"Many liberals have embraced

PeraclesPlease — Thu, 11 May 2017 05:47:43 +0000

In reply to Is The "Gig" Economy working?

"Many liberals have embraced the sharing economy..." - uh, I haven't heard any liberals thrilled with the gig economy since the 90's before the dot com crash carried away any well-paid continual freelance work. Certainly 2008 finished it off by turning a lot of full-time positions into gasping-for-air temp/short-term contracts, with a vague "but when the upturn comes, these'll be back to regular" premonition that'll never come true.

Where the gig economy showed some promise was for working mothers who might be able to complete assignments between running kids to school and soccer practice or nursing them home sick in bed. But seeing as a lot of this work is attracting unemployed males as well, it's hard to see that that will fly - it's just a larger pool of workers competing for sparse, poorly paid work.

Now if government services were better (i.e. if the rich and corporations paid a share of their windfalls), this type of temp work might be subsidized so that it fills a needed gap and people survive on less work but more time for other activities. How that'll happen with an entrenched "work-till-you-die, 2 jobs if possible" attitude party in power is hard to say, but I don't think it's liberals driving this noise, and hasn't been for a long time.

dagblog - Comments for "Is The "Gig" Economy working?"

"Many liberals have embraced