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.

中文翻译：

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为什么优步没有接管世界

摘要 如今，新闻标题谴责“零工经济”的野火蔓延是很常见的。我们问一个完全相反的问题：为什么现在没有更多的工作通过基于劳动力的数字平台进行，这是零工经济中使用的主要方法？在美国、英国和其他地方的调查表明，零工工作仍然是劳动力市场的一个非常小的组成部分，当然不会使正规就业或临时劳动力（例如按需、兼职、合同、季节性劳动力）黯然失色。 ）。零工经济的规模可能被夸大了，因为它与临时工作本身（确实已经增长）和非劳动力平台混为一谈。我们的论文认为，基于劳动力的数字平台产生如此少工作的一个核心原因是它受到了新自由主义资本主义纯粹主义版本的启发，减少荒谬，包括严格的市场个人主义和反工会主义。这使得零工经济就其自身而言是不可持续的，揭示了其基本的内部限制。零工经济是一种强大而危险的亲市场幻想，但其想象中的完美并不适合大规模工作的现实，因此它没有更广泛地扩散，而是在边缘蓬勃发展。