5 ms·

but it's a free market! workers are free to not participate in the gig economy. /s

danielndukwu 8y ago
MMM.... free to starve as well..
collyw 8y ago
My friend used to use this argument when I complained that Uber / Deliveroo were a bag of crap. I didn´t have a great counterargument, I just mumbled something about workers rights. What is a convincing argument that this line of thinking is wrong?
- abfan1127 8y ago
  there isn't one, unless you think you shouldn't be free to make decisions like participating in the gig economy.
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    the full claim being countered wasn't "workers should be free to participate in the gig economy", it included "it's a free market" which is the part more easily countered. Uber's market is a market, but it's certainly not a free market.
  - repsilat 8y ago
    That's not terribly helpful. Plenty of people take that freedom as an axiomatic, inviolable good or right, but reasonable people can have different values. Some people believe that those freedoms are necessarily a net win for the economy, but that's a pretty shallow argument too. Maybe workers' rights are a race to the bottom, a tragedy of the commons -- perhaps some small amount of regulation would be good for business and for workers, by forcing companies to spend a small amount more to get a more sustainable workforce without giving up advantages to competitors. Obviously these freedoms and protections exist on a continuum. We've mostly come down on the side of minimum wages, which is a compromise on those fundamental, absolute freedoms -- in a sense all "workers rights" are curtailments of "jobseekers rights".
- frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
  There's an episode of econtalk with Elizabeth Anderson you should listen to. She basically says employers are similar to communist dictatorships. In the same way that the 'freedom' to move from one communist dictatorship to another isn't real freedom, the 'freedom' to move from one employer to another isn't real freedom. Check it out, she makes the argument better than I do, obviously.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    If employers were communist dictators, then the left would never find issue with them!
- quadrangle 8y ago
  Short Uber etc. specific point: "Uber's market is not a free market". But more broadly… it depends whether someone is a dogmatic free-marketer fundamentalist or just someone who was swayed by the arguments from that dogma. For the fundamentalists, forget it. For those actually open-minded, take the scientific argument. Start with confirming agreement that you're both pro-social instead of anti-social (you both actually want what maximizes overall flourishing and well-being and don't prioritize some other value or dogma). Then get them to acknowledge that the free-market argument is a model that needs to be backed by empirical evidence to be accepted as actually describing reality instead of being just an untested hypothesis. If you can get them to thus at least accept that understanding the complex factors in play is daunting and we can't just take an elementary principle and blindly apply it to any situation conclusively… well, then you can have a discussion with them over the next couple years about behavioral economics, psychology, culture, power… My general go-to is emphasizing that employer power comes largely from being organized. It's not like each interviewer completely makes their own decision about hiring anyone with no rules or restrictions from the company (unless the interviewer is a sole-proprietor themselves hiring one other employee or contractor). The power in the corporation comes specifically from the organized structure of the company. The individuals on the other side of a contract are divided. They use things like unions and government to have power in solidarity, and without that, they can never have comparable power in negotiations. So, either we accept the impulse for workers to build organizations or use government for solidarity or we insist that companies shouldn't exist either and need to just be free-market masses of independent actors too or we drop the pretense that we're describing some sort of equal-enough, voluntary free-market negotiation. Good luck!
  - autokad 8y ago
    > "dogma" You have a dogma yourself. that's ok, just be aware that you have one, and are espousing one. > "Then get them to acknowledge that the free-market argument is a model that needs to be backed by empirical evidence to be accepted as actually describing reality instead of being just an untested hypothesis." The free market is one of the most tested ideas out there. > "They use things like unions and government to have power in solidarity, and without that, they can never have comparable power in negotiations." law is really important for most forms of economic systems to work. I think the fact that social media and perception drivings things so much could have a positive outcome in this area. Companies should see the welfare of their employees as an important role in making the world 'better'. I see a lot of tech companies saying they want to make the world a better place, yet for instance, they have abysmal 401k matching plans. melinials are not saving enough for retirement, and that bad behavior in tech is not helping the future crisis. I wish a tech company would decide to be a true leader on this
- chc 8y ago
  If I put a gun to your head and say "Your wallet or your life," are you free? If I lay a trap, and you fall into it, and I offer to release you if you give me your bank details, are you free? If it's a disaster and I charge $10000 for a bottle of clean water, are you free? If a society requires you to work in order to live but only offers you poor options for work, are you free? We generally talk as though, as long as there is no specific person intentionally coercing you, you're free to choose. But those particular elements don't actually make much difference to your freedom. It seems to me that being set up with only unfavorable options is different from being really free to choose.
  - throwaway37585 8y ago
    If you live in a universe of scarce resources, are you free?
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    Its very important to understand that free is freedom from men. Freedom from nature is not something we know a way out of yet. Who would say that someone using a gun to coerce you is free?
