TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 58, 4/2021
617
UDK [339.9:004.774]:316.4
Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA*
IN SEARCH OF THE GOOD LIFE:  
WEAKNESSES OF THE EVER-STRONGER  
GLOBAL PLATFORM ECONOMY
Abstract. The article contributes to the theoretical debate 
on the current state of the global economic system and 
the implications it holds for the (re)distribution of social 
and economic power. The theoretical framework of the 
discussion builds upon critical accounts of the rise of 
platform capitalism – an economic and social system 
founded on digitalised work. The imagining of futures 
is based on the mapping of possible actors and paths 
of the continuation or disruption of ongoing trends. 
Although digitalisation in principle holds the potential 
to foster economic growth and reduce inequalities, the 
accelerated development of the digital economy in the 
last few decades has been accompanied by unequally 
distributed positive and negative economic outcomes. 
Overcoming the precariousness of work and life as a 
universal problem should be founded in simultaneous 
local, short-term, partial resistance and attempts to limit 
the negative impacts and spread of precariousness on 
one hand and conceptualising and promoting compre-
hensive and universal solutions to precariousness on 
the other as part of a general rethinking of the social, 
political and economic order of our age. 
Keywords: digital technology, digital economy, precari-
ous work and life, platform economy, platform capital-
ism, economic power, economic inequalities 
*
 
Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrčela, PhD, Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, 
Slovenia.
DOI: 10.51936/tip.59.3.617–643

TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
618
Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
Introduction
The debate on economic systems forms part of intellectual discussions 
on social change in the quest for a better society or following Aristotle what 
is defined as a “good life”
1
. In specific historical contexts, such discussions 
point to the tension between the reality as it exists and alternatives that can 
be imagined and may be seen as “a thought experiment” (Butler, 2004) 
responding to the urgent need to find new ideas and theories to explain 
and conceive the “brave new world” around us (Beck, 2000). Economic 
and social changes in the 20
th
 century led to growing economic inequali-
ties, political and social uncertainty, and individualisation. Wars and politi-
cal conflicts, health and economic crises and environmental catastrophes at 
the beginning of the 21
st
 century are adding to precarity on the global level. 
We analyse precarity
2
 defined broadly and qualitatively as a deviation from 
what is the civilisational consensus on a decent life (Kanjuo Mrčela, 2021)
3
. 
Based on these premises, we consider the potential and risks of technologi-
cal and economic development in the early 21
st
 century and whether they 
can be dealt with in order to achieve more of a “good life”.
The COVID-19 pandemic, apart from being a huge health challenge, trig-
gered an unexpected social and economic experiment on a global scale. In 
all areas of the planet, businesses, educational, cultural and other institutions 
as well as individuals moved a vast part of their activities to the virtual world. 
More than ever before, work and other parts of everyday life became sup-
ported by digital technologies and a large share of the global workforce was 
pushed into working conditions that are increasingly like those of platform 
workers. Analyses of this unexpected and abrupt change call for a consid-
eration of the pace and direction of the further development of the digital 
economy. In this article, we contribute to the debate on the prospects of (re)
distributing economic power in the aftermath of the pandemic by analysing 
selected empirical data and critically examining recent economic trends. We 
1 
Aristotle (350 BC) develops the theory of a good life in Nichomachean Ethics. Aristotle defines a 
good life as living well and doing well… »he is happy who is active in accordance with complete virtue and 
is sufficiently equipped with external goods, not for some chance period but throughout a complete life«. 
Aristotle acknowledges that not all of prerequisites of a good life are in hands of individuals and that the 
role of the state (political organisation) is to support the good-life opportunities for people. Aristotle argues 
that a good life is “the end of the city-state” (Miller, 2017).
2 
The original meaning and (quantitative) definition of precarity in social science and left-wing 
activist discourse – Bourdieu’s precarity (used in 1963 in Algeria to distinguish between workers with 
permanent and precarious jobs) – that since the 1970s has been used by Western European left-wing move-
ments to draw attention to the exclusion of young workers from permanent jobs, seems to be too narrow, 
and has been abandoned in sociology because it does not allow for the comprehensive analysis of work in 
the context of the capitalist arrangements of today (Alberti, Besa, Hardy et al., 2018).
3 
Kanjuo Mrčela (2021) presents the concept of precarity to a Slovenian audience. Some of the expla-
nations from that article are presented below.

TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
619
Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
discuss changes of working and living based on technological and organi-
sational innovations embedded in recent changes in the capitalistic global 
economic system. We want to outstrip the simplistic logic of “ineviabilism”
4
 
of economic systems based on advanced technologies (Zuboff, 2019) and 
confront widespread myths concerning technology and the knowledge-
based economy. The increasing economic inequalities are hidden in the 
myths that present recent economic developments as either power-distribu-
tion neutral or even as directed at equalising economic power by claiming 
that knowledge is replacing ownership and that technological advancement 
is opening up new opportunities in the economy for a greater number of 
participants. Some authors (Klein, 2020; Anderson, Rainie and Vogel, 2021) 
warn that the current social experiment might become a new paradigm of 
working and living, where teleworking, on-line education and tele-health 
provide huge opportunities for strong multinational hi-tech companies and 
privileged actors and cause the precarisation of work and life for workers 
and their families. The digital fast-forwarding happened during a global 
pandemic in a world economy that was already troubled by problems of 
economic inequalities. A discussion on actions needed that will ensure the 
public interest and serve the global community is underway. 
We intend to contribute to this discussion by critically reflecting on and 
bridging gaps between different literature and data sets. The theoretical 
framework of the discussion builds on a critical (sociological) account of 
capitalism, especially the neoliberal phase that paved the way to develop-
ment of platform capitalism. To understand what the future may hold, we 
present some new and developing ways of regulating digital/platform work 
and existing ways of imagining possible alternatives that “move from extrac-
tive to cooperative platform capitalism” (Scholz, 2020). 
The article starts with a short review of critical accounts of capitalism, 
continues with an explanation of platform capitalism
5
, a presentation of 
the latest trends in the precarisation of work and life on one side and the 
concertation of economic power on the other, and some recent attempts to 
counter these trends. The article ends by presenting the conclusions of the 
analysis.
4 
Zuboff (2019) explains how technological inevitability does not exist. In a critique of surveillance 
capitalism’s use of the logic based on the old motto of the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago (“science finds, 
industry applies, man conforms”), she concludes that “technology is not and never can be a thing in itself 
isolated from the economics and society… technologies are always economic means, not ends in them-
selves”.
5 
We use the term platform capitalism in this article while referring to the economic and social system 
that implies certain power relations, while platform/digital economy is used while referring to the function-
ing of the economic system. We also use terms stemming from the sources/literature we use. 

TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
620
Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
An overture to platform capitalism 
Capitalism, as a distinct historical social system based on institutionalised 
inequalities of power, has been critically analysed from the outset (from 
Marx, 1867 and Engels, 1868) until today (e.g. Harvey, 2007; Žižek, 2007
6
; 
Davis, 2017
7
; Klein, 2017). Analysis of capitalism is at the core of social sci-
ences efforts – from 19th and 20th century classics to the contemporary 
search for the prospects of a post (trans) human conception of society and 
the economy (Fuller, 2011) and the analysis of precarity as “a bad organisa-
tion of life… because it does not provide humanly worthwhile living con-
ditions and because humanly worthwhile living conditions are unevenly 
distributed” (Butler, 2012)
8
. Such analysis determined the differences and 
borders between social science disciplines. Swedberg and Granowetter 
(2001) criticised the “economic imperialism” – the dominance of economic 
analysis of the economy – and saw this dominance as an outcome of the 
inappropriate division of labour between economists and sociologists in 
the 19th century; namely, the time in which economists have studied the 
economy, and the sociologists “society minus the economy”. Bourdieu 
(1986) criticised economic theory that defined interests only in mercantile 
relationships, while leaving all other power inequalities outside of the analy-
sis, and thereby prevented a holistic analysis and change in the power distri-
bution in the economy. Although Varieties of Capitalism literature (Hall and 
Soskice, 2001) pointed to different types of market economies, 40 years of 
a seemingly objective, non-ideological analysis of the economy proved to 
constitute efficient mainstream economics support for a certain economic 
doctrine and a certain type of capitalism – neoliberal capitalism. 
