The gig economy as "white people re-discovering servants"

[innonimatu]

I'm commented here that the objective of the political ideology of open borders, uncoupled as it is from any real consideration towards immigrants, seems to me to be the provision of a servant class to the upper middles classes in the (relatively) wealthy countries.

This piece makes a good case for interpreting the "gig economy", the main modern employer of "unspecialized", devalued working class people, as modern servants. And makes it better than I could as the author lives in a country where such servants are still common. "White people" being the PMC (professional-managerial class, the ones still "middle class") of western countries, irrespective of skin color of course. The conclusion:

The gig economy is just white people re-discovering servants. That’s really all it is. It offers the same conveniences as centuries past, or ‘developing’ countries now, but also comes with the same economic and ethical issues. As much AI or even automation as you throw at it, you still have poorer people doing stuff you don’t want to do for not really enough money.
[...]
But we shouldn’t mistake gig economy company’s for more than what they are. They deliver convenience, not prosperity. They touch millions of lives, but only in a superficial way.

As it is, however, the gig economy is a symptom of rising inequality, not a solution. For countries that haven’t had servants the difference seems truly revolutionary, but in reality they are just stepping back into the ‘developing’ world, hiding the ugly parts behind a gilded screen.

What do you think?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Uber and Postmates and DoorDash and all of these ‘gig’ economy companies simply created a giant pool of servants that you could call on demand. That’s all they really do. The gig economy is just a giant collection of servants.

If the gig economy was just those companies, perhaps. But the gig economy is bigger and more encompassing that just delivering stuff. Much of the gig economy is corporate contract work, hardly hiring a servant to fold clothes. Uber is just a more modern version of the old taxi service. Food delivery is closely tied to the pandemic and no one yet knows what will happen to those guys once the pandemic is controlled.

so no. Your link guy is just pushing his political/social views and trying to pretend they have meaning.

 

[innonimatu]

If the gig economy was just those companies, perhaps. But the gig economy is bigger and more encompassing that just delivering stuff. Much of the gig economy is corporate contract work, hardly hiring a servant to fold clothes. Uber is just a more modern version of the old taxi service. Food delivery is closely tied to the pandemic and no one yet knows what will happen to those guys once the pandemic is controlled.

Even here in this corner of Europe, which was not ground zero for the "gig" food delivery, I saw people walking, cycling and motoring around with huge backpacks to deliver food one year ago. It was going pre-pandemic. That it's also the pool and immigrants who do this job that sucks is evidence I saw and keep seeing personally.

There were such things as the "mechanical turk" for gigs in other areas. There's the increasing proliferation of temporary work companies which are another form of gig economy. The common thread is cheap labour without formal ties and evading labour regulations. It got going before the "gig" marketing term was made up for it.

These features:
- employing immigrants or people otherwise in a weak negotiating position
- cheap labour (a consequence of the above)
- breaking labour regulations (or not having them)
are really characteristics of servant economies. I'm old enough to recall - and mostly have heard stories - of when the exact same role and way of operation was done upon people migrating from the rural countryside to the big city. As the countryside emptied out and that migratory flow ceased the middle classes in the city (which were very much like these descriptions from Sri Lanka) had to give up their servants: no one was willing to do that degrading work cheap enough anymore. Now it as been resurrected, but with one change: it's piecemeal work now, not the full time servants a familiy.

The author of the article is spot-on, in my experience. In your country you probably didn't live that first transition away from a servant underclass, it urbanized much earlier than here.

 

[AmazonQueen]

My brother worked as a contractor for a bank for 5 years.
Alongside and doing the same work as bank staff, but without security of employment, paid holidays, sick pay or a pension.
Its not just servants but it is part of companies sloughing off the responsibilities towards employees they used to accept, if reluctantly.

 

[Narz]

... you still have poorer people doing stuff you don’t want to do for not really enough money.

Um yeah thats also what a job is

Seems like clickbait pretending to be some sort of race thing

 

[Angst]

Um yeah thats also what a job is

Seems like clickbait pretending to be some sort of race thing

So this point is honestly brilliant. But I want to be devil's advocate for a bit and suggest... Isn't there a racial aspect here, if anything a national vs Other aspect?

