Hygonomics is changing the labor market. Part 2: Discourse on stability and freedom

The first part is here .

According to experts, in modern times gigonomy, which involves the sharing of things, we will try our hand at many different works, because modern technology gives us enough free time from 9 to 17. But these changes also carry anxiety, insecurity and low wages.

Back in the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes suggested that the phrase "technological unemployment" would become a familiar part of the language. This phrase described “our discoveries that allow us to use human labor more economically, which have a higher rate than the search for new areas where this work can be used”. Or in other words, how computers and robots force us out of our jobs. A study conducted in 2013 by Oxford economists Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, an economist at Oxford, attempted to compile a list of those occupations that were at the highest risk. Of the 702 professions, almost half fell into the highest risk category of “potential automation”. Among them were almost all the professions associated with the data, as well as with transport (in the wake of the inevitable arrival of unmanned vehicles). I asked Frey if, in his opinion, the technologies of the sharing platforms that make temporary part-time jobs can mitigate this effect.
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“People remain very attached to stable wages, but it seems to me that some of the companies understood something very important. The development of sharing platforms gives people the opportunity to build a market on their skills that did not previously exist. ”

In his opinion, one of the results of this will undoubtedly be increased tension regarding salary issues for staff members and a reduction in the protection of working conditions. Frey does not believe that technology will necessarily provide the necessary solutions in some areas, even if they change the labor market.

He says: “Everything indicates that there will be fewer jobs, and the rationalization of labor will increase. If we look at the creation of new professions in recent decades, then in the 1980s there were 8.2% of new professions, in the 1990s - 4.4%, and in the 2000s - 0.5%. It is not necessary that the unemployed future awaits us. But it's hard for me to imagine which sectors of the market will appear in order to balance the loss of jobs. ”

Some of the most ardent adherents of the emerging “gigomics” believe that this approach gives us a wrong idea of ​​the problem. Robin Chase was a co-founder of Zipcar, a car rental company that was founded in 2000 and made it possible to book cars online. In his book, Peers Inc, Robin reflects on this innovation and the many shhering models that emerged later, arguing that we are already experiencing a revolution.

She says the following: "My father had one job all his life, I had six, and my children would have six at a time." Does she think this is good? “It seems to me strange that we always advise companies to diversify the streams of their profits, but for some people who are the most vulnerable and the smallest component of the economy, we say: you must do one thing all your life. So living is crazy. 87% of people employed in permanent jobs are not enthusiastic about what they are doing. When I think about this new way of working, I support it. It gives people economic strength, it makes them central. And it gives them flexibility. People like it all, ”says Robin.

"We realized that by inviting people from outside the company to work, we can quickly develop our business."

But after all, such work gives them less confidence and protection, and potentially much more worries and anxieties, doesn't it?

“We were taught to put reliability above self-realization and love for our own business,” says Chase. In any case, to object to this would be cunning. “In the US, only 25% of the working-age population currently has something like a full-time job with guarantees and compensation. We have already passed this model, and it will not return back. "

But isn't gignomika just another way to reduce costs and accumulate wealth in the hands of providers? “Many people are now trying to focus on the fact that in a sharing economy, employers are deceiving employees. However, if you look at the uneven distribution of income over the past 40 years, it becomes clear that the fact that employers are deceiving employees has nothing to do with the sharing economy, ”says Robin.

She hopes that emerging platforms will allow developing new openness and flexibility of thoughts, and Robin does not see any obstacles for them in any industry or service: “Traditionally, companies kept their values ​​to themselves, protecting them with patents, trademarks and certificates. But thanks to the companies providing services through platforms, we realized that one of the ways to grow quickly is to attract people from outside. This is what BlaBaCar, Airbnb, Uber, YouTube and Moocs are successfully promoting. They use an initiative that exists outside the company. This is a huge change in what brings value. ”

The writer and economist Jeremy Rifkin predicted this change in his book The End of Work, which was published in 1995. “Then the standard economic theories claimed that new technologies would create more jobs than they would destroy. I didn’t believe it, ”he told me. Rifkin believes that classical capitalism has already passed, and the economist gives the government, corporations and especially the political leaders of Germany and China advice on how to counter the negative consequences. According to him, one of the main components will be a sharing economy or gignomika - what he calls the collective use of common resources: “We live in an age of new communication technology, new energy sources and new means of transportation. When these three components come together, then you always get a fundamental change in how people work. ”

And he believes that these changes have already become a reality for the millennium generation. “They already exist in the hybrid economic system,” he says. “They will be part of the day in the capitalist markets, selling, buying and producing things, balancing between the real price and the cost price for profit. It will remain so. But part of the day they produce and share with each other a multitude of virtual goods at zero cost, free of charge. Look at the music industry. 16 years have passed since the advent of Napster. People can create music at almost zero cost and offer it to a billion potential listeners with zero direct costs. ”

Rifkin believes that the upheavals that have affected the entertainment industry, news and publishing, will soon become universal. He points to how millions of people in Europe and China now produce their own electricity through zero-cost solar and wind energy and then sell its networks again. He believes that such a revolution will soon happen in the field of transport "with unmanned electric cars printed on a 3D printer."

In his opinion, many changes are associated with the transformation of the idea of ​​freedom. Arguing about freedom, people of the older generation present it as autonomy, independence, and personal choice. "Freedom is exclusive rights and privileges." When the younger generation thinks about freedom, then for them it is no longer in exclusive rights and privileges, for them it is all-inclusive. “The greater the number of networks in which they are, the greater their social capital, the more free they feel,” he says. “It's about expanding the network. This is a sharing economy. ”

Although partly not a sad economic necessity has become the mother of all these inventions, of all these millions of applications? The fact that in developed countries there is a gap between the ideas of generations about freedom also points to the clear differences in the resources and opportunities provided to these generations.

Rifkin likens gomnomika to communal lands in times of feudalism. “This sharing economy returns the rights to the public use of high-tech landscape. This begins when people create communities using their scarce resources and sharing them with each other, creating more value. If they are charged for people, if they are trusted, then they become part of the group economy. If they behave inappropriately, they are excluded. Everything depends on your social capital in this new economy, ”he says.

In most of this future, it seems to me, there is a utopian meaning, but it is obvious that on the way to it we will face anxiety and pain. Rifkin formulated a plan for the European and Chinese government, which, in his opinion, should alleviate this pain. It includes “one last big surge in work” to improve all buildings and houses, so that they become micro energy suppliers, and to create an infrastructure that makes possible a digital, greener and more creative common future. He believes that it will take 40 years.

“But of course I don’t think that all this is accomplished facts. But this is the best we can offer. I spent a lot of time with major entrepreneurs and the government. And what I am saying is: do you have another plan for the future of your economy or for attracting workers? They never have it. So plan B does not exist, ”he says.