Even though the precariousness of work and life in capitalism has been 
the only reality throughout history for most people around the world, the 
neoliberal phase of capitalism has added to the worsening of (standards of 
acceptable) working and living conditions and to a more unequal distribu-
tion of economic power globally. Harvey (2007) explains how neoliberalism 
as a hegemonic discourse at the turn of the centuries enabled a redistribu-
tion of economic power – it returned power to the class that had lost it after 
the Second World War during the rise of social democracy. He argues that 
this change has been made possible by the ‘naturalisation’ of neoliberal ide-
ology. The adoption of the political ideals of individual choice and freedom 
6 
Žižek (2007) sees political inequality, economic exploitation, and injustice as the key features of 
global capitalism.
7 
Angela Davis (2019, 1981) defines capitalism as a global system based on extreme forms of inequal-
ities: slavery and colonialism. 
8 
Butler’s (2012) distinction between good and bad lives speaks thus as much about the location of 
individuals’ lives in the structure of life chances as about the social structure itself. 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
621
was the essence of the attempt to re-accumulate capital and to emerge from 
the crisis after the ‘golden period’ in the 1950s and 1960s
9
. Although the new 
accumulation was not achieved, the class power of those who had lost it in 
the post-war period was revitalised and the control over accumulated capi-
tal was redistributed. The neoliberal hegemonic discourse was particularly 
evident in the change in the functioning of the state (by agreeing to fiscal 
discipline states, have acknowledged the primacy of (international) finance 
over the welfare of citizens), in the attack on educational institutions and 
the media (funding useful business problem-solvers, e.g. private think-tanks, 
instead of basic scientific research and education in public institutions), and 
in the definition of the role of individuals in society, as manifested in the 
individualisation of (self-) entrepreneurs and consumers. 
The broad international debate on precarity (Kalleberg, 2009; Standing, 
2011; 2014) begins when the flight of capital from the national contexts of 
developed industrial countries during the financialisation phase of capital-
ism brings negative effects for individuals and entire economies, which rep-
resents a major twist in economic and political discourse. The concentration 
of wealth since the 1970s has substantially worsened the economic position 
of the lower and middle class in developed countries (e.g., in the USA, see 
Chomsky, 2017).
The totality of the “creative destructiveness” (Harvey, 2007) of the neo-
liberal phase of capitalism, shown in the privatisation, financialisation, 
management and manipulation of global crises, and states’ redistributive 
policies. Contrary to the common interpretation of the neoliberal ‘with-
drawal’ of the state from the economy, state regulations in fact supported 
the neoliberal turn. As Fligstein (2005) explains, using the iconic example 
of the US economic model of ‘free markets’ and ‘free enterprise’, it is the 
strong, long-standing and systematic involvement of the US state as regula-
tor and financier that is the main explanation for some of the features that 
characterise the US economy today. For example, the success of high-tech 
companies in Silicon Valley is significantly more due to decades of system-
atic state funding of scientific work, mostly for the needs of the US military 
industry, than to the dynamism and entrepreneurial initiative of individu-
als. Today’s prevailing understanding of increasing shareholder value as the 
dominant and legitimate principle of US corporations and as a ‘natural’ fact 
of operating an (efficient) economy under free market principles ignores 
the fact that the dominance of this principle is due to legislation and tax 
9 
The ‘standard employment relationship’ was a historical exception during the ‘golden years of post-
Second World War capitalism for part of the workforce, while precarity is the norm in the history of capi-
talism (Breman and Van der Linden, 2014). The current focus on the precarity in the ‘developed’ part of 
the world reflects what Judith Butler (2012) calls the ‘biopolitics’ of the world – the power structure that 
organises life and assigns different degrees of precarity to people whose “lives matter” more or less. 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
622
regulation evolving especially during the Carter and Reagan administrations 
Foucault (2008) described neoliberal government interventions as “no less 
powerful, frequent, active and continuous than in any other system”. The 
consequence is the precariousness of work and life of workers as a “way of 
domination” and structuring the economy that “forces workers into subor-
dination” (Bourdieu, 1998: 85). Beck (2000) defined the neoliberal phase of 
capitalist development in the 1970s as one that has caused the normalisation 
of uncertainty in both the economy and in the lives of workers and their 
families. Uncertainty is no longer a deviation from the normal functioning 
of the economy, but its primary characteristic. The “political economy of 
uncertainty” (Beck, 2000) is becoming the operating principle of the eco-
nomic system and of the individuals within it.
Platform capitalism: the growing presence of a new business 
model affecting work and life globally 
Platform capitalism is an economic and social system based on the emer-
gence and proliferation of digital platforms and platform-organised (digital) 
labour. The appearance of the platform economy is generally linked to the 
development of information and telecommunication technologies, which 
are becoming ever more indispensable for both the business operations of 
companies and people’s everyday lives. Platforms may be seen as interme-
diaries between consumers, advertisers, service providers and producers. 
The growth of the platform economy is linked to decisions by individuals 
and other economic actors to move their activities online based on (at least 
presumed, if not real) benefits for all involved. However, due to the busi-
ness model being based on the management, collection and use of informa-
tion, the platforms themselves benefit greatly and the most of all. 
Critical analyses of platform capitalism view it as a type of economic sys-
tem that radicalises the unequal power relations between labour and capital 
based on the emergence and expansion of platform companies and plat-
form work (Kenney and Zysman, 2016; Srnicek, 2016; Langley and Leyshon, 
2017; Murillo et al., 2017; Eurofound, 2018; Eurofound, 2021a). Wark (2021) 
explains these new power relations as the new class arrangement – the 
emergence of a new ruling class – “vectorial capitalists”, whose power is 
provided by the privatisation and control of information and a »hacker 
class« that when faced with the emergence of more aggressive labour ration-
alisation and commodification encounters difficulties with building soli-
darity. Far from having the positive characteristics that some of the names 
used for this new type of economy suggest (such as the sharing economy; 
on-demand economy, collaborative consumption, Do-It-Yourself – DIY – 
economy, collaborative economy), the platform economy (or gig economy) 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
623
relies on the externalisation of operating costs and risks, the precarisation 
of work and monopolising of information provided by both workers and 
consumers. A meta-analysis of some of the more prominent work platforms 
(Kanjuo Mrčela and Črtalič, 2020) described the core elements of the busi-
ness model used in the platform economy:
1. Worker status – the essence of the business model of online platforms 
is the absence of an employer–employee relationship; risks and respon-
sibilities concerning a worker’s “employment” situation are transferred 
to individual workers, which continues the trends of breaking the links 
between those who organise work and those who actually do the work; 
workers are atomised subjects in competition with each other.
2. Payment and financial risk – workers are only paid for work that is rec-
ognised as successfully completed; there is a risk that they will not be 
paid for all of their work effort; there is a large amount of unpaid work 
(looking for work, performing mandatory tests, writing feedback on 
assignments) and other work-related expenses for workers (purchase 
and maintenance of work equipment, payment of a commission to the 
platforms to be able to be assigned the work tasks/perform work, social 
security expenses and taxes on income from work on platforms; the 
financial advantage enjoyed by platform workers from less developed 
countries due to global pricing is in fact only a by-product of lowering 
the price of labour for workers from (for now) richer environments.
3. Working conditions – an extreme form of flexibility; contrary to the myth 
of workers’ autonomy, there is no real freedom to determine one’s work-
ing hours, to choose the location, content and other working conditions; 
there is constant monitoring of employees through tracking and a sys-
tem of performance ratings
10
; platforms directly and indirectly control 
the working hours of their workers their efficiency, productivity and the 
quality of work performed; the platforms have led to the development 
of a 24-hour economy in which workers put in additional hours of paid 
and unpaid work in their private time, thereby blurring the boundaries 
between private and professional life
11
,
12
; only workers who have finan-
cial and social security outside the platforms or are members of a small 
10 
The digital platforms use automated systems to assign tasks, to monitor, evaluate and take decisions 
for the people working through what is known as “algorithmic management”.
11 
The blurring is conditioned not only by the self-exploitative practices of workers who tend to work 
when work is available and by the great amount of unpaid work mentioned earlier, but also by the prac-
tices of platforms that might offer bonuses for those who work during socially and family unfriendly hours 
(offline platforms) and encourage working that suits clients in the global North, which does not coincide 
with the normal working day of those living in the southern hemisphere (online platforms; Haidar and 
Keune, 2021). 
