Uber, you will be shocked to learn, does not apply rigorous econometric standards to its public-relations material. That is the complaint from Robert Reich and Alison Griswold, who protest that the firm boasts about the jobs it has created when in fact its drivers are not classified as employees but independent contractors. Professor Reich, a lawyer who sometimes plays an economist on television, says: “They can’t have it both ways. They can’t say they’re creating all these new jobs and then say ‘Oh, we’re not responsible for these jobs because they’re not employees.’ That’s double-booking.” We all eagerly await his application of similarly high standards to, e.g., the steady stream of outright fabrications produced by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Harry Reid, etc.
It’s a safe assumption that Uber’s PR weasels are the same species of mustelid as every other PR weasel, and I have no love for them. But setting aside the question of whether press releases ought to be obliged to follow the terminological practices of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the implicit Reich-Griswold view is an interesting illustration of the mindset of managerial progressivism, which holds that the normative state of affairs for the vast majority of people in the modern world is to be dependency, either as public wards or as employees. The assumption is that most people cannot be expected to take responsibility for their income, for their health care, for making arrangements for child care and retirement, etc., and so somebody—employers or government—must be deputized to do this for them. (Note Professor Reich’s formulation: We’re responsible/not responsible.) This is the classic progressive view of human beings as liabilities rather than assets, liabilities that are dealt with by the issuance of fortnightly checks and the maintenance of certain benefits packages.
Reich is engaging in philosophical pissantry. Just another sneering elitist.