Critical reflections on a ‘gig’ or ‘sharing’ economy – some links

I keep meaning to write a blogpost where I gather my thoughts and offer something in addition to a number of interesting things I’ve read – maybe in relation to attention, definitely in relation to ‘rent’, but I simply haven’t managed it. So, I’m going to post a few things I’ve found particularly interesting here…

Guy Standing on rentier capitalism and what he calls ‘taskers’… a good intro to Standing’s keen critical reflections on ‘the sharing economy’ and what he terms the ‘precariat’

The Taking Economy: Uber, Information, and Power – an interesting article in the Columbia Law Review by Ryan Calo and Alex Rosenblat on Uber and possible legal interventions into what the authors (and many other) see as Uber’s coercive and exploitative model.

The Myth of the Sharing Economy and Its Implications for Regulating Innovation – a sharp article for Emory Law Journal by Abbey Stemler which is reminiscent of Tom Slee’s excellent critique of the sharing economy by exploding the myth that any ‘sharing’ is actually taking place.

Meet The Food Delivery Workers In The Decentralised Dickensian Online Gig Economy – an incisive piece by Asher Wolf on Medium about the experiences of precarious workers (riders for online food-delivery start-ups).

Karen Gregory’s digital labour reading list for the CUNY Digital Labour Working Group.