12 
Haidar and Keune (2021) note three tendencies in the organisation and control of the labour pro-
cess on platforms, namely: using the productive capacity of labour solely in the service of capital, “algo-

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
624
group of ‘superstars’ who manage to obtain continuous and better-paid 
work on the platforms (because they have the financial and other condi-
tions to do so) have an opportunity to exercise freedom and independ-
ence; most platforms do not care about safety and health at work
13
; trans-
ferring the concern for health and safety fully to workers brings serious 
consequences for the health and safety of workers, service users and the 
wider environment (e.g. in cases of drivers, caregivers or domestic ser-
vice providers at home etc. themselves, their clients and the public could 
be threatened); some of the pre-existing inequalities and discrimination 
based on gender, race and nationality are not being resolved, while new, 
platform-specific ones are being developed (e.g. there is high gender 
segregation by occupation and a noticeable wage gap between the gen-
ders while the system of performance ratings plays a big role in (new) 
discrimination on online work platforms)
14
.
This business model based on lowering the costs of labour and worsen-
ing the working conditions is not used only by tech companies. Reducing 
the standards of work and payments and extracting information from cus-
tomers are becoming features of conventional businesses as well.
15
 The 
mentioned business model is experiencing exponential growth in the last 
decade, especially during the pandemic years, even though it provides 
standards of work that are being questioned and contested.
16
 We present 
some data on the platform economy’s growth and changes in working con-
ditions in general that accompany such growth.
The number of workers involved in platform work is rising around the 
world and in Europe. Available data shows that before the COVID-19 cri-
sis about 2% of all working individuals in Europe (aged 16–74; in 14 EU 
Member States) were performing platform work as their main job, and 6% 
of all working people considered platform work to be an important part 
of their income, and at least 8% of workers performed this form of work 
rithmic management” and blurring the distinctions between work and life, working time and free time, 
intensifying the tendency towards the actual subsumption of society under capital.
13 
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2017) reports that online platform work poses 
a range of pre-existing and new OSH risks, both psychical and psycho-social.
14 
Lehdonvirta et al. (2021) explain how the use of biopolitical technologies (e.g. GPS tracking, request-
ing ‘selfies’, photos and videos of the workers’ faces or information about civil status, illness) grants the 
platforms the power to reintroduce discriminatory practices along the lines of class, gender and ethnicity.
15 
Adascalitei (2021) reports how the use of AI systems and applications is extensive in other parts of 
the economy, not only in platform-based businesses. Walmart (retail), the largest private employer in the 
USA, is investing heavily in customer intelligence and already has almost as many data centres as physical 
distribution centres (Wark, 2021). 
16 
Authors who analyse entrepreneurship think that “in 2020, platforms are becoming the infrastruc-
ture of economy and therefore the context that includes ‘new dimensions of uncertainty’” (Cutolo and 
Kenney, 2021).

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
625
at least once a month (Pesole et al., 2018). Differences between EU coun-
tries were considerable (from 0.3% to 20%; Eurofound, 2018a: 12). The latest 
European Commission data (2021) show that over 28 million people in the 
EU are working through digital labour platforms and that it is expected that 
by 2025 the figure will reach 43 million. It is also important to stress that plat-
form workers are already a bigger group than is commonly acknowledged – 
besides the very visible Uber taxi drivers and food delivery riders, the work 
of a rising number of domestic workers and intellectual workers is being 
channelled via applications such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, Upwork or 
others. There are also many workers who act ‘behind the scenes’ to support 
visible platform services. Analyses of the work needed at platforms revealed 
phenomena such as “fauxtomation”
17
 and fake artificial intelligence (Taylor, 
2018, 2018a) that add to the power imbalances between workers and the 
organisers of the work on platforms. Taylor (2018) states that what appears 
to be automation often conceals a great deal of human labour. The myth 
and ideology of automation hide the labour of people who are contributing 
to the process – some of them free of charge as customers
18
 (themselves 
doing tasks that workers were previously paid to do, like placing orders in 
restaurants, using self-check outs etc.) or workers who are now having more 
unpaid tasks that were previously done by other workers) and others who 
are invisible to customers /consumers (e.g. the hundreds of thousands of 
workers who screen and censor digital content on social media feeds or 
those who, although underpaid, do a better job than robots.). The other part 
of the workforce attached to platforms are workers who in different ways 
are employed by big companies that have the core of their business on plat-
forms. Zukerfeld (2021) reports that Amazon, for example in March 2020 
employed 798,000 behind-the-platform workers. The rising strength of com-
panies like Amazon means an increasing number of ‘standard’ workforce 
depends on them as well. 
The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated both job insecurity and 
the volume of platform work, with a vast number of activities shifting over 
to platforms (OECD, 2020). The public health measures aimed at curbing 
the spread of COVID-19 were responsible for considerable changes in the 
organisation of work and other spheres of life. Supported by information 
and communication technology, hitherto marginalised forms of work, such 
as working from home, became widespread and normalised (Eurofound, 
2020; 2021) and for many workers this uncontrolled and unregulated digit-
ised work from home has led to overburdening and reduced the quality of 
17 
The word was coined by the writer and artist Astra Taylor; it combines the word “faux” (meaning 
fake) with automation.
18 
Taylor (2018) explains how this is commodification of labour, leisure and sociability, a source of 
power of “vulture industries” (such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit).

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
626
their lives.
19
 In the circumstances of the traditionally gendered division of 
paid and unpaid (household and care) work, this precarisation has particu-
larly onerous effects on women, especially mothers. Recent research on the 
European level confirms that the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a significant 
increase in the use of ICT at work (home/telework), while it is predicted 
that (at least) a hybrid work organisation is more likely in the future than 
a complete return to the way of working we knew before the pandemic 
(Eurofound, 2020; Samek Lodovici et al., 2021).
Eurofound (2020) reports that prior to the pandemic homeworking 
accounted for a relatively small share of paid work in the EU (less than 1 in 
20 employees worked in this way on a regular basis in 2018, and less than 
1 in 10 worked occasionally). In July 2020, almost half of EU respondents 
(48%) had already worked from home for at least some of the time during 
the pandemic, and more than one-third (34%) had worked exclusively from 
home. During the pandemic, working from home became the new reality 
for workers in many more sectors and occupations than was the case before 
the pandemic. 
Consumption (ordering or buying goods and services) online also grew 
during the pandemic. The share of individuals aged 16–74 in the EU-27 
who ordered or bought goods or services online for private use in 2019 
was 60%, 14 percentage points higher than in 2014. The share of Internet 
users who made online purchases in the 12 months preceding the survey 
in 2020 varied considerably across the EU, ranging from 42% of Internet 
users in Bulgaria to 91% in the Netherlands. Considering all individuals in 
the EU aged 16–74, the share of online shoppers in this group was 64%, with 
Denmark having the biggest share (89%) and Bulgaria the smallest (31%).
These figures must be seen in the light of analyses which have revealed 
that, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the ‘classic’ and yet 
unmet health and safety risks at work were intertwined with an increasing 
number of risks associated with new technologies for which we do not yet 
have any clear coping strategies. The pandemic has exacerbated these prob-
lems. Already before the pandemic, the ubiquity and accessibility of work-
ers everywhere and all of the time (the “24-hour economy”; Hutton and 
Giddens, 2001) was based on demands to increase productivity, efficiency 
and speed. Even pre-pandemic, we spoke about an “epidemic of overtime 
19 
Kenney and Zysman (2016) point to the historical repetition of the putting-out system of home-based 
artisanal workshops that preceded the factory organised work in the industrial and urban era – digital 
labour platforms are reversing this development and are moving work back to the individual households. 
Lueng et al. (2021) argue that the global character of labour platforms is leading to a new international 
putting-out system of labour (NIPL) that allows a reduction of the costs of labour, management, supervi-
sion, equipment and real estate and to transfer many of the risks traditionally borne by employers and 
investors onto the shoulders of Southern workers.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
627
based on electronic communications” (Secunda, 2019), a strong “culture of 
connectivity” (Hesselberth, 2017), “online slavery” (Terranova, 2020), how 
we are becoming hybrid, technological/biological beings who do not have 
the right to disconnect. This type of work, which was benefitting employers, 
was a reality for a growing yet still minor share of the working population. 
During the pandemic, many employers in most sectors around the world 
could be seen to adopt ICT-organised work. Most workers have, for the time 
being, retained their status and most of the rights that come with that status, 
but the problems they have encountered are similar to those reported by 
workers in platform companies (such as unclear boundaries between work 
and private time, social isolation, lack of adequate working conditions etc.). 
The demands of working and living ‘remotely’ and digitisation during the 
pandemic have accelerated consumer and business behaviour, which looks 
set to continue in the post-pandemic era (Mattioli, 2020). 
