CONCEPT
The Perversion of Self-Employment
Webb's distinction between self-employment as a vehicle of liberation and self-employment as a mechanism of exploitation — the difference determined not by the individual's talent but by the institutional arrangements that surround her.
Webb argued that self-employment could be either genuinely liberating or a disguised form of exploitation, and that the difference depended on the institutional conditions within which it was situated. The independent craftsman who owned his tools, controlled his workspace, set his prices, and served a clientele that valued his distinctive skill was genuinely self-employed. The outworker who stitched garments for a middleman who controlled access to the market, set piece rates, and could withdraw work at any moment was nominally self-employed but actually captive — a dependent worker disguised as an independent contractor by the legal fiction that she was not an employee. The distinction acquires fresh urgency in the age of AI: the celebrated solo builder who rents her tools, sells through platforms, and works without institutional support occupies a position closer to the outworker than the craftsman.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The solo builder who uses AI tools does not own those