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What we are having here is an experiment. There are two classes of jobs, which provide nearly the same service - e.g. driving people from one place to another.

by smsm42 8y ago

What we are having here is an experiment. There are two classes of jobs, which provide nearly the same service - e.g. driving people from one place to another. One set of jobs has "century of worker protection", the other does not. People seem to flock to the second one, even though it requires certain level of investment and skill (owning a car, knowing how to drive, having reasonably clean driving record, being personally nice to clients, etc.) and offers no guarantees. Moreover, they don't just lukewarmly think about maybe trying it out - they rush to do it so eagerly that companies organizing it make billions, despite all efforts of various governments to suppress and limit their business. It looks dangerously like something people want to participate in... The obvious conclusion that people seem to be making in that the second class of jobs is evil and must be destroyed, and only the first class of jobs - clearly leaving a huge unsatisfied need from both producers and consumers of the service - should be allowed to exist.

StanislavPetrov 8y ago
Worker protections are expensive and come with industry regulation. Corporations have figured out that they can simply shift their business model to the "second class of job" and ignore regulations and worker protections. The companies organizing it rake billions while the workers make less than a living wage and often rely on public subsidies to survive, which is effectively a subsidy for these corporations who rake in billions off the backs of these workers.
- smsm42 8y ago
  If you ban these jobs, would people that subsist on job+subsidy consume more public subsidies or less? Note that you assumed these people are very poor and have no alternative jobs. Now you have taken away their only (albeit low) income they had. Would it lead to consuming more of public subsidies or less? Would absence of taxes paid by corporations make providing these subsidies easier or harder?

by smsm42 8y ago

StanislavPetrov 8y ago

Worker protections are expensive and come with industry regulation. Corporations have figured out that they can simply shift their business model to the "second class of job" and ignore regulations and worker protections. The companies organizing it rake billions while the workers make less than a living wage and often rely on public subsidies to survive, which is effectively a subsidy for these corporations who rake in billions off the backs of these workers.

smsm42 8y ago
If you ban these jobs, would people that subsist on job+subsidy consume more public subsidies or less? Note that you assumed these people are very poor and have no alternative jobs. Now you have taken away their only (albeit low) income they had. Would it lead to consuming more of public subsidies or less? Would absence of taxes paid by corporations make providing these subsidies easier or harder?