Recent trends in the concentration of economic power
Analyses of platform capitalism and the power relations between labour 
and capital developed thus far point to the radicalisation of inequalities in a 
context where power is based on the privatisation, concentration and con-
trol of information along with the rationalisation and reduction of labour 
costs (Burnett et al., 2008; Kenney and Zysman, 2016; Srnicek, 2016; Langley 
and Leyshon, 2017; Murillo et al., 2017). 
The platform economy’s market share is expanding rapidly. According 
to the European Commission, in 2015 revenues from platform work in 
Europe were twice the level of the previous year (EUR 28 billion, Williams 
and Horodnic, 2017). The European Commission (2021) reports an estima-
tion that revenues in the digital labour platform economy in the EU had 
grown by around 500% in the preceding five years. Despite the develop-
ment of many European and other platforms, the platform economy is still 
dominated (regarding number of users and visibility) by large US platforms 
such as Uber and Amazon. 
Analyses show that high-tech companies offering platform services 
during the COVID-19 crisis enjoyed excellent business results as the value 
of their shares has risen considerably (Financial Times, 2020; ABC News, 
2020). More work and business on the Internet than ever before have con-
tributed to some companies’ remarkable business success in a period oth-
erwise characterised by human and economic catastrophe. Companies that 
have gained the most (with a net market capitalisation of more than USD 
1 billion in 2020) include Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Alphabet, 
Netflix and others, which are growing based on the platform economy busi-
ness model (Financial Times, 2020). Longitudinal comparative analysis also 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
628
shows that the platform economy’s importance is rising. Among the top 
eight public-stock companies with the largest market capitalisation in the 
world in 2009, only one was an online platform (Microsoft), while in the 
first quarter of 2019 there were six platforms (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, 
Alphabet – Google, Facebook, Alibaba Group). Thus, the pandemic crisis 
has seen a continuation of the pre-existing growth trends of the platform 
economy. 
The impact of the platform economy on economic inequality can be esti-
mated by considering evidence on the income/wealth distribution during 
the time of the platform economy’s rise. It has been shown that the trend of 
rising inequalities globally was reinforced in the time of the pandemic. The 
World Inequality Report 2022 shows that the wealth of the richest individu-
als on the planet has grown by 6% to 9% per year since 1995, whereas aver-
age wealth has grown at 3.2% per year. Since 1995, the share of global wealth 
possessed by billionaires has risen from 1% to over 3%. This increase was 
exacerbated during the COVID pandemic, with 2020 marking the steepest 
increase in global billionaires’ share of wealth on record (Chancel, Piketty, 
Saez, Zucman et al., 2022).
Analysis of Chancel, Piketty, Saez, Zucman et al. (2022) shows that eco-
nomic inequalities have increased during the last few decades around the 
world
20
 and that contemporary global inequalities are close to early-20th 
century levels. The gap between the average incomes of the top 10% and 
the bottom 50% of individuals within countries has almost doubled, from 
8.5x to 15x. This sharp rise in within-country inequalities happened despite 
strong growth in the emerging countries. Analysis shows even greater ine-
qualities within countries compared to the significant inequalities observed 
between countries. Data on wealth inequality across the world thus show an 
extreme concentration of capital (CEA, 2017).
21
An international research team (Tomaskovic Devey et al., 2021) analysed 
the rising workplace inequality
22
 and discovered that it occurs when firms 
with powerful market positions simultaneously outsource production and 
services to temporary labour firms, subcontractors, global supply chains, 
franchisees, independent contractors, and other low-wage firms. Firms 
like Apple, Amazon, Marriott, McDonalds, Uber and Nike are prominent 
20 
Inequality has risen more in some developed countries (e.g. the USA, UK, Canada) than in others 
(e.g. Japan, Italy, France (Chancel, Piketty, Saez, Zucman et al., 2022). 
21 
The total wealth of billionaires around the world rose by USD 5 trillion to USD 13 trillion in 12 
months (Thorbecke, 2021; The Times of India, 2021). 
22 
Analysis was done on roughly 25 years of administrative records covering more than 2 billion job-
years nested within more than 50 million workplace-years for 14 high-income countries: Canada, Czechia, 
Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, South Korea, 
Sweden and the United States. It discovered that the between-workplace share of wage inequality is grow-
ing in 12 out of 14 countries.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
629
examples of this combination of market power and externalised labour. 
This study also showed that in countries with weak or declining labour 
market protection inequality between workplaces rises the fastest. In con-
trast, widespread collective bargaining coverage and high minimum wages 
reduce inequalities between and within firms. 
Haidar and Keune (2021) highlight the global inequalities caused by 
online platforms that “are largely populated by workers from the global 
South but orchestrated by capital from the North, leading to exploitation, 
dependency, inequalities and discrimination”. However, as exploitative as 
they are, online platforms are often regarded by workers from the South 
as providing them with more and better work opportunities than are pre-
sent it their local labour markets. Online platforms are also attractive for the 
most vulnerable labour market participants in the global North (e.g. migrant 
workers) for whom online platforms offer at least the promise if not the 
reality of better job opportunities compared to those in the host country 
(Van Doorn and Vijay, 2021). Accordingly, online labour markets perpetu-
ate existing labour market inequalities.
23
Fleming (2017) describes the phase that follows the neoliberal phase of 
capitalism as an even more severe system for the majority – a ‘wreckage 
economy’ characterised by the disintegration of public space, the impov-
erishment of social services, the isolation of the elderly, the precariousness 
of the young, and the normalisation of crisis.
24
 Wark (2021) states that this 
worse-than-neoliberal, more-radically-problematic economic system we are 
living in is no longer even a form of capitalism, but an economic system that 
is responsible for systematic ecological devastation, the accumulation of 
electronic waste, unpaid reproductive labour and a multitude of just nomi-
nally ‘immaterial’ labour practices around the world. Wark’s (2021) provoca-
tive claim that “capital is dead” offers a pessimistic warning about the possi-
bility that capitalism has already been rendered historical but that the period 
that is replacing it is worse than capitalism. 
Wark describes a new political economy that runs on information asym-
metries as a form of control. While the vectorial class owns the vector along 
which information is gathered and used and does not need any more land/
factories, the hacker class – anyone who produces new information out 
of old information (and not just people who code for a living, but all the 
23 
In 2016, 61.2% of global employment was informal employment. However, in Western Europe, the 
USA, Canada and Australia such informality was below 20%, while it was 53.1% in Latin America, 68.2% 
in Asia and the Pacific and 85.8% in Africa (ILO, 2018 in Haidar and Keune, 2021).
24 
Fleming (2017) describes the emerging economic order as a “theatre of cruelty in new forms of gig 
economy” and a “brutalist paradise of self-serving individualism” where “any sense of ‘public good’ has 
been squashed”.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
630
“produsers” – producers+users)
25
. Zuboff (2019) critically refers to this 
“new economic order” based on an asymmetry of power as “surveillance 
capitalism” and “a titanic struggle between capital and each one of us” and 
“a direct intervention into free will, an assault on human autonomy”. 
Srnicek (2021) explains that platforms are »rentiers«
26
 that do not contrib-
ute to productive investments but are strongly increasing their own income, 
undermining growth by extracting value from the productive economy. In 
this sense, they perform in line with and as a continuation of the strongest 
financial institutions during the financial phase of capitalism. While speak-
ing about power relations, Srnicek sees that rentiers’ investments in their 
infrastructure produce intra-capital shifts of power and exacerbate the ine-
qualities between workers: those employed at non-platform firms who are 
losing and those working on platforms who have the potential (not neces-
sarily realised) of better working conditions. 
The above analyses and data regarding changes during the last several 
decades show how global inequalities have increased, and the precarious-
ness of work and life has been normalised (become unquestionable) and 
naturalised (become seen as a natural, not a social phenomenon), even 
in parts of the world that, for a period, were a positive exception (and a 
desired model) regarding working and living standards. It seems that the 
platform economy based on the accepted discourse of precarity is becom-
ing more than just a ‘business model’ for a certain part of the economy – it 
is becoming a way of life and thinking about future life. This is related to the 
strong trends of individualisation and the decline of the great theories of 
the 20th century that, despite ignoring many social inequalities, provided a 
common plan for the organisation of life that transcended individual atom-
ised lives. The process of individualisation has led to the radical “responsibi-
lisation” (Fleming, 2017) of the workforce based on an extreme version of 
self-interested individualism (workers are willingly taking the responsibility 
and risks of entrepreneurship without realising the asymmetry of the power 
relations in which they participate)
27
. 
