The gig economy, exemplified by ride-service companies like Uber, housing rental companies like Airbnb and freelance brokers like Upwork, is not a harbinger of an empowering new tech-driven economy. These are predatory corporations using age-old practices to exploit workers, dodge government oversight and evade taxes.
Those are the takeaways from the new book Raw Deal: How The Uber Economy and Runaway Capitalism are Screwing American Workers, by Steven Hill, a fellow at New America Foundation. Hill, who splits his time between California and Europe, intriguingly notes that unlike the states, the continent has not embraced the gig economy mainstays in its midst.
AlterNet talked with Hill about how Europe—particularly Germany, where he has lived for most of 2016—has not bought into the sector’s claims that it is somehow futuristic, different and above government regulation and public accountability.
– Alternet