrate. So, then, this appears to be some great rant rather than debate. Again, what is the alternative? How would you cure this symptom or repair that which you think is broken? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/75 "2017-03-29T14:09:52Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > No. A significant fraction of the population doesn’t want to be a slave to a time clock–and for these people gigging works nicely. Another irrelevant reading of the problem. No one is suggesting that there is only one way to work (well, the Gilbreths, but they were long ago). There are probably dozens of basic ways to work, and if sitting quietly at a desk for eight hours doesn’t do it for you, then running some giant machine that leaves you in an exhausted sweat might. Or taking piecemeal work in whatever skill you have to sell. That’s not what this is about. Everyone who wants to work stipend to stipend with no safety net of any kind, raise your hand. That safety net, by the way, includes any next stipend of any kind. Thought so. The problem here is marginalizing workers and work to a generic commodity, to be used and thrown away at the convenience of those who need their efforts. It was bad in the factory days. It was bad in the union days. It was bad in the rising tide of white-collar jobs. It’s bad in tech and IT. And it’s bad in the connected-by-app days. That some number of people can make it work for some duration of time in their lives is irrelevant; there are always workers who can make a particular situation work for them. More to the point, that there are “rock star” giggers who get covered by the blogs and media and make large amounts of money doing some specialized thing are even more irrelevant; artisans and tradesmen have always been with us. But that we have a class of people who have little or no economic stability and fill their wallet by scratching out individual payments for service, with not even so much as a company toilet and break room, much less health coverage, unemployment/disability coverage or even basic worker safety oversight - there is nothing good about that no matter how many doing it are smug with their whopping $200 in hand for the day’s servitude. The lack of meaningful employment and social safety for an increasing number of citizens, mostly younger and older ones, is a shameful thing. Yes, people should have the option to gig their bux if they choose to, as opposed to “being a wage slave” - but when they’re sitting in a box on the corner because there are no gigs or they’re underpriced by hungrier giggers, it’s not cool any more no matter how cleverly designed the app. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/76 "2017-03-29T14:40:46Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > It seems like your “argument” is merely ranting something that you don’t like My goodness, you’re right. I’ll grow up and start ranting against things I do like. > [@](#): > > Ok, so what is a better system? What does the world like where someone’s choice isn’t in quotes as to denote a faux choice? See above post; you are confusing the argument about what kind of work people should do with the right to work with reasonable safety - both personal and economic. Those of you who keep ranting, 19yo style, about being crammed in a a little worker box as a wage slave doing incomprehensible generic tasks, are off down a road of your own. The rest of us are decrying a system that leaves workers of any type or stripe without support for their lives and economic well-being beyond simple hourly or task wage - and no guarantee of that. The “gig economy” is just a packaged version of that exploitation, benefiting employers who need not concern themselves with any aspect of employees except those that serve their needs. Only in a groovy, hipster, millennially-cockeyed view of the world is “Hey, I’ll do that for five buck, man” a basis for a working economy. No matter how well it works in the commune/hood/local Starbucks. > [@](#): > > Again, what is the alternative? How would you cure this symptom or repair that which you think is broken? Separate basic living needs from employment. We can do it as a society; other societies have done it. With basic needs taken care of, you can lay on your ass, gig out your wax candlemaking skills, get a STEM degree or become a neurosurgeon. But we’re past the time when people should lack basic decent life needs because there is no matching work need for them. And most gigging is just advanced begging because the gigger has no other employment opportunities, not because they’re too too good to work in an office. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/77 "2017-03-29T14:46:33Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > You mean the advertising and marketing by people who are in the industry of producing such apps? Them, and the media segments who are still all goggle-eyed and gosh-wow at gig workers who will come in and do some fabulous thing in your home, and all you have to do is use the app and hand them $100. Wow. Cool. New. The wave of the future, man. Differentiate that from bums washing windshields and get back to me. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2017, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/78 "2017-03-30T23:58:18Z")
I did “contract programming” for 20 years. It superficially resembles “gig work” - the jobs lasted 3 months to 3 years. Some made homes for themselves as contractors. It paid well, and I rarely had trouble finding work (I was very, very good with IBM mainframes). That is the big difference - an MD in private practice is a “gig worker” - he has no guarantee that there will be a patient in the waiting room. That MD is not an Uber driver or a “barista” at Starbucks. And he is light-years away from the laborers who pick his strawberries, apples, lettuce, tomatoes. The “illegal immigrants” who move around the country picking what needs to be picked that week are the model of the coming “gig worker” - no assurance of work, cutthroat competition for what work is available (look up how the illegals get chosen for work) and the thought that they could be wiped out any day. Find an old person who actually does get the pension he was promised (my BIL was fired 2 years before he was to be fully vested - after 20 years with the company - doing “high tech” work (programming)) and ask then about working conditions - worker turnover (almost unheard of), office relocation (ditto). Did he ever worry about having enough money to make the mortgage? How about food? Before the imports destroyed Detroit, it was possible for a UAW worker to own a house, a summer cabin on the lake, and send his kids through college. Now Millennials prefer to rent their homes, not own cars, hell, they even rent their music and movies. Has the basic American Dream been rejected en masse by an entire generation, or is their behavior a result of financial insecurity? If the only work you can find is $5/hr under the table, you might not want to sign a contract requiring a large cash payment every month for 30 years. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/79 "2017-03-31T07:39:46Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Now Millennials prefer to rent their homes, not own cars, hell, they even rent their music and movies. > > Has the basic American Dream been rejected en masse by an entire generation, or is their behavior a result of financial insecurity? The second one, I’d say. I’d love to own a home, but it sure as hell ain’t happening in this market. I’d love to own a car, but I won’t be able to afford the lessons I need to take to get my license for another half a decade. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2017, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835/80 "2017-03-31T11:18:50Z")
> [@mazinger\_z](#): > > … So, then, this appears to be some great rant rather than debate. Again, what is the alternative? How would you cure this symptom or repair that which you think is broken? Is it instructive to compare U.S. with other countries? Many would say No because of America’s “uniqueness” (Ethnic diversity? The infield-fly rule?? Guns???), but most of us will find it instructive. Upthread, India was cited as a country far more “gig” oriented than the U.S. What do you think, **mazinger\_z**? Is India the model that U.S.A. should aspire to? At an opposite extreme consider France, beset with “welfare state regulations” and anti-employer rules far more onerous than anyone has proposed in the U.S. They have responded with a system of _Contrats à durée déterminée_ in which employment is encouraged while still giving gigsters significant rights. France is not a crumbling Marxist state but is a vibrant free society, with contentment far higher than that of the U.S., and higher worker productivity by some important measures. Given these comparisons, can you see that your “What is the alternative?” seems disingenuous? > [@octopus](#): > > I think in a free market with voluntary exchanges the employer and employee each have power. Who’s to say whose is greater? **Octopus** , why don’t you answer the same question I asked **mazinger\_z**? Furthermore, please offer an opinion about whether employees have more power in a union shop or in a “right-to-work” environment. Or is that, again, a question so difficult that “Who’s to say whose is greater?” ? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-dark-side-of-the-gig-economy/782835.md?page=5)