25 
Regarding the »free labour« of users, it is interesting to see Srnicek’s critique of the free labour theory 
based on Terranova (2020) in Fuchs (2014) that defines the time spent by users on social media platforms 
as “time that produces value in the form of data commodities that are sold to advertisers” (Fuchs, 2014: 
89–90). Srnicek sees these activities as useful for platform owners, but instead of defining the platforms’ 
power based on appropriation, he proposes an explanation based on the notion of rent and distinguishes 
between three prominent mechanisms of rent in the contemporary digital economy: intellectual property 
rents, advertising rents, and infrastructure rents (Srnicek, 2021).
26 
As the rentiers provide a new obstruction to accumulation, Srnicek (2021) expects an emerging 
antagonism between fractions of capital (platform owners and the non-platform companies that increas-
ingly depend on them and pay them rents) as rentiers possess different class interests than productive 
capitalists or workers do.
27 
Leung et al. (2021) show how successful is the discourse of entrepreneurial spirit and individualism 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
631
It seems that there is a strong need for a new common plan. Butler (2012) 
states that “our shared exposure to precarity is but one ground of our poten-
tial equality and our reciprocal obligations to produce together conditions 
of liveable life”. We present some of the emerging institutions and actors 
that hold the potential to contribute to better conditions for ensuring more 
liveable lives for all. 
In the quest for alternatives: regulating, organising and changing 
the platform economy
As noted in the introduction, a tension exists between the current state 
of the platform economy and possible alternatives to the present reality. 
The framework for analysing existing developments could be described as 
“a ‘Polanyian’ double movement in which the destabilizing and destructive 
effects of unchecked corporate power and market development eventually 
generate political and regulatory responses to constrain private actions by 
new economic actors as they threaten the social, political, and economic 
order” (Cioffi, Kenney and Zysman, 2021).
Based on a comparative study of working conditions at microtask plat-
forms (ILO, 2018)
28
, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) proposed 
a list of principles for improving working conditions on digital labour plat-
forms, including the following: addressing employment misclassification; 
allowing crowdworkers to exercise their freedom of association and col-
lective bargaining rights, applying the minimum wage that prevails at the 
workers’ location, ensuring transparency in the payments and fees assessed 
by the platform, ensuring that independent workers on the platform have 
the flexibility to decline tasks, covering the costs of lost work in case of 
technical problems with the task or platform, establishing strict and fair 
rules to govern non-payment, assuring that terms of service agreements 
are presented in a human-readable format that is clear and concise, inform-
ing workers about why they receive unfavourable ratings, establishing and 
enforcing clear codes of conduct for all platform users, ensuring that work-
ers have the ability to contest non-payment
29
, negative evaluations, qualifi-
imported from the West and promoted by platforms in that part of the world with traditionally collectivistic 
values (China and India). Part of the success of this trend is explained by the opposition to feudalist ethos 
(in India) that the platforms represent. 
28 
The ILO survey (conducted in 2015 and 2017) provided data on pay rates, work availability, work 
intensity, rejections and non-payment, worker communication with clients and platform operators, social 
protection coverage and the types of work performed by platform workers from developed and developing 
countries of from the global North and global South.
29 
Proposed solutions that should help eliminate the precariousness of the work and life of platform 
workers generally include the introduction of a universal basic income (UBI). On one hand, a UBI can be 
understood as a guarantee of a minimum decent life for all, regardless of individuals’ employment status, 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
632
cation test outcomes, accusations of code of conduct violations and account 
closures, establishing a system of client review that is as comprehensive as 
the worker review system, making sure that task instructions are clear and 
validated prior to the posting of any work, enabling workers to be able to 
view and export a complete human- and machine-readable work and repu-
tation history at any time, allowing workers to continue a work relationship 
with a client off the platform without paying a disproportionately large fee, 
ensuring that customers and platform operators respond to worker com-
munications promptly, politely and substantively, informing workers about 
the identity of their customers and the purpose of the work, and assuring 
that tasks which might be psychologically stressful and damaging are clearly 
marked by platform operators in a standard way. The ILO (2018) report rec-
ommended three additional criteria for adapting social protection systems 
so that crowd workers have access to social protection coverage: 1) adapt-
ing social insurance mechanisms to cover workers in all forms of employ-
ment, independently of the type of contract; 2) using technology to simplify 
contribution and benefit payments; and 3) instituting and strengthening 
universal, tax-financed mechanisms of social protection.
Several other international and national regulatory and policymak-
ing institutions are involved in the discussion and actions regarding the 
(attempts and plans of) regulation of the online/platform work and plat-
form economy (EU-OSHA, 2017). The European Parliament Resolution on 
fair working conditions, rights and social protection for platform work-
ers (2021) lists problems of platform workers and proposes standards for 
securing workers’ rights that hold the potential to safeguard the European 
economic and social model as the minimal working standards for platform 
workers and imposes the minimal working standards for all the workers (see 
Kanjuo Mrčela, 2021a). The resolution covered the following areas: fair and 
transparent working conditions, a healthy and safe working environment, 
adequate and transparent social protection, representation and collective 
bargaining rights, training and skills, and algorithms and data management. 
On 9 December 2021, the European Commission (2021) issued its pro-
posed new Directive regarding platform work with a specific focus on 
improving the working conditions of platform workers that will be in line 
with the fundamental rights for workers stated in Charter of Fundamental 
Rights of the European Union. The Directive contains three main objectives:
but this would require that it actually be universal. “Universality” bounded to certain (developed) countries 
may be seen as an illustration of a possibility of change, but it does not help to change the (global) system 
based on inequality, exploitation and violence. A UBI can also be understood as a means for maintaining 
the existing system and existing consumer patterns. In a technologically changed environment and given 
the new global division of labour, a UBI can be seen as a measure that creates/maintains the consumer 
capabilities of individuals, even though they do not have a paid job.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
633
1. to ensure that people working through platforms have – or can obtain – 
the correct employment status considering their actual relationship with 
the digital labour platform and gain access to the applicable labour and 
social protection rights;
2. to ensure fairness, transparency and accountability in algorithmic man-
agement in the platform work context; and
3. to enhance transparency, traceability, and awareness of developments 
in platform work and improve enforcement of the applicable rules for 
all people working through platforms, including those operating across 
borders.
According to the European Commission, actions to address the risk 
of misclassification are expected to see between 1.72 million and 4.1 mil-
lion people reclassified as workers. The Directive introduces new material 
rights for people performing platform work who are thus subject to “algo-
rithmic management” (information on automated monitoring systems and 
decision-making in a concise, transparent, intelligible and easily accessible 
form, using clear and plain language; existence of regular monitoring and 
evaluating the impact of individual decisions taken or supported by auto-
mated monitoring and decision-making systems; explanations for deci-
sions taken or supported by an automated decision-making system that 
significantly affect the platform worker’s working conditions, and access 
to a contact person designated to discuss and to clarify the facts, circum-
stances and reasons having led to the decision, information and consulta-
tion of platform workers’ representatives regarding decisions likely to lead 
to the introduction of substantial changes in the use of automated moni-
toring and decision-making systems). The Directive stipulates that digital 
platform must declare work performed by platform workers to the com-
petent labour and social protection authorities and to share relevant data 
with those authorities and that the relevant authorities be given access to rel-
evant basic information concerning the number of people working through 
digital labour platforms, their employment status, and their standard terms 
and conditions. Under the Directive, platforms must ensure that workers 
can communicate with each other and can be contacted by representa-
tives of persons performing platform work through the digital labour plat-
form’s digital infrastructure or similarly effective means. The ambition of 
the Directive is to cover all platform workers, all forms of digitally-mediated 
platform work, “irrespective of whether that work is performed online or 
in a certain location”. Initial reactions to the proposed Directive point to its 
importance on one hand and to limitations on the other. Cioffi, Kenney and 
Zysman, (2021) estimate that this EU initiative could be an important step in 
regulating the powerful multinational platforms and see this as the “begin-
ning of a transformational process that is likely to reorder old and generate 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
634
new political economic interests, identities, coalitions, and conflicts at the 
sectoral, national, regional, and international levels”. De Stefano and Aloisi 
(2021) view the proposed Directive as an ambitious document that has 
good prospects due to the wide consensus emerging in policymaking and 
public opinion that supports the regulation of platform work. These authors 
note the fragmentation of the front of platform companies since on one 
side some major operators are openly challenging the proposition, foresee-
ing detrimental consequences for their profitability, but on the other, some 
have already started to comply with national laws about employment status 
and rights. Countouris (2021) concludes that the proposed EU directive on 
platform work that is about to emerge is welcome, yet insufficient and no 
substitute for national action. The chances that international standards and 
regulation are to be accepted (and respected) are embedded in the balance 
of power between capital and labour in Europe and globally.
