I know most techies are devout Ayn Rand fans, and love the idea of the invisible hand of the free market controlling everything with no more government in the way. However, let me play Devil's advocate for a second. What will you think when this invisible hand comes for your work? There is nothing stopping most companies from offshoring every single IT job out there, except for the communication and talent issue. Here's the stark reality - the entirety of society since the 50s has been set up around the following:
- A post-high school education of some kind, college or trade school followed by...
- A 40 to 45 year work life providing a living wage in a steady paycheck that increased with time/inflation
- A 20 or so year retirement life in which you would spend down a pension or savings while waiting to die
- A need to purchase housing and put down roots in a community, this engendering employer/employee loyalty
The "sharing economy" wants to drop all that, putting everyone on permanent day laborer status. Establishing roots in a community is replaced with transient living, moving every 2 years or so, and never building up equity in a house. This works great in your early 20s - you live in a hipster loft with 3 roommates in a large city, spend most of your paycheck on restaurants and bars/clubs, and don't mind contract work because you value flexibility. The game changes a lot when you settle down and have children. I'm not "that old", I just turned 40. I really like the idea of staying in one place and having a steady stream of income to pay for my family's expenses. I'm normally a very PC person, but the fact of the matter is that transient living negatively correlates with school district quality -- this applies in cities and migrant worker communities equally. Keeping kids in an environment that doesn't change abruptly all the time lets them focus on learning. Keeping parents gainfully employed and not worrying about where the next meal is coming from lets them focus on their family, a virtuous cycle.
I know there are plenty of contractors in IT and software dev pulling down huge hourly rates, and I can definitely see how they say "Hey, I love this gig economy, don't mess with it." I personally know a couple who don't even have permanent residences since it doesn't make any sense - they make bucketloads of money so they just live in hotels all year jumping from client site to client site. That's not the target of Clinton's remarks IMO -- she's most likely targeting the idea that companies can basically get low-level, poorly compensated employees without paying the costs associated with traditional employees. The macro-level society-level transition from a stable work life to a transient one is going to be pretty scary, possibly on the French Revolution scale. Unless it's managed properly, things will be very messy for the average worker.
Speaking of average workers -- other advocates of the gig economy like to tout how much value they add to their employers' businesses relative to others. People need to look in the mirror and realistically assess their value. Anecdote != data, but I just stayed at a business hotel over the weekend for a family trip. It was a lot of fun listening to the empty suit Accenture consultants bloviating about how awesome they were to each other in the bar. Come on man, you travel the country giving canned PowerPoint presentations to corporate executives who are too scared to make decisions without cover of a consulting firm. That's not value!
Am I saying that FTE work is the best option and no one should be allowed to be an itinerant worker? No way. I'm saying that the playing field should be level between both camps, and it's not right now. That's where that evil word regulation comes in.