Yup, and I don't think it's a bad thing, necessarily.
Of course they're authoritarians, you do what your boss says or you get out. That's authoritarianism. That doesn't mean it's wrong or bad or ill suited to the task, necessarily.
Singapore is authoritarian, and I'd say things are working pretty well there.
Don't know where you are, but in the US, the category of employee has different tax implications for both the individual and the employer. In addition, depending on the industry and role, employee status is often correlated with significantly better benefits.
So? Social constructs have a lot of teeth in the real world, and always have. Wishing them away won't have any effect.
> I'm saying there should be no special benefits for employees
So are you arguing that those benefits (i.e. health insurance) should be universal? Or are you making the argument that only those in a position to pay should have access to those things?
Laws and social constructs can be changed.
As for health insurance (as an example), how do you justify giving health insurance to employees, but not to other people, like self-employed people?
However, to address your question more directly, contractors are employees as well. It's not the job site's responsibility to provide health insurance, it's their employers. Contractors still have employers, you know.
This is true for vendors, but direct 1099 contractors are self employed.
In your terms then, just let everybody be self-employed and contract them, rather than employ them. That's the same result I want, that people are responsible for themselves and making a contract with somebody to do some work for you doesn't come with any additional baggage. Just plain money for work.
This is a fake world. In the real world there is history, capital and labor, and politics which is an expression of the unavoidable, built-in antagonism between the two. We don't all own an equal share of the means of production and just sit around issuing contracts to each other all day.
Do you understand that the econ 101 libertarian world of homo economicus rational agents is fake and we live instead in the real world with its institutions and conflicts?
Property that you can use to produce value beyond itself through workers' labor is capital.
Suppose you had a robot. Would that robot be labor or capital? Assume the robot has the same capability for work as you.
At the end of the day it is a machine, so "capital". Likewise you own your body, it is your capital.
Then I would be a laborer. The film company would be using my labor as well as the director's, in conjunction with all the capital they own (cameras, sets...) to generate a profit.
> they could really move your body around and position it in poses to take photographs.
Labor.
> I think your distinction of "capital" and "labor" is fake and completely useless
Ok.
It's not "mine" though, these are centuries old analytical concepts.
> unclear why you insist on it.
I insist on it because it's a sensible and already established way to talk about this stuff.
You guys are the ones making the weird nominal excursion by asserting that labor and capital are identical because you read in a Tim Ferris startup manual that "every man is his own capitalist!" or something.
You don't have to be a radical to just use these terms in their original way. I promise you that pro-capitalist theorists also talk about labor and capital as distinct.
Personally I think the category "employee" should be forbidden. It is a pure social construct. Why is anybody entitled to be an "employee" and bitch about "authoritarians"?
Everybody is an entrepreneur. If you have nothing, you sell your body and work hours. But that's just a contract like every other contract.
In any case, if those workers don't like the authoritarians, they are free to start their own companies. Then they get to call the shots.