  - Kalium 8y ago
    By the logic you use here, there is no such thing as freedom. There are always limits imposed on people by others, situations, society, nature, and physics. Therefore, there is no actual freedom for anyone. It seems to me that invalidating the notion of freedom might not be what you set out to do. Instead, you're trying to make a point wherein people are only truly free if they have some options that are favorable. Do I interpret you correctly? In that case, what's "favorable"? Who defines and judges such things? What standards are used? I know people who are capable and skilled and thus offered highly remunerative positions that they don't want to take because of who is hiring - is that favorable or unfavorable? Reasonable arguments for both spring readily to mind. Are we to use an individual's personal preferences only?
  - theamk 8y ago
    I always considered "free" as lack of "coersion", where "coersion" has an agent/subject that can be removed to make situation better. Under that definition, the answers are: > If I put a gun to your head and say "Your wallet or your life," are you free? No -- the subject is you and your gun, if you remove them the situation improves. > If I lay a trap, and you fall into it, and I offer to release you if you give me your bank details, are you free? No -- the subject is your trap, if you remove it the situation improves. > If it's a disaster and I charge $10000 for a bottle of clean water, are you free? Yes -- while there is a subject (you), removing it will not make situation any better at all. > If a society requires you to work in order to live but only offers you poor options for work, are you free? Depends? In USSR, with exit visas and "social parasitism" laws, no. Agent is state, and removing will make a situation better -- yes, you would still be hungry, but at least they would not arrest you, and you could try your luck in another country. In USA, mostly yes. There is nothing you can remove to get better options for work, or to allow living without work. There are some exceptions -- like anti-vagrnacy laws and job licensing -- but they do not affect most people.
- losteric 8y ago
  The labor market is never free, because living isn't free - almost every participant is coerced. We're all trading time and willpower for money. If the gig economy has a poor ROI, people can end up in poverty traps - stuck working a couple shitty jobs because they need the money to survive, but the jobs consume so much time/will-power that they can't pursue alternatives. This becomes a huge issue for Uber-style companies where workers buy their own tools (cars), in exchange for uncertain per-trip wages with no benefits. They're called "contractors", but realistically what can they do if Uber "fires" them? Work for Lyft? Same shit, different logo. Uber's practices are outright deceptive - they compare very optimistic ridesharing wages to hourly employee wages, without considering their car ownership/fuel/taxes/maintenance/insurance costs. I did some napkin math a while back which suggested quite a few drivers are actually losing money in the long-run (primarily maintenance and lower auto resale value).
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > The labor market is never free, because living isn't free - almost every participant is coerced. Your actual post is mostly reasonable arguments, but this premise is not realistic. This is stretching the word 'coerced' to the point where it doesn't mean anything. The fact that resources are limited and we need the average person to add about as much value as they consume is not coercion. It is a (very sad) fact. There is no element of force involved except maybe the enforcement of property rights, which is one of the most reasonable things we ask our governments to undertake. > They're called "contractors", but realistically what can they do if Uber "fires" them? Work for Lyft? Same shit, different logo. Are these people born with "only allowed to work as a car driver" stamped on their forehead? If the market rate driving cars is so terrible, they need to find a different industry. The difficulties of moving between industries are real, I'll acknowledge them and say maybe there is a role for the government to facilitate this aspect. However, as a practical point, I don't think governments generally do. When we as a society decide who is responsible for employees moving between industries, we basically have to choose between this being the employers problem, this being the individuals problem or this being someone else's problem. I'm very happy to contend that, even though it is not very fair, the person who has the most control is the individual and they are the only one who is ultimately responsible for themselves. There are a lot of problems with companies like Uber. The car drivers are clearly employees in every way except technicalities, and the practice of making them bring their own tools is reprehensible. But it is by far better to try and solve that problem by encouraging the growth of better alternatives than by dropping the hammer of regulation. When they regulated the taxi industries, my memory is in a lot of major areas the actual taxi drivers didn't end up benefiting and random licensed taxi owners did. Depends on the country and city.
- neilwilson 8y ago
  Beverdige: difficulty in selling labour has consequences of is a different order of harmfulness than those associated with difficulty in buying labour. Essentially firms only hire if they can make a profit, where has an individual has to get hired to eat and have a sense of long-term usefulness in society.
neilwilson 8y ago
That's the failing of the 'free market'. There is no alternative. And you fix that by making an alternative. As Beveridge put it (in 1944): "The labour market should always be a seller's market rather than a buyer's market. For this, on the view of society underlying this Report - that society exists for the individual - there is a decisive reason of principle. The reason is that difficulty in selling labour has consequences of a different order of harmfulness from those associated with the difficulty in buying labour. A person who has difficulty in buying labour suffers inconvenience or reduction in profits. A person who cannot sell his labour is in effect told that he is of no use. The first difficulty causes annoyance or loss. The other is a personal catastrophe."

