On why Uber has not taken over the world

Abstract

Today it is common to see news headlines decrying the wildfire spread of the ‘gig economy’. We ask the exact opposite question: why aren’t more jobs now conducted via labour-based digital platforms, the primary method used in the gig economy? Surveys in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere indicate that gig work remains a very minor component of the labour market, and certainly isn’t overshadowing either regular employment or the contingent workforce (e.g. on-demand, part-time, contract, seasonal). The size of the gig economy is probably exaggerated because it is conflated with casual work per se (which has indeed grown) and non-labour platforms. Our paper argues that a central reason why labour-based digital platforms produce so few jobs is because it is inspired by a purist version of neoliberal capitalism, reductio ad absurdum, including strict market individualism and anti-unionism. This renders the gig economy unsustainable on its own terms, revealing its basic internal limits. The gig economy is a potent and dangerous pro-market fantasy, yet one whose imagined perfection is unsuitable to the realities of work on a large scale, hence why it has not proliferated more widely, thriving on the fringes instead.