An interesting piece, but generalities ignore the dynamic where some get 20% time & free lunch while others get surge pricing when lucky. No amount of corporate “norm changing” is going to fix this labor market, & IMO it’s a counterproductive focus. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/opinion/technology/technology-gig-economy.htmlOpinion …
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Replying to @pt
James Cham ✍🏻 Retweeted Louis Hyman
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@louishyman’s point is this sort of labor arrangement was (surprisingly to me) available in the past, and worth examining. The book comes out tomorrow so I haven’t read it but here’s one example he gave:https://twitter.com/louishyman/status/1031632121809588225?s=21 …James Cham ✍🏻 added,
Louis Hyman @louishymanReplying to @gerstenzang @jameschamI would be curious what you think of the book. But in 1960 you could pick up a phone and replace an entire factory's line workers, foremen, and managers with a phone call by that afternoon. I don't think that is slower than upwork. We aren't talking about pizza delivery.1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @jamescham @louishyman
I think we over-emphasize corporate morality (shall we discuss black people & women back in the day?) and don’t focus enough on simple market forces. Factories needed low-skill labor so there was a “social contract” to be had. There was no other option.
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A more constructive narrative IMO is that we’ve under-invested in labor for generations & corporations have helpfully and rationally responded by creating jobs for the labor force we’ve chosen to create. “Uber” is in effect a uniquely American kind of safety net.
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Meanwhile, technologists think all day about eliminating more jobs. Co-ops, unions, etc may work in the short-term at the margins where labor is needed, but won’t stop this progress. The workers who are thriving don’t need them & everybody else will be quietly dismissed.
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I disagree with this. While there is a general thrust around technological change and its impact on workers, institutions and culture deeply shape the terms upon which workers can negotiate or have leverage around how this change is integrated in society. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/10/how-to-lay-people-off/543948/ …
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Furthermore, over time, as these entities accumulate more and more wealth, they influence more and more of our public institutions, how well they’re funded, how much leverage they have over the private sector on behalf of the public, etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/us/politics/tax-cuts-republicans-donors.html …
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Debatable, but I tend to see the root problems not so much as who has money, but how we organize our democracy. Gerrymandering, for example, creates much more leverage for capital than would otherwise exist, as do our campaign finance laws, etc.
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