L03 “Tan, Z. M., Aggarwal, N., Cowls, J., Morley, J., Taddeo, M., & Floridi, L. (2021). The ethical debate about the gig economy: A review and critical analysis.

Question 1

Main Categories of ethical debate and key concerns in the gig economy

Answer 1

Ethical debates:

(1) new organisation of work (algorithmic control and managerial oversight)
(2) new nature of work (exploitative, precarious and dangerous labor)
(3) new status of work (miss classification and discriminatory effects)

Question 2

What distinguishes the gig economy and gig work from prior forms of short-term, occasional labor is (a combination of):

Answer 2

• The greater scope and scale, embracing many more industries and workers, particularly Those at lower-skill levels (Burke 2019);
• The mediation by, and dependence on, digital technologies, specifically digital platforms;
• The greater flexibility and often shorter duration (micro-tasks) of ‘gig’ work.

Question 3

Ethical debate relating to the new organization of work

Answer 3

The key ethical concerns in this category relate to the role of gig economy platforms as mechanisms of algorithmic control and managerial oversight. Specifically, the literature examines the effects of platform-based, algorithmic reputation systems that facilitate job search, allocation and matching, and accountability between distributed workers.

Question 4

Ethical debate relating to the new nature of work

Answer 4

The main ethical issues in this category concern the nature of gig work—specifically, its flexible/precarious and menial nature—that contributes to the exploitation of gig workers. These problems inevitably overlap with the problems of misclassification of gig workers as non- employees, resulting in weaker social and legal protection, and the outsourcing of gig work to ‘low- rights’ jurisdictions.

Question 5

Ethical debate relating to the new status of workers

Answer 5

The third category of ethical debates in the gig economy relates to the new status of gig workers. There are two central themes discussed in the literature: the (mis)classification of gig workers and, relatedly, discriminatory effects on gig workers.

Question 6

https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Schumpeter.html