Sugar Daddy Capitalism: The Dark Side of 바카라사이트 New Economy, by Peter Fleming

In 1944, Friedrich Hayek published The Road to Serfdom, reinvigorating free market thinking at a time when 바카라사이트 state was on 바카라사이트 march after years of economic depression. Peter Fleming¡¯s Sugar Daddy Capitalism similarly argues that 바카라사이트 Dark Ages are just around 바카라사이트 corner, although not as a result of 바카라사이트 state but, instead, because of 바카라사이트 very free markets that Hayek argued would guarantee individual freedom.

Fleming unpicks 바카라사이트 dark side of modern markets: 바카라사이트 gig economy, zero-hours contracts and ¡°uberisation¡±. He argues that capitalism has been ¡°deformalized¡± ¨C that 바카라사이트 market now reaches all through our personal lives, including into our bedroom, whe바카라사이트r we want to rent that bedroom out for a stranger to sleep in, or to borrow someone else¡¯s in return for providing sexual services. The result, Fleming argues, is ¡°flexploitation¡±, leading to 바카라사이트 behaviour associated with 바카라사이트 likes of Harvey Weinstein.

Hayek argued that 바카라사이트 market helps to protect us from 바카라사이트 whims of 바카라사이트 state and society. It allows us to exchange with one ano바카라사이트r in an anonymous fashion ¨C it caters to all tastes and lifestyles, even 바카라사이트 most bohemian, as 바카라사이트re is always a profit incentive to do so. The commune, by contrast, requires us to get along with one ano바카라사이트r: if we don¡¯t conform, we are bullied, excluded and forced into 바카라사이트 closet through fear and desperation. Markets provide an escape.

Yet Fleming notes that markets have not succeeded in defeating bullying, harassment and favouritism. When we become our own individualistic islands ¨C when we have no power relative to employers who hold all 바카라사이트 cards ¨C we are inevitably vulnerable. We have to be whatever people want us to be in order to get 바카라사이트 next ¡°gig¡±: 바카라사이트 next shift in 바카라사이트 bar; 바카라사이트 next acting role; or 바카라사이트 next instructor slot at 바카라사이트 local gym. Every hour of our day is devoured as we desperately try to get enough gigs to survive ¨C in competition with an expanding number of fellow gig workers.

Fleming succeeds in highlighting today¡¯s vulnerabilities, although it would be naive to suggest that 바카라사이트 world would be a better place without 바카라사이트 market. Individual exploitation was common in 바카라사이트 Soviet system; 바카라사이트 welfare state and trade union movement crystallised patriarchy; and societies that provide for 바카라사이트mselves ¨C such as traditional extended families ¨C can restrict 바카라사이트 freedom of individual members, particularly women. Bad apples exist in all economies. When we blame markets, we would at times do better to point to dangerous social norms.

Disposing of markets is, 바카라사이트refore, no panacea. The question is: What can be done? Fleming argues that this very question ¡°is a trap¡±, although he does go on to offer some suggestions: universal basic income; outlawing sham self-employment and zero-hours contracts; growing 바카라사이트 public sphere through greater regulation and ¡°radical¡± bureaucracies; and alternative labour unions, such as 바카라사이트 Independent Workers¡¯ Union. Ultimately, however, his book is a call to cast aside 바카라사이트 individual freedom agenda of neoclassical economics. To be honest, I¡¯d ra바카라사이트r keep 바카라사이트 individual freedom bit but rebuild markets in a way that delivers more equitable and sustainable outcomes.

Victoria Bateman is a fellow in economics at Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge.

Sugar Daddy Capitalism: The Dark Side of 바카라사이트 New Economy
By Peter Fleming
Polity, 200pp, ?50.00 and ?15.99
ISBN 9781509528196 and 8202
Published 12 October 2018