Even if the gig economy also uses high paid contract work, I don't see a big difference between migrant fruit picking and stuff like Uber. It's using foreign workers to do stuff the native population doesn't feel like. I can't help but be remniscent of several articles that research into structural problems with ethnicity and economy, and this is just an extension of that logic, if not directly pointed out as an issue in the stuff I've read.

(My personal position, by the way, is both to have the borders open and allow the migrants proper pay and workers' rights; this is also usually the conclusion of the stuff I've read about this in. Often people respond "We're giving them an opportunity so they should just shut it", but that's against everything I believe in in regards to workers' rights; just because they're foreign workers doesn't mean their issues should be ignored. It also has the danger of undercutting domestic pay)

 

[Zardnaar]

So this point is honestly brilliant. But I want to be devil's advocate for a bit and suggest... Isn't there a racial aspect here, if anything a national vs Other aspect?

Even if the gig economy also uses high paid contract work, I don't see a big difference between migrant fruit picking and stuff like Uber. It's using foreign workers to do stuff the native population doesn't feel like. I can't help but be remniscent of several articles that research into structural problems with ethnicity and economy, and this is just an extension of that logic, if not directly pointed out as an issue in the stuff I've read.

(My personal position, by the way, is both to have the borders open and allow the migrants proper pay and workers' rights; this is also usually the conclusion of the stuff I've read about this in. Often people respond "We're giving them an opportunity so they should just shut it", but that's against everything I believe in in regards to workers' rights; just because they're foreign workers doesn't mean their issues should be ignored. It also has the danger of undercutting domestic pay)

More like stuff the locals can't be bothered doing for the pay rate offered.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The peak period for strong workers rights, pensions and benefits was from after WW2 until Reagan became president. And for the most part all those rights and benefits were for white men. Once Corporate America began to send jobs overseas in the 80s and the great M&A leveraged buyout scheme took over, US workers were screwed. Labor costs and benefits hurt profits and business has always had an eye for ways to reduce those costs. In every generation it is something new to fit with the times. Corporate america adapts and changes to new thinking and new tech pretty quickly and people/workers don't. When I look back at my prime work years, I longed for the great pensions that retirees were getting and was less pleased with 401ks and matching. A pension at 70% of my final salary would have been very nice. Rather than pine away for what was, you would be better off figuring out what is coming and planning for that and how you can make the most of it. Pensions are gone; job security is gone; corporate caring is mostly gone unless you are secure in your skills and relationships. Figure out what you need to do to be one of the folks that are more immune to being pushed around. Then do that. Other wise you are letting yourself be victimized.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Um yeah thats also what a job is

Yes and jobs are bad.

 

[Narz]

Yes and jobs are bad.

Agreed jobs suck

 

[cardgame]

Which is not necessarily a departure from the stance that work (as in, distinct from jobs) is still important and needs to get done, for any straw builders out there.

 

[EnglishEdward]

What do you think?

It is a good article. It is focused on the US. I cannot speak for the USA.

I will however make some points regarding the UK and the USA:

(a) In the UK traditionally the landed gentry had servants as retainers serving as butlers, cooks, maids, drivers etc.
If not indentured, the lord of the manor etc could dismiss such servants at will. If they were perceived as behaving
themselves it was often a long term relationship in which the gentry were seen as having an obligation to loyal retainers.
Yet when people refer to the gig economy in the UK, it is seen very much as just about transactional relationship.

(b) If the UK gentry travelled and stayed in hotels, they would regard people in such roles as servants albeit not directly
employed by them. But there are accounts that that when they travelled to the USA, and referred to hotel staff as
servants, they were surprised to find that the hotel staff were quite affronted maintaining they were free citizens .
What I am trying to say is that the term servant had different connotations between the UK and the USA.
If anything the US approach spread to the UK. A 19th century hamsom cab driver would not have minded
being referred to as a servant, but very few would dare tell the London black cab driver that 25 years ago.

(c) Slavery was legal in the USA. When it ended domestic slaves became domestic servants.
There is therefore an association between slavery and servant in the USA different to that in the UK.

(d) Many people in the UK wait at the end of the phone for contacts or employing intermediaries to ring them
up to be told that so and so needs a shelf filler for tonight or a carer to cover regular staff being sick. These people
don't regard themselves as servants, more I suppose as the modern equivalent of piece rate or day rate labourers.

(e) I would regard those working In Amazon warehouses for de facto longer tems as employees.