MMM.... free to starve as well..

My friend used to use this argument when I complained that Uber / Deliveroo were a bag of crap. I didn´t have a great counterargument, I just mumbled something about workers rights. What is a convincing argument that this line of thinking is wrong?

abfan1127 8y ago
there isn't one, unless you think you shouldn't be free to make decisions like participating in the gig economy.
- quadrangle 8y ago
  the full claim being countered wasn't "workers should be free to participate in the gig economy", it included "it's a free market" which is the part more easily countered. Uber's market is a market, but it's certainly not a free market.
- repsilat 8y ago
  That's not terribly helpful. Plenty of people take that freedom as an axiomatic, inviolable good or right, but reasonable people can have different values. Some people believe that those freedoms are necessarily a net win for the economy, but that's a pretty shallow argument too. Maybe workers' rights are a race to the bottom, a tragedy of the commons -- perhaps some small amount of regulation would be good for business and for workers, by forcing companies to spend a small amount more to get a more sustainable workforce without giving up advantages to competitors. Obviously these freedoms and protections exist on a continuum. We've mostly come down on the side of minimum wages, which is a compromise on those fundamental, absolute freedoms -- in a sense all "workers rights" are curtailments of "jobseekers rights".
frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
There's an episode of econtalk with Elizabeth Anderson you should listen to. She basically says employers are similar to communist dictatorships. In the same way that the 'freedom' to move from one communist dictatorship to another isn't real freedom, the 'freedom' to move from one employer to another isn't real freedom. Check it out, she makes the argument better than I do, obviously.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  If employers were communist dictators, then the left would never find issue with them!
quadrangle 8y ago
Short Uber etc. specific point: "Uber's market is not a free market". But more broadly… it depends whether someone is a dogmatic free-marketer fundamentalist or just someone who was swayed by the arguments from that dogma. For the fundamentalists, forget it. For those actually open-minded, take the scientific argument. Start with confirming agreement that you're both pro-social instead of anti-social (you both actually want what maximizes overall flourishing and well-being and don't prioritize some other value or dogma). Then get them to acknowledge that the free-market argument is a model that needs to be backed by empirical evidence to be accepted as actually describing reality instead of being just an untested hypothesis. If you can get them to thus at least accept that understanding the complex factors in play is daunting and we can't just take an elementary principle and blindly apply it to any situation conclusively… well, then you can have a discussion with them over the next couple years about behavioral economics, psychology, culture, power… My general go-to is emphasizing that employer power comes largely from being organized. It's not like each interviewer completely makes their own decision about hiring anyone with no rules or restrictions from the company (unless the interviewer is a sole-proprietor themselves hiring one other employee or contractor). The power in the corporation comes specifically from the organized structure of the company. The individuals on the other side of a contract are divided. They use things like unions and government to have power in solidarity, and without that, they can never have comparable power in negotiations. So, either we accept the impulse for workers to build organizations or use government for solidarity or we insist that companies shouldn't exist either and need to just be free-market masses of independent actors too or we drop the pretense that we're describing some sort of equal-enough, voluntary free-market negotiation. Good luck!
- autokad 8y ago
  > "dogma" You have a dogma yourself. that's ok, just be aware that you have one, and are espousing one. > "Then get them to acknowledge that the free-market argument is a model that needs to be backed by empirical evidence to be accepted as actually describing reality instead of being just an untested hypothesis." The free market is one of the most tested ideas out there. > "They use things like unions and government to have power in solidarity, and without that, they can never have comparable power in negotiations." law is really important for most forms of economic systems to work. I think the fact that social media and perception drivings things so much could have a positive outcome in this area. Companies should see the welfare of their employees as an important role in making the world 'better'. I see a lot of tech companies saying they want to make the world a better place, yet for instance, they have abysmal 401k matching plans. melinials are not saving enough for retirement, and that bad behavior in tech is not helping the future crisis. I wish a tech company would decide to be a true leader on this
chc 8y ago
If I put a gun to your head and say "Your wallet or your life," are you free? If I lay a trap, and you fall into it, and I offer to release you if you give me your bank details, are you free? If it's a disaster and I charge $10000 for a bottle of clean water, are you free? If a society requires you to work in order to live but only offers you poor options for work, are you free? We generally talk as though, as long as there is no specific person intentionally coercing you, you're free to choose. But those particular elements don't actually make much difference to your freedom. It seems to me that being set up with only unfavorable options is different from being really free to choose.
- throwaway37585 8y ago
  If you live in a universe of scarce resources, are you free?
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Its very important to understand that free is freedom from men. Freedom from nature is not something we know a way out of yet. Who would say that someone using a gun to coerce you is free?
- Kalium 8y ago
