Classes in society necessitate a qualitative differentiator. If you want to argue that it's fair that some people are rich while some people are poor, there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor. Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence". You'll rarely find that argument made explicitly, but it's implicit in all discussions that presuppose economical classes.
Once that observation is made, it becomes clear that the argument is actually: This class of people is unfit for better work, and without our poverty wages they would die. In my opinion that's very similar to the idea that the "negro" was inferior to the white man and therefore it was by his grace that the "negro" was allowed to exist.
> there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor
No? They can all be the same. But without individual incentives to take risks and innovate, the whole doesn’t progress. The meritocratic model works fine among equals.
> Canonically in the western world it's usually "gumption" or "intelligence".
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Emphasis on natural inherence. Meritocracies work if everyone is statistically identical. They even work when everyone is perfectly identical. They don't if every action is independent and identically distributed, but it's not; being lucky in the past can make one more capable in the present even in an unbiased system.
We should keep that randomness in mind to avoid being cruel. But systems that ignore this path dependence, or worse, try to stamp it out, underperform those that acknowledge it.
You're just making the same argument you tried to disagree with. If there's some quality that means luck today implies luck tomorrow and it isn't just the compounding effect of capital that's exactly the western notion I'm talking about. Instead of calling it "gumption" you've just called it "luck".
Not really. You only have to believe that there are some complex actions which, if taken on an individual level, benefit society. For example, starting a business, or skilling into a highly demanded field such as medicine. Doing these things can be highly financially rewarding, and that means that people are more likely to attempt them than they would be otherwise.
You don't have to believe the "luck begets luck", and there is certainly injustice in the way wealth lands around society, but not allowing people to become rich by taking socially-positive risks removes the marginal incentive to do so. That is, I believe, GP means by "the whole doesn't progress".
> If you want to argue that it's fair that some people are rich while some people are poor, there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor.
I don't buy this at all. There can be no difference between me and a billionaire who inherited their wealth, but I feel under no obligation to call that unfair. They were just lucky, and that's fine.
> If you want to argue that it's fair that some people are rich while some people are poor, there has to be some natural inherent difference between the rich and the poor.
Would you consider it immoral if a thousand people of equal economic status chose to participate in a lottery where they each paid in 1% of their money, and then one person, selected at random, won all of it?
Does your answer change if it's a chess tournament instead of a lottery?
They control your ability to work there. For some people these are the only kinds of jobs they can get, they are stuck there, trying to pay off the vehicle they got a loan for purchasing that they use in the job. They are kind of prisoners. Many of those people can't get other jobs that pay much. Uber can decide you are violating the rules somehow and cut you off (working too much or too little).
"People get into these agreements on their own choice" some will say, but these are often people without other good choices.
Agreed, but is it better for these people to have fewer choices for work?
And who is in the best position to decide? The person making the choice to drive for Uber, you or I, politicians?
I go back and forth about this on a high level, but don’t necessarily support outright bans on gig work. Maybe just a bit more sensible regulation to help people understand potential earnings vs. all their costs (ex. car payment, insurance, repairs, etc.) and maybe some way to allow them to accrue sick pay based on hours worked. Just to put a slight hand on the scale to help people deciding on gig work. But we’d have the problem of who would pay for any such benefits; Uber may pass the cost along to end users. Maybe funded by taxes somehow
Maybe it's better to think on it in terms of the flexibility of Uber's services when they were a mere startup and their evolution over time (business strategy, finances, app development and deployment, etc) and the myriad of ways so-called consumers, according to the article, took advantage of them and now, more government regulation.
I knew of someone who made it his full time occupation to drive for Uber (and still does today) despite the hurdles of being involved in that structure. I also know of another who drove to supplement his existing income stream (during covid19) to make his ends meet.
Asymmetric power is the engine that turns the world.
Everyone on earth has asymmetric power in one context or another. Men and women, kings and peons alike. There is no universality, despite some of the narratives out there
Edit: seeing this comment have wide swings from upvotes and downvotes, wish the “most controversial” sorting was a thing
I’m not making a normative statement. It’s objective.