(f) And how do I regard a hair dresser? Most see themselves as independent skilled workers.
Yes, they are dependent upon customers, but they are not dependent upon me personally.

 

[Narz]

Which is not necessarily a departure from the stance that work (as in, distinct from jobs) is still important and needs to get done, for any straw builders out there.

I usually like work, sometimes even semi-unpleasant work (tedious gardening tasks, running errands, washing dishes, generally taking care of people) . When codified into a "job" and receiving little to no added benefit to myself or loved ones for work well done it loses it's luster quickly.

 

[Zardnaar]

I usually like work, sometimes even semi-unpleasant work (tedious gardening tasks, running errands, washing dishes, generally taking care of people) . When codified into a "job" and receiving little to no added benefit to myself or loved ones for work well done it loses it's luster quickly.

I'll do it the pay just has to be high enough.

I've had some very cruisy gigs, but also some terrible ones. Sometimes you get $200 for 5 minutes work, other times complete garbage.

 

[Synobun]

Gig work is great. Really opened up employment opportunities, though the hustle takes a certain kind of person to excel at.

Where gig work fails is in protections. The law hasn't caught up. But that's a different issue. Gig work itself is not the problem.

 

[innonimatu]

@EnglishEdward I think you made a good point about the different interpretation of the word servant in different countries.

My interpretation of the OP I linked to was that the current gig economy is really selling the kind of "servant services" that had fallen out of fashion, out of use, when the payment gap between working class people and the upper middle class narrowed in the mid-20th century.
I'm not sure about how it happened in the UK but I suspect that it became rather more expensive to retain "servants", be they butlers, cooks or simple cleaning ladies, and much of the upper middle class had to learn to their own cooking, cleaning and driving? That I did observe here in sourthern Europe. High-end apartments in the big cities even used to include an extra servant's room and toiled until the 1960s, then in the 70s it completely disappeared. Today those in old buildings are often (sub)rent to students as it had a direct service door also.
This end of the servant here coincided with the final phase of urbanization: the servants were usually girls coming from poor families with many kids and little land in the countryside, eventually as birth rates declined and industralization and services picked up offering more jobs to women they simply chose to work there rather than be servants, and there were no more poor young women to pick up in the countryside to do the servant role.

It has been striking me for years now that immigration from other countries filled that role again in recent years. The idea is the same: "unqualified" (uncredentialled really, I know one who had been a medics in Ukraine and spend years here doing house cleaning) immigrants hired on the cheap to again do those jobs. Except that now there's no question of them moving in with the family to some servant's room: not they're hired by the hour. More dignified. But the jobs are the same, that's one of the things that strike me: cooking, waiting on people (restaurants were bug employers, before covid), driving around for them, cleaning... again those with more money decided they were too good to do certain stuff and it was more "economically sound" to hire others to do it for them: "I'm qualified and my time is worth a lot, I can afford to pay others to do this and use my time for self-fulfillment...".

It seems to me that class prejudice is very much alive and kicking still.

 

[El_Machinae]

Same would be people offering a discount on their labour due to the spread on Social Security taxes. If poeop[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

Gig work is great. Really opened up employment opportunities, though the hustle takes a certain kind of person to excel at.

Where gig work fails is in protections. The law hasn't caught up. But that's a different issue. Gig work itself is not the problem.

I had a longer post that I was fine-tuning, but this basically sums everything up. The gig economy allows participants to erode protections (and wages) in order to give themselves a competitive edge. That's not a good long-term thing. People hustling and using privately bought tools to solve other people's problems based on mutual convenience is ... well, I like it.

 

[Zardnaar]

@EnglishEdward I think you made a good point about the different interpretation of the word servant in different countries.

My interpretation of the OP I linked to was that the current gig economy is really selling the kind of "servant services" that had fallen out of fashion, out of use, when the payment gap between working class people and the upper middle class narrowed in the mid-20th century.
I'm not sure about how it happened in the UK but I suspect that it became rather more expensive to retain "servants", be they butlers, cooks or simple cleaning ladies, and much of the upper middle class had to learn to their own cooking, cleaning and driving? That I did observe here in sourthern Europe. High-end apartments in the big cities even used to include an extra servant's room and toiled until the 1960s, then in the 70s it completely disappeared. Today those in old buildings are often (sub)rent to students as it had a direct service door also.
This end of the servant here coincided with the final phase of urbanization: the servants were usually girls coming from poor families with many kids and little land in the countryside, eventually as birth rates declined and industralization and services picked up offering more jobs to women they simply chose to work there rather than be servants, and there were no more poor young women to pick up in the countryside to do the servant role.

