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Massive wealth inequality combined with few jobs leads to servants. Servants more-or-less stopped being a job in the US after the last Gilded Age with the rise
by 100k 12y ago
Massive wealth inequality combined with few jobs leads to servants. Servants more-or-less stopped being a job in the US after the last Gilded Age with the rise of the middle class, but with Uber and other service apps, they are back, fractional reserve-style.
There's a corollary to this, which is that if the economy starts growing again (for regular people, not just programmers) people now doing 1099 piecework employment are going to find better options, and these services are going to have to increase their prices to attract workers. The cheapness of Uber has been subsidized by investors and made possible by desperation.
- rayiner 12y agoWhen my family lived in Bangladesh, we had servants, and never managed to get comfortable with the arrangement. I have a deep and visceral reaction to anything like that arising in the U.S., but I fear that increasing wealth inequality might lead to that outcome. I'd rather have lower GDP, less money in my own pocket, etc, than go back to living in that kind of society.