As easily as what you said, one could say (and US allies like Saudi do say) “women’s rights are mostly fine, but there are places where they go too far and a husband must step in”
I don't really know what relevance this has to the previous conversation. But I would say that laws are much more likely to get things right than to let every powered individual make their own rules.
The context is the battle between capital and labor. Its (historically) very important and this is just one tiny instance of it. Another instance was on NPR today about the proposed railroad workers strike, apparently they don't get any paid sick days which is outrageous especially considering how lauded Warren Buffet is when he yaks about paying less tax than his secretary; well she doesn't spend $10m a year on tax lawyers and maybe Buffet could spare some sick days for the BNSF workers? Tech examples could include workers in China suffering under 9-9-6, or Google-Apple wage suppression collusion, or a common topic around here, how early startup employees lose their equity comp through some kind of legal slight-of-hand.
You are right and we have allowed capital to outpace labor in power by supporting globalization and loose central bank policy since the closing of the gold window in 1971
Hard for immigrants to get those jobs. They might not in the locations where those jobs are, or can't pass a background check, or might have been arrested for dui 10 years ago, or maybe once wrote a hot check (which must happen way more for poor people). A lot of uber drivers are immigrants without much access to the working world, nothing like I have as a us citizen with a college degree and history of working as a dev. If I just immigrated from Ghana, and I also was maybe driving some times on my buddies car and id because I wasn't allowed to for some reason. This is the underclass world a lot of people are living in.
>Hard for immigrants to get those jobs. They might not in the locations where those jobs are, or can't pass a background check, or might have been arrested for dui 10 years ago, or maybe once wrote a hot check (which must happen way more for poor people).
Are you sure you're not talking about gig workers as well? For instance, uber says[1] that they need a valid drivers license and conducts background checks (which apparent check for previous driving infractions as well as criminal history).
Your wording sounds like you're posting this as a "gotcha". Would you like to elaborate further?
And as a response to your perceived "gotcha", no, they do not need to be illegal. Even a refugee with a medical degree in their home can arrive here and can fall through the cracks in our system just because they aren't able to master a second language fast enough. Not every immigrant is illegal, no matter the pearl clutching.
I'm referring to people whom are given the same legal benefits of being able to work besides me when they haven't gone through the proper channels of legalities nor sought to do so. I remember my parents immigrating to the US and not have to cross a river at night with just the clothes on their back or pay off a "coyote" to do so.
Uber doesn't 'employ' their drivers. They are contractors. AFAIK an illegal can get a TIN, which combined with their home country's identity documents would be sufficient to legally complete the paperwork to pay out the contract [note this is not legal advice.]
You'll notice this pattern lots of places. Look around in employment ads for construction gigs in lots of cities and they'll be looking for 'contract' teams which we all know likely means some illegals who setup a genuine LLC or get a TIN or whatever; there's no requirement to verify legal employment when paying out a contract AFAIK.
Both GGP and indentured servitude's defenders argue that an economic relationship is, by virtue of having been agreed to by both parties, ipso facto non-exploitative. GP was not saying that gig work and indentured servitude are the same or morally equivalent, just pointing out that both use the same argument.
The logical fallacy is that just because one option is better than the alternatives, it does not follow that the option in question is good. The villain from Saw may let you choose how you will be murdered, but your having chosen to be stabbed instead of drowned doesn't absolve the killer of their culpability in your death.
>The logical fallacy is that just because one option is better than the alternatives, it does not follow that the option in question is good. The villain from Saw may let you choose how you will be murdered, but your having chosen to be stabbed instead of drowned doesn't absolve the killer of their culpability in your death.
Except that the victims in saw were unwittingly put in those situations. What's happening with gig workers is closer to something like the squid game, where the participants gave informed consent, and even had an opportunity to bail out later.
Economic circumstances limit choices, too (though not as explicitly or as definitively as Jigsaw). Most viewers did not see people choosing to participate in the squid game as a victory for economic free choice, but instead as a commentary on how dire someone’s circumstances had become that they would choose to play and later even reaffirm that choice. Someone’s least bad option can still be pretty terrible!