It has been striking me for years now that immigration from other countries filled that role again in recent years. The idea is the same: "unqualified" (uncredentialled really, I know one who had been a medics in Ukraine and spend years here doing house cleaning) immigrants hired on the cheap to again do those jobs. Except that now there's no question of them moving in with the family to some servant's room: not they're hired by the hour. More dignified. But the jobs are the same, that's one of the things that strike me: cooking, waiting on people (restaurants were bug employers, before covid), driving around for them, cleaning... again those with more money decided they were too good to do certain stuff and it was more "economically sound" to hire others to do it for them: "I'm qualified and my time is worth a lot, I can afford to pay others to do this and use my time for self-fulfillment...".

It seems to me that class prejudice is very much alive and kicking still.

Think it was the war years, inheritence tax in the 1920s and things like minimum wages.

Being a servant may not have paid great but room and board was generally included.

Looking at the living conditions in UK late 19th century being a servant not that bad of an option.

They also started to change things WW1 when something like 1 in 3 failed the physical. Hard to fight a war when your population not so healthy.

It was noticable enough that our colonial troops wrote about it as well, they were physically taller and bigger than UK cousins.

 

[innonimatu]

It's convenient, granted. But in the middle of all this new trading what drives in participation in the more "servant-like" tasks (there's a reason I've been mentioning running errands, cleaning etc) is need. Not just large income gaps but actual need. I certainly would not be happy cleaning up for others, it's bad enough to do it for myself. Cooking commercially, or indeed just cooking for a lot of people, is taxing. The fun wears off fast when you have to do it over and over... serving is even worse.

And thinking such, I'm seeing this as a social regression. There are people who indeed need to be served. But the scale of it now, the casual use of it because convenience only: one's convenience (as a rule, there may be exceptions) is another's unhappy labour. As things stand that unhappy labout is being moved upon a fraction of the population that must take it to survive because it's in the lower rung of society. That's it's not done by choice but by need I consider proven because such service went almost extinct in more equitable ties: given the choice people avoided hiring out to do it.

Now it's again a sign of status to use such services. At least around here Ive been noticing that among the young and well-paid hipsters. The way I've seen restaurant staff treated for one example... things changed and it wasn't for the better. And that was prior to this disaster that befell especially the people who held those jobs. I expect it go get worse as its labour becomes cheaper.

Think it was the war years, inheritence tax in the 1920s and things like minimum wages.

Here it happened during my own lifetime, the general rise in living standards. And the current, to be frank, decline. That has been visibly going to for some 15 years here. Even in housing, young people again pushed to living in rented rooks while they're already of an age to worry about setting up a family. And the exploitation of recent migrant labour, again - the difference being that this time they come from further away.
The gig ecomony grew from that degradation of social conditions. It would have been impossible in the 80s and 90s.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's convenient, granted. But in the middle of all this new trading what drives in participation in the more "servant-like" tasks (there's a reason I've been mentioning running errands, cleaning etc) is need. Not just large income gaps but actual need. I certainly would not be happy cleaning up for others, it's bad enough to do it for myself. Cooking commercially, or indeed just cooking for a lot of people, is taxing. The fun wears off fast when you have to do it over and over... serving is even worse.

And thinking such, I'm seeing this as a social regression. There are people who indeed need to be served. But the scale of it now, the casual use of it because convenience only: one's convenience (as a rule, there may be exceptions) is another's unhappy labour. As things stand that unhappy labout is being moved upon a fraction of the population that must take it to survive because it's in the lower rung of society. That's it's not done by choice but by need I consider proven because such service went almost extinct in more equitable ties: given the choice people avoided hiring out to do it.

Now it's again a sign of status to use such services. At least around here Ive been noticing that among the young and well-paid hipsters. The way I've seen restaurant staff treated for one example... things changed and it wasn't for the better. And that was prior to this disaster that befell especially the people who held those jobs. I expect it go get worse as its labour becomes cheaper.

I always try to be nice to restaurant staff because been there done that.

Had one apologizing on Saturday night because my meal came out last. We had a large group, mine was the most complex one and it took longer to cook no big deal.