Sharing aint Caring

[Michael Bailey]

A) uber came to our town. Driver recently arrested for groping passenger. Drivers complain on Craigslist you do not exactly make what they claim.

B) in 1969, the son of the owner of the biggest cab company in Orlando came back from business school, fired all the drivers, and took them back as contractors, saving big $. So it's not exactly a new idea.

C) Pynchon's alligator foreman, all earnest and unionized wanting to build morale and finding a bunch of guys who would just as soon redeem returnable bottles and buy beer. Not everybody is like that, but it does illustrate the difficulty of inspiring solidarity among workers. People who are more goal-driven and less prone to foolish pleasures will gravitate toward jobs with security which entails commitment...what drives commitment can be the idea of loyalty to your peers (it works in the armed forces, doesn't it) but there are competing loyalties, Blondie urging Dagwood to ask for a raise, Dagwood's preference for putting his feet up on the desk...his desire for a few more minutes of sleep versus the car-pool honking in the driveway, the mailman getting bowled over on his rush out the door (although that is more from _CoL49_, wouldn't you say?)

Sent from my iPad, like you really will be thrilled about that (-;

> On Sep 27, 2014, at 6:35 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> when companies do this in our world, they are of the day. In general. 
> 
> Pynchon's ways of perceptions show---among other things, this remark is not all-inclusive---aspects of anarchistic "sharing" that are ' free'---that T-shirt pile. 
> 
> Willfully chosen " barter" economy might count against the day. 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
>> On Sep 26, 2014, at 5:26 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I'm interested in what P-Listers think of the new 'sharing economy'.
>> 
>> Businesses such as Uber, AirBnB, Skype etc enlist the rhetoric of a
>> kind of grassroots DIY anarchist economic system that sticks it to The
>> Man. I've read some articles that really persuasively argue the
>> opposite - this system is capitalism in its most naked form.
>> 
>> I'll let them do the talking. Would love to hear thoughts, esp as this
>> seems pertinent to Pynchon's own collisions of capitalism, anarchism,
>> communitarianism, collectivism, libertarianism etc in Against the Day.
>> 
>> "'Sharing economy' companies like Uber shift risk from corporations to
>> workers, weaken labor protections, and drive down wages.":
>> 
>> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/against-sharing/
>> 
>> "Companies in the “sharing economy” can only function because they are
>> using your “assets,” your resources: your car (Bla Bla Car,
>> Getaround), your apartment (Airbnb), and your computing power
>> (Skype)."
>> 
>> http://www.publicseminar.org/2014/06/the-politics-of-the-sharing-economy/#.VCU7zxbrG8H
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l