In the absence of statutory regulating mechanisms, platform workers are 
increasingly trying to respond by themselves to the problems of platform-
organised work. Haidar and Keune (2021) stress what determines the con-
struction of these responses: the forms of control exercised by the platforms, 
the power resources of workers and unions, union traditions and strategies, 
and governmental interventions, specific geographical configurations of 
the labour market, culture and institutions. The authors identify four types 
of responses: 1) ‘pro-status quo’ where workers engage in limited actions 
in different forms of digital associativism (social networks and forums for 
sharing information and tips) with the sole aim of improving the conditions 
in which they operate in the labour market); 2) ‘reformist’, which are diverse 
in demands, organisational forms, a variety of repertoires of action (many 
are associated with digital technology but also strikes) and meanings with 
the chief objective of party reforming the functioning of and relationship 
with the platforms; 3) ‘standardisation’, in which workers organise to com-
bat the asymmetry of power relative to the platforms, questioning the idea 
of autonomy and with the main demand of changing the status of workers 
from independent contractors to employees, and for bargaining over col-
lective labour agreements; and 4) ‘disruption’, based on the vindication of 
autonomy along with the workers’ ability to organise their labour process 
independently in an alternative model to the prevailing platform one (e.g. 
cooperative platforms).
Some research findings advocate the group agency of platform workers 
as the only viable strategy for improving the position of workers in platform 
capitalism. The ILO (2019) explores four organisational structures that pro-
vide support to platform workers: union renewal strategies and new organ-
ising initiatives, worker forums, worker centres and cooperatives. Recent 
exploration of evolving forms of collective resistance and representation of 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
635
workers in several European countries (Vandaele, 2021) discovered organi-
sation along two dimensions (online vs locally organised platform work and 
the logic of membership vs logic of influence), including old and new actors 
like mainstream trade unions
30
, grassroots unions, worker-led or union-led 
platform co-ops, labour market intermediaries, and new digital communi-
ties. Some cooperative initiatives are organised internationally as for exam-
ple a visible academic-led initiative of “platform cooperativism” (Scholz, 
2016; 2020). The initiative is supporting an alternative to radical exploitation 
and precarisation “based on the fusion of technological progress and demo-
cratic and solidarity principles in a ‘platform cooperative’”.
 31
Conclusion
While analysing current trends regarding changes in the global eco-
nomic system, we neither ignore the economic development that has been 
achieved, nor romanticise the past during which a large part of the world’s 
working population on the global periphery did not benefit from the advan-
tages of an earlier economic model that only applied to a minority in the 
global centre
32
. We have seen that changes in economic politics and dis-
courses in the last few decades have exacerbated the position of workers in 
the global centre, contributed to the convergence of (standards of) work-
ing conditions globally at a lower level, and triggered additional imbalances 
in power distribution between economic actors. We showed that although 
digitalisation in principle holds the potential to foster economic growth and 
reduce inequalities (i.e. among classes, genders, between the global South 
and global North etc.), the digital economy’s accelerated development over 
the last few decades has been accompanied by an unequal distribution of 
positive and negative economic outcomes. 
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis in the last 2 years has caused hardship 
and economic and social problems for many workers and their families. 
Considerable parts of economies have faced problems that have led to 
many (small) business closures, problems and uncertainty in some sec-
tors, harder work and an increased workload in the health and care sectors 
and, for many workers (especially young), the precarious labour market 
30 
An example is the Fair Crowd Work initiative (for more, see http://faircrowd.work/).
31 
10 Principles for Platform Cooperativism are: Collectively-owned platform cooperatives; decent 
Pay and Income Security, Transparency & Data Portability, Appreciation and Acknowledgement, 
Co-determined Work, A Protective Legal Framework, Portable Worker Protections and Benefits, Protection 
Against Arbitrary Behaviour, Rejection of Excessive Workplace Surveillance, The Right to Log Off (Scholtz, 
2016).
32 
Even in parts of the world where the norm of full-time paid formal employment with the prospect of 
a lifelong career has been the norm, a huge amount of work has been done outside the formal economy 
and/or has been unpaid (e.g. women’s care and domestic work). 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
636
situation has worsened. In contrast, we have witnessed the additional and 
unprecedented growth and increased profits of already super strong high-
tech companies (e.g. Amazon, Google). To understand the negative effects 
of the digital transformation, we described the forces that have enabled it. 
The extremely rapid changes in the organisation of work and life on the 
global level that we have experienced in the last years would not have been 
possible without decades of technological but also political and economic 
changes that allowed the precarisation of work and the concentration of 
economic power. To paraphrase Klein (2017), the platform economy is 
not a surprise, but is the culmination and expected outcome of neoliberal 
policies that should have been stopped long ago
33
. The platform economy 
builds on the previous forms and the economic logic of ‘atypical’ work 
(such as homework, part-time work
34
, mini-tasks, on-call work, intermedi-
ated work; zero-hours contracts etc.). A major part of the analysis presented 
gives many arguments that support the assumption that the pandemic will 
permanently change our lives in a way that makes the measures introduced 
during the quarantine permanent and beneficial to billionaires in the IT 
industry. The radicalisation of the unequal power relations between labour 
and capital has proven to be a tendency the pandemic crisis has contributed 
to by normalising working conditions and consumption habits on the global 
level, whereas before the pandemic they were the exception and confined 
to parts of the economy. Yet, some of the presented data reveal the reaction 
of organised labour and the tackling of these trends “in order to turn the 
tide from neo-commodification to a new emancipatory future” (Marčeta, 
2021). As we have seen, some streams of social scientific thought and social 
activism are formulating responses and solutions that seek to resist the 
uncontrolled rise of the platform economy. The theorising of positive social 
change is influenced and informed by progressive social practices (such as 
initiatives to establish legislative frameworks for platform enterprises and 
teleworking (European Parliament, 2020; European Commission, 2021; 
Lane, 2020; Freshfields, 2021)), newly organised workers’ action and the 
creation of new democratic enterprises (ILO, 2019; Scholz, 2020). Attempts 
at overcoming the precariousness of work and life that have been detected 
currently take the form of mainly local, short-term, partial resistance and 
efforts to limit the negative impacts and spread of precariousness. Even if 
the proposed national and international protective regulations do help to 
reduce the power asymmetries and secure some employment and social 
33 
After the US presidential elections in 2017, Klein (2017) commented that “Trump is not a surprise, 
but a culmination – the expected outcome of neoliberal policies that had to be stopped long ago”.
34 
Future analyses are needed to determine how much the feminist debate on feminised underpaid 
and undervalued precarious work such as care work, domestic work or part-time work could be informa-
tive and useful in understanding and challenging platform/gig/crowd work.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
637
rights for platform workers, the widespread presence of practices and dis-
courses of precarious work in the global labour markets will constantly 
jeopardise the effective application of already existing and new regulations 
that are intended to improve the working and living conditions of platform 
and other workers. It may be expected that profitable new ways of work 
organisation and digital management mechanisms especially pertaining 
to platform workers are likely to spread extensively. As we have seen, the 
development of an ever-stronger platform economy is based on changes 
in the scope and division of the power held by economic actors and institu-
tions. While states, nationally organised trade unions, and other previously 
powerful political actors sized to effectively protect workers, a fundamen-
tal characteristic of a growing part of the workforce is its atomisation and 
isolation. Therefore, the likelihood of implementing proposals that expect 
states or precarious workers themselves to resist and overcome precarious-
ness is limited. The success of emancipatory political action today depends 
on identifying, forming and operating effective coalitions of actors able to 
resist existing forms of domination and to establish and use power to create 
a “good life”. Further analysis will show how the next phase of economic 
change will establish the “balance between dynamism and humanism” in 
contemporary capitalism (Reich, 2001).
35
 
Overcoming the precariousness of work and life as a universal problem 
is to be founded in simultaneous local, short-term, partial resistance and 
attempts to limit the negative effects and spread of precariousness on one 
hand and conceptualising and promoting comprehensive and universal 
solutions to precariousness on the other. The former forms part of a gen-
eral rethinking of the social, political and economic order of our age in line 
with Butler’ s (2021) claims that the current times demand that we imagine 
a whole new way for people to live together in a world of “radical (social 
and political) equality” based on the recognition of interdependence.
