Wait a sec - this efficient method doesn't involve abusing contractor status to not pay employees benefits, does it? If it does, I'd rather come up with another idea, thanks.

You're right, we'll make it completely voluntary for the transportation providers to participate.

This myth of voluntary participation in capitalism has been debunked many time. When you need to sell you labor in order to feed and house you and your family, it isn’t voluntary by a long shot. It is not a free market because the employer has a significant advantage. This is why we need labor regulations and protections. When a workplace fills out their labor needs with contractors, it is an obvious way to circumvent these necessary labor regulations and protections.

So you are wrong—as California is proofing—unregulated gig-capitalism is not a system that can provide fair working conditions and cheap accessible transportation at the same time.

So your assertion is that unless a person has all of their basic needs met, they are providing labor compulsorily? If we're just starting from Marxist axioms, whereby all relations between classes are best understood as power struggles, then sure everything you said follows.

We're not, however, so you have quite the circular argument going on here. By any reasonable definition, I am not compelled to work -- despite laboring in order to myself and my family fed and housed. Power struggles are a poor lens for understanding this dynamic.

So your refutation of my argument is: “Because Marx said so, it must be false”? Note that I’ve never mentioned classes or power struggle in my arguments, so you are putting words in my mouth.

I don’t understand how my argument is circular. If you strip away any ways for a person to provide for them self except selling their own labor, you are basically saying to them: “work or perish!” Technically perishing is an option, but it is not an option most people will consider (including my self; and demonstrably Uber drivers).

The argument is not "Marx therefore bad," it's that this is a useless observation. You've selected axioms that necessitate your conclusion. It's like me saying "the most moral thing anyone can do is preventing a human death, and therefore everyone here is immoral because they're writing comments on a message board instead of flying to an impoverished country to feed a starving child."

That's true, given the predicate. I don't know why it would be relevant, since -- just like with your comment -- nobody has conceded this definition of morality. The conver preceding is not obviously rooted in Marxist class struggle, so I'm not sure why you're framing it thus (whether you use the words or not.)

Your argument depends on everyone agreeing that, unless a person's basic need for house and food are totally met first, anything they do in pursuit of those needs is compelled and not voluntary. This is not an agreed upon predicate.

I think you'll find that few, if any, "economic predicates" are universally agreed upon. Certainly, in your original post, you're accepting some premises that allow for your own claims to be true, and which are not universally agreed upon. So why can't he?

I think you'll find that most, if not all, human conversations are embedded in a context, which carries assumptions, so that participants can understand each other without iterating all of their definitions. That's why, for example, I don't have to start every conversation in my life by clarifying that I will not be explaining everything in terms of Xenu and thetans.

And if I did want to explain things in those terms, I should first explain why that's a valuable frame to adopt.