Gig work is actually totally fine with an adequate welfare state and reduced work week.
Too bad China has neither of those things!
Too bad China has neither of those things!
¹) for context, here in NL "America good China bad" is a bit less clear-cut than in the US, where I assume most people read this comment from. That said at least the "China bad" part is still the majority opinion by far.
I think it's better for pensioners than working-age poor — typical gerontocracy. I think some healthcare stuff exists on paper but it sucks.
- plenty conservatism
- weak welfare state
- big
- diverse-ish, but with single dominant ethnic group
- aging gerontocracy (but that's everywhere)
- real estate fetish
I think that much of the misunderstanding comes from the perception that China has a highly centralized authoritarian government which is all powerful within the state, which is true to some degree, but the regional governments are what effectively "run" most of the state, including things like infrastructure initiatives that most people would assume are state controlled. The big bold State planning also is in fact implemented in different ways by different provinces.
Then people put that framework into a western context of states and national government, which isn't right either. There is a lot of power balancing and interplay between the provincial and national governments, and the binding force is the CCP itself which doesn't have a clear western parallel either.
(Though there is a funny internet joke that American NIMBYs want hukuo at home.)
OTOH you had a lot of state-sponsored jobs where you just had to show up, but not necessarily work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_parasitism_(offense)
The Czech offence was called "Příživnictví", which is just "Parasitism".
https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C5%99%C3%AD%C5%BEivnictv%C3%...
To be clear China certainly has homeless people. There actually is some form of welfare state, but often it is not sufficient, especially if you're not party related, and you can only get it in your assigned city/home town. If it's not enough to pay for housing and there aren't any jobs available in your region you're shit out of luck.
I'm not sure what you're on about. I was referring to specific unnamed people. I never suggested that their opinion is representative of the left, just that some lefties somehow, to my surprise, seem to think that today's China is a dream state that we should strive to emulate.
FWIW, I consider myself to be on the left as well, and I do not think that the China model is widely celebrated on the left (or anywhere in Dutch politics really).
If you don't mean it, then don't say it. Your original comment can read as if you look down your nose at 'lefties' because they like the CCP.
As far as the simplistic “X good Y bad”, those are never right anyways.
With enough welfare state, the gig worker wouldn't be so desperate, and gig rates would go up. Of course they would push some employers back to permenant employment, but this is fine. It would be like spot market vs longer term deals for everything else.
I'm convinced the length of the workweek is totally exogenous. I don't think there is a feedback mechanism within capitalism to adjust it. This is actually a bummer.
This type of jobs can only be paid at the low end. Rates don't go up, they can't. What's happening s is that those jobs and services disappear. That's good if that leads to higher productivity, better paid jobs, but not if that leads to unemployment.
This has an impact on the length of the workweek, too. But in any case all self-employed must decide whether they can afford to cut their hours or if they can commercially.
The "welfare state" must be paid for somehow, too.
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/11/1255526971/garment-workers-cl...