13 ms·

I have a pet theory that goes one step further. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault talks about how in the early modern era, the actions of subordinate individu

I have a pet theory that goes one step further. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault talks about how in the early modern era, the actions of subordinate individuals (workers, students, soldiers, etc.) became increasingly regimented through more and more precise specifications of procedures as sequences of elementary actions. Then in the 19th and 20th centuries, we started to see "rationalist" economic efficiency projects like scientific management/Taylorism, which essentially tried to deskill factory workers by fragmenting their work based on time and motion studies. The gig economy is the neoliberal revival of these scientific management principles, plastered over with the neoliberal ideals of marketization and entrepreneurialism. Just like before, it aims to improve efficiency by quantifying and compensating work at finer-grained scales than ever before. It has the potential to drastically increase economic efficiency, but at the expense of financial security and the psychological wellbeing of entire generations.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
That sounds like a fancy way of saying advances in technology displace the need for certain (and increasing) types of work, increasing the supply of labor, but not the demand, and therefore decreasing the price of labor. Plus globalization and adding women to labor supply.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  It specifically isn't about that. The idea is that these projects aim to make more and more kinds of manual work fungible and exchangeable by breaking them down into small enough subtasks. Each of these elementary tasks get commoditized into a market of near-perfect competition when they become deskilled this way. It's not automation, it's a hyper-division of labor, like a worldwide assembly line connected by ethernet and optical fiber. It is specifically that it isn't automation that makes it a problem. If you were totally replaced by a machine, then at least you wouldn't have to work. But here, you aren't being replaced by machines -- you are part of the machine, like a component that's completely replaceable and interchangeable.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    I think it still qualifies as “automation”. The automation doesn’t completely replace people, but it does replace portions of their tasks, and when you start adding it up it does replace people. Two people needed to do 5 tasks now done by 1 person who can handle all 5 tasks. Full time secretaries for everyone are now down to 1 administrative assistant for the whole team or office. Taxi dispatchers not needed anymore. That’s what technology enables people to do. Measure, target inefficiencies, and commoditize. But I don’t think it’s anything like a grand conspiracy, it’s pretty much the only way to move forward. Problem is the humans aren’t so interested in distributing the fruits of the resulting efficiencies in an equitable manner.
    - elvinyung 8y ago
      Well, sure, but I think there's something to be cautious about here. The legend goes that the Romans never found an economically useful application for the steam engine (the aeolipile invented by Heron of Alexandria) because they already relied on a massive labor force of slaves. But it's precisely this barrier that we've begun to cross that indicates there are some very old questions that we should be asking ourselves again. I think you and I agree that at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that this increased economic efficiency has the potential to improve everyone's wellbeing, not just concentrate wealth in the hands of a few.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        Yes, hopefully we can find a balance between a system that rewards effort and ingenuity at the same time as providing opportunity for everyone.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      In thd gig economh, the machine isn’t doing any of the work. When I order something on instacart, it’s not functionally different from calling in an order to a human shopper. The machine isn’t doing any part of the shopping or driving. Indeed, instead of displacing human labor, like you suggest, it’s increasing the amount of work available by bringing previously non-market work into the market. The machine does that by reducing the transaction costs to make outsourcing that kind kind of labor feasible. Relevant reading: Ronald Coase’s Theory of the Firm.
xfs 8y ago
Then there is good news for you. This Foucaultian critique of the neoliberal notion of entrepreneurialism is precisely what Italian philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato has articulated in his book, The Making of the Indebted Man. He argues that (to quote Zizek), "in daily ideology, our servitude is presented to us as our freedom. He demonstrates how we are all treated as capitalists who invest in our lives. Indebtedness implies a functional discipline. It is today a new way of maintaining control over individuals, all whilst promoting the illusion of free choice. Even the fragility of our career path and chronic insecurity is presented to us a chance to reinvent ourselves every two or three years. And it works very well."
- elvinyung 8y ago
  Interesting. I've only vaguely interacted with Lazzarato's work through Hardt and Negri. I'm guessing the book builds on what Deleuze says about the society of control, e.g. "Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt."
  - Animats 8y ago
    Now that's an excellent way to put it. It's so much more cost-effective than slavery. Slaves have to be fed, clothed, and housed. Gig workers don't. Not only that, gig workers have freedom and opportunity. Not much of it, but they can fantasize about escaping their trap. There's a whole ideological system telling them it's all their fault. Capitalism, Christianity, and Judaism all line up on this. Rebellion is very difficult. The debt system doesn't oppress. It's merely indifferent to your suffering. It simply ignores you until you die.
pmorici 8y ago
What do you mean by economic efficiency? It seems like the model of a lot of gig jobs encourages the employer to waste the worker's time. This happens because the employer pays per job. For example, Bird and Lime waste workers time by letting them all chase after the same scooters to be charged so a worker might spend time going to pick-up a scooter only to be beat to it by another by a few moments. It seems highly suspect that this is the most efficient way to get this done unless your idea of efficiency only means lowest cost to the company.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  I meant something like "fraction of the employee's time spent on what the employer considers to be productive/useful work". Contrast it with a typical salaried job. In such a position, people basically get paid to take bathroom breaks, chat with coworkers, check social media, eat lunch, etc. and they might not even be in the office for the full 40 hours a week. They get to eat up even more resources by participating in benefits like health insurance, paid time off, and pensions. Isn't that such a waste of resources?
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Optimize that ratio, ignore productivity, achieve glory. That salary work mostly pays a lot more than gig work tells you something about the economic impact of both. Gig work might be more efficient than hourly pay for the same work, but it isn't maximizing overall economic efficiency, it's a middle man capturing more of the value.
    - elvinyung 8y ago
      But salaried work also needs things like a university degree (mostly). What I'm worried about isn't so much that there will always (or for the foreseeable future) be "skilled" and "unskilled" buckets of labor, but that there's this self-reinforcing loop that creates a permanent underclass of gig workers.
      - 8y ago
eternalban 8y ago
I share that point of view. (My pet theory is that the ruling classes are rolling back the "educated peasants' intermezzo".)
amykyta 8y ago
Your comment brings to mind a fascinating short story that follows this idea: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm I am pretty sure I found it on HN a few years ago.
- elvinyung 8y ago
  Oh wow, thanks so much for linking this story! I was actually thinking of it as I was writing the post, but I couldn't remember the title.
clairity 8y ago
i'm late to the discussion, but i think you buried the lede here (so to speak). it's not so much that we're reaching for some neoliberal efficiency (whatever that means) at the expense of humanity, but that such kinds of industrial regimentalism allows the managerial class to place themselves above and apart from the proletariat in the corporation. regimentalism marginalizes workers such that managers dehumanize and treat workers indiscriminately. it allows managers to make rational yet ruthless decisions without considering worker impact. it sets them apart; it others the workers, and thereby gives managers all-important status over workers, even where otherwise undeserved. at the same time, the proletariat worker self-disciplines themselves (as foucault likes to put it) around the ever-intricate rules and ever-tighter tolerances, so much so that they cannot pay attention to the man behind the curtain pulling the strings (and realizing that he is pitiful and small). this is the most important aspect of regimentalism, and the most insidious. the proletariat gig-economy worker loses money, power, and esteem in the transaction, but they're too busy jumping through hoops to do anything about it.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

