Can the Precariat Be Organized?: The Gig Economy, Worksite Dispersion, and the Challenge of Mutual Aid

The development and success of the welfare state during the twentieth century coincides with the power of labor unions and their influence on the political process, both through the ballot box and by direct action in the form of strikes, boycotts, and protest marches. Already in the nineteenth century, however, and prior to the development of the modern welfare state, nascent labor unions modeled the concept of welfare as a function of mutual aid within the organized proletariat. Unions stockpiled supplies, for instance, in anticipation of strikes and work stoppages so that membership could survive management retaliations such as the suspension of pay or the denial of access to the workplace. Indeed, the history of trade unions, and before that of guilds and craftsmen corporations, is inextricably bound with that of mutual organizations, fraternities, and benevolent associations. Peter Kropotkin famously argued that robust forms of mutual aid are a necessary as well as species-beneficial result of evolution, defying classic Hobbesian and social Darwinist views that emphasize the fierceness of individual competition and the value of a model where only the “fittest” survive.1 What we call the welfare state is perhaps most plausibly understood as the nationalization and homogenization of diverse organizations for mutual aid, amalgamated under the paternalistic aegis of the state.2