While we all wait for the counting to finish (and the law cases to
start), here's the best article I could find on the major victory for
the platform capitalists on California, overturning a state-wide labor
law (AB5) which would have forced them to reclassify most gig-workers as
employees (with be
Since we are still waiting, time to think a bit more about the platform
capitalists' victory in California.
Essentially, what it allows them to do is to offload many costs as
externalities. Most directly, onto the workers who are denied benefits
and insurance. This allows them to pursue an extreme
Yes, it's not just workers in the gig economy who lose out. It's all of
us. After all, why should the public continue to pay tax if it’s
privately owned firms that are increasingly providing their utilities
such as indeed mass transit. Especially if many of those companies are
aggressively find
Gary points out that "‘a significant part of the capacity of a state to
raise taxes comes from the willingness of wage earners to have their
earnings taxed … and the willingness of wage earners to be taxed depends to
a significant extent on their level of collective solidarity’ (Erik Olin
Wright, H