That sounds like a fancy way of saying advances in technology displace the need for certain (and increasing) types of work, increasing the supply of labor, but not the demand, and therefore decreasing the price of labor. Plus globalization and adding women to labor supply.

elvinyung 8y ago
It specifically isn't about that. The idea is that these projects aim to make more and more kinds of manual work fungible and exchangeable by breaking them down into small enough subtasks. Each of these elementary tasks get commoditized into a market of near-perfect competition when they become deskilled this way. It's not automation, it's a hyper-division of labor, like a worldwide assembly line connected by ethernet and optical fiber. It is specifically that it isn't automation that makes it a problem. If you were totally replaced by a machine, then at least you wouldn't have to work. But here, you aren't being replaced by machines -- you are part of the machine, like a component that's completely replaceable and interchangeable.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  I think it still qualifies as “automation”. The automation doesn’t completely replace people, but it does replace portions of their tasks, and when you start adding it up it does replace people. Two people needed to do 5 tasks now done by 1 person who can handle all 5 tasks. Full time secretaries for everyone are now down to 1 administrative assistant for the whole team or office. Taxi dispatchers not needed anymore. That’s what technology enables people to do. Measure, target inefficiencies, and commoditize. But I don’t think it’s anything like a grand conspiracy, it’s pretty much the only way to move forward. Problem is the humans aren’t so interested in distributing the fruits of the resulting efficiencies in an equitable manner.
  - elvinyung 8y ago
    Well, sure, but I think there's something to be cautious about here. The legend goes that the Romans never found an economically useful application for the steam engine (the aeolipile invented by Heron of Alexandria) because they already relied on a massive labor force of slaves. But it's precisely this barrier that we've begun to cross that indicates there are some very old questions that we should be asking ourselves again. I think you and I agree that at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that this increased economic efficiency has the potential to improve everyone's wellbeing, not just concentrate wealth in the hands of a few.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      Yes, hopefully we can find a balance between a system that rewards effort and ingenuity at the same time as providing opportunity for everyone.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    In thd gig economh, the machine isn’t doing any of the work. When I order something on instacart, it’s not functionally different from calling in an order to a human shopper. The machine isn’t doing any part of the shopping or driving. Indeed, instead of displacing human labor, like you suggest, it’s increasing the amount of work available by bringing previously non-market work into the market. The machine does that by reducing the transaction costs to make outsourcing that kind kind of labor feasible. Relevant reading: Ronald Coase’s Theory of the Firm.