  By the logic you use here, there is no such thing as freedom. There are always limits imposed on people by others, situations, society, nature, and physics. Therefore, there is no actual freedom for anyone. It seems to me that invalidating the notion of freedom might not be what you set out to do. Instead, you're trying to make a point wherein people are only truly free if they have some options that are favorable. Do I interpret you correctly? In that case, what's "favorable"? Who defines and judges such things? What standards are used? I know people who are capable and skilled and thus offered highly remunerative positions that they don't want to take because of who is hiring - is that favorable or unfavorable? Reasonable arguments for both spring readily to mind. Are we to use an individual's personal preferences only?
- theamk 8y ago
  I always considered "free" as lack of "coersion", where "coersion" has an agent/subject that can be removed to make situation better. Under that definition, the answers are: > If I put a gun to your head and say "Your wallet or your life," are you free? No -- the subject is you and your gun, if you remove them the situation improves. > If I lay a trap, and you fall into it, and I offer to release you if you give me your bank details, are you free? No -- the subject is your trap, if you remove it the situation improves. > If it's a disaster and I charge $10000 for a bottle of clean water, are you free? Yes -- while there is a subject (you), removing it will not make situation any better at all. > If a society requires you to work in order to live but only offers you poor options for work, are you free? Depends? In USSR, with exit visas and "social parasitism" laws, no. Agent is state, and removing will make a situation better -- yes, you would still be hungry, but at least they would not arrest you, and you could try your luck in another country. In USA, mostly yes. There is nothing you can remove to get better options for work, or to allow living without work. There are some exceptions -- like anti-vagrnacy laws and job licensing -- but they do not affect most people.
losteric 8y ago
The labor market is never free, because living isn't free - almost every participant is coerced. We're all trading time and willpower for money. If the gig economy has a poor ROI, people can end up in poverty traps - stuck working a couple shitty jobs because they need the money to survive, but the jobs consume so much time/will-power that they can't pursue alternatives. This becomes a huge issue for Uber-style companies where workers buy their own tools (cars), in exchange for uncertain per-trip wages with no benefits. They're called "contractors", but realistically what can they do if Uber "fires" them? Work for Lyft? Same shit, different logo. Uber's practices are outright deceptive - they compare very optimistic ridesharing wages to hourly employee wages, without considering their car ownership/fuel/taxes/maintenance/insurance costs. I did some napkin math a while back which suggested quite a few drivers are actually losing money in the long-run (primarily maintenance and lower auto resale value).
- roenxi 8y ago
  > The labor market is never free, because living isn't free - almost every participant is coerced. Your actual post is mostly reasonable arguments, but this premise is not realistic. This is stretching the word 'coerced' to the point where it doesn't mean anything. The fact that resources are limited and we need the average person to add about as much value as they consume is not coercion. It is a (very sad) fact. There is no element of force involved except maybe the enforcement of property rights, which is one of the most reasonable things we ask our governments to undertake. > They're called "contractors", but realistically what can they do if Uber "fires" them? Work for Lyft? Same shit, different logo. Are these people born with "only allowed to work as a car driver" stamped on their forehead? If the market rate driving cars is so terrible, they need to find a different industry. The difficulties of moving between industries are real, I'll acknowledge them and say maybe there is a role for the government to facilitate this aspect. However, as a practical point, I don't think governments generally do. When we as a society decide who is responsible for employees moving between industries, we basically have to choose between this being the employers problem, this being the individuals problem or this being someone else's problem. I'm very happy to contend that, even though it is not very fair, the person who has the most control is the individual and they are the only one who is ultimately responsible for themselves. There are a lot of problems with companies like Uber. The car drivers are clearly employees in every way except technicalities, and the practice of making them bring their own tools is reprehensible. But it is by far better to try and solve that problem by encouraging the growth of better alternatives than by dropping the hammer of regulation. When they regulated the taxi industries, my memory is in a lot of major areas the actual taxi drivers didn't end up benefiting and random licensed taxi owners did. Depends on the country and city.
neilwilson 8y ago
Beverdige: difficulty in selling labour has consequences of is a different order of harmfulness than those associated with difficulty in buying labour. Essentially firms only hire if they can make a profit, where has an individual has to get hired to eat and have a sense of long-term usefulness in society.

neilwilson 8y ago

That's the failing of the 'free market'. There is no alternative. And you fix that by making an alternative. As Beveridge put it (in 1944): "The labour market should always be a seller's market rather than a buyer's market. For this, on the view of society underlying this Report - that society exists for the individual - there is a decisive reason of principle. The reason is that difficulty in selling labour has consequences of a different order of harmfulness from those associated with the difficulty in buying labour. A person who has difficulty in buying labour suffers inconvenience or reduction in profits. A person who cannot sell his labour is in effect told that he is of no use. The first difficulty causes annoyance or loss. The other is a personal catastrophe."