Early last week, some Union brothers were solving the problems of the world and we were considering Tom Watson’s new proletariat of the self employed. Firstly, we need to recognise that not everyone wants to be a taxi driver, but secondly that the drive to self-employment turns people who are good at something into doing something else, from being a skilled and experienced trades worker into a sales person, credit controller, Head of Legal and accountant. Most don’t want to do this and initially outsource this work to a third party or often an insurance company and guess where the value is expropriated and customer stickiness occurs. The trend to monopoly and scale, and “ownership” of the customer relationship disintermediates the skills supplier and for the consumer, It becomes impossible to hire a plumber, electrician or odd job person; you have to go to a large provider which are either medium scale or massive. There is no personal liberation in this supply chain.
Alienation