> Slavery is coerced labor, how can you even make the comparison?
There are different levels of coercion. After all, even a literal slave doesn't have to work -- they can just allow themselves to be beaten to death. But given the choice between being beaten to death and working, most people choose working.
But the fact is that even people who aren't slaves still have to have a place to live and something to eat. In the 1800's, lots of white people in the North weren't legal slaves; but they were "wage slaves" in factories -- they worked 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for just enough to have a roof over their head and food in their stomachs; and if they got sick or injured they were just out of luck.
The idea that all of those people were "opting in" to that kind of life is preposterous. They were being coerced to work by their physical needs; and the Market, recognizing this, offered them the smallest amount better than "homeless and starving" that they could.
Obviously things are better now than they were in the 1800s, but only because we have laws against "opting in" to bad jobs. As soon as those laws are taken away, the Market will ensure things go back to the way they were.
Uber and Lyft have done many things differently than traditional taxi companies; but one of the things they've done is make an end-run round the labor laws that stop the Market from coercing people into dead-end jobs.
The only other way to prevent that kind of coersion is Universal Basic Income. If employees can walk away from a job that's dangerous and pays poorly, then the Market will make sure employers offer more reasonable conditions.
I follow your logic and see your point...but it still seems like a stretch to label this as coercion. Where do you draw the line?
You can always try to argue that the lowest income earners deserve more. Who is to judge their life is too deep in "survival mode?" Uber has literally been a way out for many of them (earn that extra income on their own schedule).
PS: I also think UBI is a fantastic idea and a great way to avoid all these expensive discussions and campaigns about what to do. UBI would enable the elimination of so much costly regulation while solving this underlying discussion of people in "survival mode."
> I follow your logic and see your point...but it still seems like a stretch to label this as coercion. Where do you draw the line?
Do you mean for Uber and Lyft, or for 19th-century factory workers?
I absolutely think the 19th century factory workers had it better than the 19th century plantation slaves. Exactly where we draw the line for "coercion" matters less to me than the recognition that such a lifestyle still wasn't "voluntary": they were forced into doing something nobody should be forced to do.
I don't really know whether Uber or Lyft reach the level of coercion at the moment; but unless there's something to prevent it, the same thing will happen eventually.
> You can always try to argue that the lowest income earners deserve more. Who is to judge their life is too deep in "survival mode?"
Coercion is definitely a continuum. In some sense, my biology "coerces" me to continue breathing. To say that coercion is bad but then to fail to specify the degree of coercion that would be bad is equivocation. To a capitalist, the type of coercion that comes from needing to eat and therefore needing to either gather food or gather resources to trade for food is on the OK side of that line. To a hardcore progressive, it might not be. But all that labeling a practice like this coercion does is reveal where you stand on that matter of degrees. It doesn't create a qualitative distinction here, because none actually exists.
I fail to see how someone who can afford a car is a wage slave. Cars aren't exactly a cost-less enterprise. They're expensive. So clearly these people are making enough money to help fund that car payment.
These people aren't slaves to the system. They willingly are seeking their own self interests on their own time. They can quit tomorrow if they wanted to. The simple fact that they need money is irrelevant. They aren't some serf subservient to these Gig businesses. The simple fact that they have a car and a tank of gas alone goes to show they can literally go anywhere and get a better/stable job instead.
Wage slavery is when people essentially become serfs. Nobody in the US is even close to a serf. Even if they go homeless, there are plenty of homeless people that still get by every day and have the capability to move elsewhere for work. They aren't forced to work at mcdonalds until "master says so."
I think there is an important point that people miss too often about how systems can still be coercive even if there is an illusion of choice. E.g. prisoner's dilemma type situations.
But this is also the same sort of logic that leads to conclusions like "taxation is theft": same thing, you either pay your taxes or you get punished, so it's not a real choice.
(As an aside I do have hopes that UBI can be a big reduction in this power imbalance.)
There are different levels of coercion. After all, even a literal slave doesn't have to work -- they can just allow themselves to be beaten to death. But given the choice between being beaten to death and working, most people choose working.
But the fact is that even people who aren't slaves still have to have a place to live and something to eat. In the 1800's, lots of white people in the North weren't legal slaves; but they were "wage slaves" in factories -- they worked 11 hours a day, 7 days a week, for just enough to have a roof over their head and food in their stomachs; and if they got sick or injured they were just out of luck.
The idea that all of those people were "opting in" to that kind of life is preposterous. They were being coerced to work by their physical needs; and the Market, recognizing this, offered them the smallest amount better than "homeless and starving" that they could.
Obviously things are better now than they were in the 1800s, but only because we have laws against "opting in" to bad jobs. As soon as those laws are taken away, the Market will ensure things go back to the way they were.
Uber and Lyft have done many things differently than traditional taxi companies; but one of the things they've done is make an end-run round the labor laws that stop the Market from coercing people into dead-end jobs.
The only other way to prevent that kind of coersion is Universal Basic Income. If employees can walk away from a job that's dangerous and pays poorly, then the Market will make sure employers offer more reasonable conditions.