xfs 8y ago

Then there is good news for you. This Foucaultian critique of the neoliberal notion of entrepreneurialism is precisely what Italian philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato has articulated in his book, The Making of the Indebted Man. He argues that (to quote Zizek), "in daily ideology, our servitude is presented to us as our freedom. He demonstrates how we are all treated as capitalists who invest in our lives. Indebtedness implies a functional discipline. It is today a new way of maintaining control over individuals, all whilst promoting the illusion of free choice. Even the fragility of our career path and chronic insecurity is presented to us a chance to reinvent ourselves every two or three years. And it works very well."

elvinyung 8y ago
Interesting. I've only vaguely interacted with Lazzarato's work through Hardt and Negri. I'm guessing the book builds on what Deleuze says about the society of control, e.g. "Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt."
- Animats 8y ago
  Now that's an excellent way to put it. It's so much more cost-effective than slavery. Slaves have to be fed, clothed, and housed. Gig workers don't. Not only that, gig workers have freedom and opportunity. Not much of it, but they can fantasize about escaping their trap. There's a whole ideological system telling them it's all their fault. Capitalism, Christianity, and Judaism all line up on this. Rebellion is very difficult. The debt system doesn't oppress. It's merely indifferent to your suffering. It simply ignores you until you die.

pmorici 8y ago

What do you mean by economic efficiency? It seems like the model of a lot of gig jobs encourages the employer to waste the worker's time. This happens because the employer pays per job. For example, Bird and Lime waste workers time by letting them all chase after the same scooters to be charged so a worker might spend time going to pick-up a scooter only to be beat to it by another by a few moments. It seems highly suspect that this is the most efficient way to get this done unless your idea of efficiency only means lowest cost to the company.

elvinyung 8y ago
I meant something like "fraction of the employee's time spent on what the employer considers to be productive/useful work". Contrast it with a typical salaried job. In such a position, people basically get paid to take bathroom breaks, chat with coworkers, check social media, eat lunch, etc. and they might not even be in the office for the full 40 hours a week. They get to eat up even more resources by participating in benefits like health insurance, paid time off, and pensions. Isn't that such a waste of resources?
- maxerickson 8y ago
  Optimize that ratio, ignore productivity, achieve glory. That salary work mostly pays a lot more than gig work tells you something about the economic impact of both. Gig work might be more efficient than hourly pay for the same work, but it isn't maximizing overall economic efficiency, it's a middle man capturing more of the value.
  - elvinyung 8y ago
    But salaried work also needs things like a university degree (mostly). What I'm worried about isn't so much that there will always (or for the foreseeable future) be "skilled" and "unskilled" buckets of labor, but that there's this self-reinforcing loop that creates a permanent underclass of gig workers.
    - 8y ago

eternalban 8y ago

I share that point of view. (My pet theory is that the ruling classes are rolling back the "educated peasants' intermezzo".)

amykyta 8y ago

Your comment brings to mind a fascinating short story that follows this idea: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm I am pretty sure I found it on HN a few years ago.

elvinyung 8y ago
Oh wow, thanks so much for linking this story! I was actually thinking of it as I was writing the post, but I couldn't remember the title.

clairity 8y ago

i'm late to the discussion, but i think you buried the lede here (so to speak). it's not so much that we're reaching for some neoliberal efficiency (whatever that means) at the expense of humanity, but that such kinds of industrial regimentalism allows the managerial class to place themselves above and apart from the proletariat in the corporation. regimentalism marginalizes workers such that managers dehumanize and treat workers indiscriminately. it allows managers to make rational yet ruthless decisions without considering worker impact. it sets them apart; it others the workers, and thereby gives managers all-important status over workers, even where otherwise undeserved. at the same time, the proletariat worker self-disciplines themselves (as foucault likes to put it) around the ever-intricate rules and ever-tighter tolerances, so much so that they cannot pay attention to the man behind the curtain pulling the strings (and realizing that he is pitiful and small). this is the most important aspect of regimentalism, and the most insidious. the proletariat gig-economy worker loses money, power, and esteem in the transaction, but they're too busy jumping through hoops to do anything about it.