36
 This 
explains why the conceptualisation and promotion of comprehensive and 
universal solutions to precariousness are becoming central to contempo-
rary discussions on work in an age of growth of the platform economy. 
35 
The idea of the need for a balanced distribution of economic power was already present in classical 
analysis of the functioning of the capitalist economic system. Max Weber (1978 (1920)) pointed to the need 
for a balance of power among strong states and the cosmopolitan capitalistic class in order not to destroy 
the economic dynamism and to prevent exploitation and political turmoil.
36 
When Butler (2012) reflects on Adorno’s call for an urgent rebellion against a bad life (a life that, 
as Adorno says, is so “deformed and distorted” that no one can live humanely), she advocates a policy in 
which actors use various acts of radical democracies to live a “good life” with others. 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
638
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alberti, G., I. Besa, K. R. Hardy et al. (2018): Against and Beyond Precarity: Work in 
Insecure Times. Work, Employment and Society 32 (3): 447–457.
Aristotle (350 B.C.E.): Nicomachean Ethics (Translated by W. D. Ross). Accessible at 
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.1.i.html, 20. 3. 2022.
Beck, Ulrich (2000): The Brave New World of Work. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Berg, Janine, Marianne Furrer, Ellie Harmon, Uma Rani and M. Six Silberman (2018): 
Digital Labour Platforms and the Future of Work: Towards Decent Work in the 
Online World, International Labour Office (ILO). Accessible at https://www.ilo.
org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publica-
tion/wcms_645337.pdf, 10. 5. 2022.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986): The Forms of Capital. In Woolsey Biggart, Nicole (ed.), 
2002. Readings in Economic Sociology. Blackwell Publishers (Original publica-
tion in Richardson, J., Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of 
Education (1986), Westport, CT: Greenwood, 241–258.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1998): Acts of Resistance: Against the New Myths of Our Time. 
Cambridge: Polity.
Breman, Jan and Marcel Van der Linden (2014): Informalizing the Economy: The 
Return of the Social Question at a Global Level. Development and Change. 
Online issue. Accessible at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/
dech.12115, 20. 3. 2022.
Burnett, Judith et al. (2008): The Myths of Technology: Innovation and Inequality. 
New York: Peter Lang Inc.
Butler, Judith (2004): Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. 
London/New York: Verso.
Butler, Judith (2012): Can One Lead a Good Life in a Bad Life? Adorno Prize Lecture 
RP 176. Accessible at https://www.radicalphilosophyarchive.com/wp-content/
files_mf/rp176_article1_judith_butler_adorno_prize_lecture.pdf, 20. 3. 2022.
Butler, Judith (2021): The Force of Nonviolence. New York: Verso.
Chancel, L., T. Piketty, E. Saez, G. Zucman et al. (2022): World Inequality Report 
2022, World Inequality Lab.
Chomsky, Noam (2017): Requiem for the American Dream: New York: Seven 
Stories Press. 
Countouris, Nicola (2021): Regulating digital work: from laisser-faire to fairness. 
Social Europe. Accessible at https://socialeurope.eu/regulating-digital-work-
from-laisser-faire-to-fairness, 20. 3. 2022.
Cioffi, John W., Martin Kenney and John Zysman (2021): Platform Power and 
Regulatory Politics: Polanyi for the 21
st
 Century. Accessible at https://ssrn.com/
abstract=3859075 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3859075, 10. 5. 2022.
Cutolo, Donato and Martin Kenney (2021): Platform-Dependent Entrepreneurs: 
Power Asymmetries, Risks, and Strategies in the Platform Economy. Academy 
of Management Perspectives 35 (4). Accessible at https://doi.org/10.5465/amp. 
2019.0103, 10. 5. 2022.
Davis, Y. Angela (2019): (1981) Women, Race and Class. Penguin Books.
De Stefano, Valerio and Antonio Aloisi (2021): European Commission takes the 

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
639
lead in regulating platform work. Social Europe. Accessible at https://social-
europe.eu/european-commission-takes-the-lead-in-regulating-platform-work, 
10. 5. 2022.
Engels, Frederick (1868): Review of Volume One of Capital for the Demokratisches 
Wochenblatt March 1868. Accessible at https://www.marxists.org/archive/
marx/works/1867/reviews-capital/dwochenblatt.htm, 10. 5. 2022.
Fleming, Peter (2017): The Death of Homo Economicus. New York: Pluto.
Fligstein, Neil (2005): States, Markets, and Economic Growth. In Nee, Victor and 
Swedberg, Richard (eds), The Economic Sociology of Capitalism. Princeton 
University Press.
Fuller, Steve (2011): Humanity 2.0: What It Means To Be Human Past, Present and 
Future. Palgrave Macmillan. 
Graben, Sacha (2017): Protecting Workers in the Online Platform Economy: An 
overview of Regulatory and Policy Developments in the EU. European Agency 
for Safety and Health at Work. Luxembourg: Publication Office of the European 
Union.
Haidar, Julieta and Maarten Keune (2021): Work and Labour Relations in Global 
Platform Capitalism. ElgarOnline. Accessible at https://www.elgaronline.com/
view/edcoll/9781802205121/9781802205121.xml, 10. 5. 2022.
Hall, Peter A. and David Soskice (eds.) (2001): Varieties of Capitalism. The Insti-
tutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. Oxford: Oxford University 
Press.
Harvey, David (2007): Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction. The American 
Academy of Political and Social Science. The ANNALS of the American Academy 
of Political and Social Science 610 (1): 21–44.
Hesselberth, Pepita (2017): Discourses on dysconnectivity and the right to dis-
connect. Accessible at https://journals-sagepub-com.nukweb.nuk.uni-lj.si/doi/
full/10.1177/1461444817711449, 10. 5. 2022.
Hutton, Will and Anthony Giddens (2001): On the Edge: Living with Global 
Capitalism. Vintage Books.
Johnston, Hannah and Chris Land-Kazlauskas (2019): Organizing On-Demand: 
Representation, Voice, and Collective Bargaining in the Gig Economy, Inter-
national Labour Office (ILO). Accessible at https://ideas.repec.org/p/ilo/ilowps 
/994981993502676.html, 10. 5. 2021.
Kalleberg, L. Arne (2009): Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Rela-
tions in Transition. American Sociological Review 74 (1): 1–22.
Kanjuo Mrčela, Aleksandra and Klavdija Črtalič (2020): Dostojno delo v platformni 
ekonomiji: Oximoron našega časa? (Decent work in the platform economy: An 
oxymoron of our time? The oxymoron of our times). Teorija in praksa 57 (2): 
527–560. Ljubljana: Založba FDV.
Kanjuo Mrčela, Aleksandra (2021): O čem govorimo, ko govorimo o prekar-
nosti? (What are we talking about when we talk about precariousness?). In: 
Poglajen, Črt, Metka Tekavčič, Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrčela and Danilo Türk (eds): 
Odprava prekarnosti: Pogledi stroke in politike. (Elimination of precariousness: 
Professio nal and political views). Ljubljana: Maksima, Ekonomska fakulteta.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
640
Kanjuo Mrčela, Aleksandra (2021a): Platformno delo – (ne)dostojna prožnost zapo -
slovanja? Accessible at https://fb.watch/9jiZ8FfcrF/, 16. 11. 2021.
Kenney Martin and John Zysman (2016): The Rise of the Platform Economy. Issues 
Sci. Technol. XXXII (3). Accessible at http://issues.org/32-3/the-rise-of-the-plat-
form-economy/, 20. 3. 2021.
Klein, Naomi (2020): Screen New Deal. The Intercept, May 8 2020. Accessible at 
https://theintercept.com/2020/05/08/andrew-cuomo-eric-schmidt-coronavirus-
tech-shock-doctrine/, 20. 3. 2021.
Klein, Naomi (2017): No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and 
Winning the World We Need. 
Lane, M. (2020): “Regulating platform work in the digital age”, Going Digital Toolkit 
Policy Note, No. 1. Accessible at https://goingdigital.oecd.org/toolkitnotes/reg-
ulating-platform-work-in-the-digital-age.pdf, 10. 5. 2021.
