How Uber and the Gig Economy Are Making Voters as Disposable as Temp Workers

[marmar]

How Uber and the Gig Economy Are Making Voters as Disposable as Temp Workers

Friday, 31 July 2015 00:00
By Michael Meurer, Truthout | News Analysis


A series of recent PR skirmishes between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush over the role of Uber workers in the new on-demand sharing economy has made it clear that both candidates are focused on disposable temp voters, who are the electoral analog to the disposable temp workers who now drive the US economy. A temp economy has, in effect, produced a temp politics.

This new temp politics is not about building social consensus and a governing majority around a bold, unifying democratic vision for the future. Rather, it is about building temporary electoral majorities in key swing states, using sophisticated PR tactics, powerful data tools and social media to push emotional hot button issues down to the level of the individual. The objective is to pick off demographic niches from a confused and splintered electorate that has been fed a steady diet of intentionally divisive politics for more than three decades amid widespread economic anxiety that is inherent in the new gig economy.

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Clinton presents herself as the champion of beleaguered workers who now have "gigs" without benefits instead of "jobs." Bush has adopted the language of a faux revolutionary, spouting slogans about the disruptive genius of the market and the brilliant new ways that workers "can customize their lives" and use gigs as Uber drivers to stay debt-free while in college.

What has gone unremarked in this early PR dust-up is that the model of disposable workers that drives the so-called sharing economy has spilled into social and political life in profound new ways, creating for the first time an enormous cohort of disposable temp voters with weak or no party affiliation. The PR tactics of both candidates are aimed at these unaffiliated temp voters, who confront the acid realities of the new gig economy daily.

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As a reflection of this economic Uberization, temp workers now account for 18 percent of the US workforce, having grown from 18 million to 32 million between 2001 and 2014. Yet the gig economy extends well beyond startups. Apple, for example, directly employs only 10 percent of more than 1 million workers making and selling their products worldwide.

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Disposable Temp Voters in the Gig Economy

The percentage of Americans who identify as political independents has risen in lock step with the increase in temp employment and economic uncertainty, jumping to 46 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013. This is the highest percentage in the 25 years since Gallup began polling party identification. Gallup also reports that nearly 60 percent of Americans want a third political party because they believe Democrats and Republicans "do such a poor job" of representing their interests. Among self-described independents, 71 percent favor the formation of a third party. This rise in unrepresented voters is also reflected in the record low approval voters give Congress, 14 percent in 2013. ..............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32152-how-uber-and-the-gig-economy-are-making-voters-as-disposable-as-temp-workers

[Adrahil]

1. You can see this happening in many places...

For example, in acqdemia.... The dramatic shift from tenure-track faculty to comtract and adjunct faculty. My wife has a tenure track position and we feel very lucky.

[djean111]

2. Yes, it seems that much of Congress and the President kind of ignore the voters, once they set up

shop in DC, doesn't it?