The gig economy is often celebrated as a defining innovation of contemporary capitalism. The gig economy does not represent a postmodern rupture from capitalist labour relations but a counter-revolution in labour discipline, enabled by Artificial Intelligence and disguised by postmodern illusion. In the gig economy, this dead labour confronts living labour directly. Courts acknowledge platform control yet defer to contractual classifications that deny gig workers employee status. The gig economy reveals what postmodern theory fails to grasp: power has not dissolved into networks; it has hardened into code.

Source: The Telegraph January 21, 2026 02:38 UTC