Langley, Paul and Leyshon Andrew (2017): Platform Capitalism: The Intermediation 
and Capitalisation of Digital Economic Circulation. Finance and Society, 
Accessible at: http://financeandsociety.ed.ac.uk/ojs-images/financeandsociety/
FS_EarlyView_LangleyLeyshon.pdf (20. 3. 2021)
Marčeta, Petar (2021): Platform Capitalism – Towards the Neo-commodification of 
Labour? In Haidar, Julieta and Keune, Maarten, Work and Labour Relations in 
Global Platform Capitalism. ElgarOnline. Accessible at https://www.elgaronline.
com/view/edcoll/9781802205121/9781802205121.xml, 10. 5. 2021.
Marx, Karl (1867): Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume 1, Part 1: The 
Process of Capitalist Production. Charles H. Kerr and Company. Accessible at 
https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/marx-capital-a-critique-of-political-economy-vol-
ume-i-the-process-of-capitalist-production, 10. 5. 2022.
Mattioli, Dana (2020): Big Tech Companies Reap Gains as Covid-19 Fuels Shift 
in Demand. Washington Post, 29. 10. 2020. Accessible at https://www.wsj.
com/articles/amazon-sales-surge-amid-pandemic-driven-online-shopping- 
11604003107, 20. 3. 2021.
Miller, Fred (2017): Aristotle’s Political Theory. The Stanford Encyclopedia of 
Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Accessible at https://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/aristotle-politics/, 10. 5. 2022.
Murillo David, Buckland Heloise and Val Esther (2017): When the Sharing Economy 
Becomes Neoliberalism on Steroids: Unravelling the Controversies. Techno-
logical Forecasting & Social Change (125): 66–76. Accessible at https://ideas.
repec.org/a/eee/tefoso/v125y2017icp66-76.html, 10. 5. 2021.
Pesole, A., M. C. Urzí Brancati, E. Fernández-Macías, F. Biagi and I. González Vázquez 
(2018): Platform Workers in Europe. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the 
European Union.
Reich, Robert (2001): The Future of Success. New York: Random House.
Samek Lodovici, Manuela et al. (2021): The Impact of Teleworking and Digital Work 
on Workers and Society. Publication for the committee on Employment and 
Social Affairs, Policy Department for Economic, Scientific and Quality of Life 
Policies, European Parliament, Luxembourg. Accessible at https://www.euro-
parl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/IPOL_STU(2021)662904, 10. 5. 2022.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
641
Scholz, Trebor (2020): Platform cooperativism consortium. Accessible at  https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2se3c3YHsTc, 5. 6. 2021.
Secunda, M. Paul (2019): The Employee Right to Disconnect. Accessible at https://
scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1092&context=ndjicl, 10. 5. 
2022.
Srnicek, Nick (2016): Platform Capitalism. Cambridge, UK; Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Srnicek, Nick (2021): Value, Rent and Platform Capitalism. In Haidar, Julieta and 
Keune, Maarten, Work and Labour Relations in Global Platform Capitalism. 
ElgarOnline. Accessible at https://www.elgaronline.com/view/edcoll/978180 
2205121/9781802205121.xml, 10. 5. 2022.
Standing, Guy (2011): The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London, New York: 
Bloomsbury Academic. 
Standing, Guy (2014): A Precariat Charter. From Denizens to Citizens. London, New 
York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Swedberg, Richard and Mark Granovetter (2001): Introduction to the Second 
Edition. In Granovetter, Mark and Swedberg, Richard (eds), The Sociology of 
Economic life. Westview Press.
Taylor, Astra (2018): ‘The Automation Charade’ Logic. Magazine about Technology 
(5).
Terranova, Tiziana (2000): Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy. 
Social Text 63 (18.2): 33–58.
Tomaskovic, Devey, Donald et al. (2020): Rising between-workplace inequalities 
in high-income countries. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of 
the United States of America, ISSN 0027-8424, Apr. 2020, 117 (17): 9277–9283. 
Vandaele, Kurt (2021): Collective Resistance and Organizational Creativity 
Amongst Europe’s Platform Workers: A New Power in the Labour Movement? 
In Van Doorn, Niels and Vijay, Darsana. Gig Work as Migrant Work: The Plat -
for mization of Migration Infrastructure. Accessible at https://doi.org/ 10.1177/ 
0308518X211065049, 10. 5. 2022.
Wark, McKenzie (2021): The Capital is Dead. New York: Apple Books.
Williams, C. C. and I. A. Horodnic (2017): Regulating the Sharing Economy to Prevent 
the Growth of the Informal Sector in the Hospitality Industry. International 
Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 29 (9): 2261–2278. 
Weber, Max 1978 (1920): Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretative Socio-
logy. University of California Press.
Zuboff, Shoshana (2019): The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a 
Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books.
Zukerfeld, Mariano (2021): Platforms and Exploitation in Informational Capitalism. 
In Haidar, Julieta and Keune, Maarten. Work and Labour Relations in Global 
Platform Capitalism. Elgar Online. Accessible at https://www.elgaronline.com/
view/edcoll/9781802205121/9781802205121.xml, 10. 5. 2022.
Žižek, Slavoj (2007): Nasilje. Ljubljana: Društvo za teoretsko psihoanalizo Anderson, 
Rainie and Vogel, 2021.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
642
SOURCES
CEA (2017): Economic Report of the President. Accessible at https://obamawhite-
house.archives.gov/administration/eop/cea/economic-report-of-the-Presi-
dent/2017, 20. 3. 2022.
Davis, Y. Angela and Butler, Judit (2017): On Inequality Angela Davis and Judith 
Butler in Conversation (YouTube video, 22. 5. 2017). Accessible at https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=-MzmifPGk94.
Eurofound (2018): Platform Work: Types and Implications for Work and 
Employment – Literature Review. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the 
European Union. 
Eurofound (2018a): Employment and Working Conditions of Selected Types of 
Platform Work. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Eurofound (2020): Living, Working and COVID-19, COVID-19 series. Luxembourg: 
Publications Office of the European Union.
Eurofound (2021): New forms of employment. Accessible at https://www.euro-
found.europa.eu/topic/new-forms-of-employment#case%20studies, 10. 5. 2022.
Eurofound (2021a): The Digital Age: Implications of Automation, Digitisation 
and Platforms for Work and Employment, Challenges and Prospects in the EU 
series. Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg. Accessible 
at https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/flagship-report/2021/the-
digital-age-implications-of-automation-digitisation-and-platforms-for-work-and-
employment, 10. 5. 2022.
European Commission (2021): Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament 
and of the Council on improving working conditions in platform work. 2021/ 
0414 (COD).
European Parliament (2020): Why does the EU want to regulate the platform 
economy? Accessible at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/
economy/20201008STO88810/why-does-the-eu-want-to-regulate-the-platform-
economy, 10. 6. 2021.
European Parliament (2021): Resolution on fair working conditions, rights and 
social protection for platform workers – new forms of employment linked to 
digital development (2019/2186(INI)). Accessible at https://www.europarl.
europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2021-0385_EN.html, 10. 5. 2022.
Financial Times (2020): Prospering in the Pandemic: The Top 100 Companies: 
Accessible at https://www.ft.com/content/844ed28c-8074-4856-bde0-20f3bf-
4cd8f0, 19. 6. 2020.
Freshfields (2021): Where do Platform Workers Stand: Status and Protection in 
Europe and the US. Accessible at https://www.freshfields.com/49956a/globa-
lassets/our-thinking/campaigns/beyond-the-pandemic/wl-2.0/where-do-plat-
form-workers-stand---status-and-protection-in-europe-and-the-us.pdf, 10. 12. 
2021. 
OECD (2020): What have platforms done to protect workers during the coronavi-
rus (COVID 19) crisis? Accessible at http://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-
responses/what-have-platforms-done-to-protect-workers-during-the-coronavi-
rus-covid-19-crisis-9d1c7aa2/, 15. 2. 2022.

Aleksandra KANJUO MRČELA
TEORIJA IN PRAKSA let. 59, 3/2022
643
Taylor, Astra (2018a): Fauxtomation | AI Now 2018 Symposium. Accessible at https: 
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CKPHpGuvJA, 20. 5. 2022.
The Times of India (2021): Billionaire Boom: How Covid cash ended up in the 
wallets of rich. Accessible at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/ 
82865285.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_cam-
paign =cppst, 30. 3. 2021.
Thorbecke, Catherine (2021): Wealth of world’s billionaires rose $5 trillion amid 
pandemic. ABC News. Accessible at https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wealth-
worlds-billionaires-rose-trillion-amid-pandemic-forbes/story?id=76897870, 10. 
5. 2022.