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from the this-is-the-most-2020-thing-of-2020-yet dept.
Gig Economy Company Launches Uber, But for Evicting People:
"SINCE COVID-19 MANY AMERICANS FELL BEHIND IN ALL ASPECTS," reads the website copy. The button below this statement is not for a GoFundMe, or a petition for calling for rent relief. Instead, it is the following call to action, from a company called Civvl: "Be hired as eviction crew."
During a time of great economic and general hardship, Civvl aims to be, essentially, Uber, but for evicting people. Seizing on a pandemic-driven nosedive in employment and huge uptick in number-of-people-who-can't-pay-their-rent, Civvl aims to make it easy for landlords to hire process servers and eviction agents as gig workers.
Helena Duncan, a Chicago-based paralegal who also participates in housing activism, saw a Craigslist post from Civvl while searching for jobs. The ad alarmed her.
"It's fucked up that there will be struggling working-class people who will be drawn to gigs like furniture-hauling or process-serving for a company like Civvl, evicting fellow working-class people from their homes so they themselves can make rent," she told Motherboard.
[...] At the time of writing, Civvl and OnQall did not return requests for comment, but did appear to block the author's IP address from visiting OnQall.com.
There is a federal ban on evictions, declared by the CDC, but landlords are still attempting to press on. There is a penalty for violating the ban, which can include a combination of fines and jail time. Civvl did not respond to a question about how the company ensures evictions are legal, though based on the Terms of Service, it appears to pass all risk onto the companies using its platform, stating that it simply "provides lead generation to independent contractors," and does not actually carry out the work itself.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 29 2020, @09:42PM (4 children)
He sounds like an idiot then. Why didn't he sell? Too late now? Why doesn't he work a prole job for a while? Warehouse work beneath him? Can't handle such chores are busing tables, flipping burgers, or stocking shelves? Might break a nail? So many places are hiring right now! Some even "urgently" according to the ads. Oh, but all those jobs are just beneath him.
Spoilers: no they aren't... you know when those jobs are beneath you because you're living off interest, and those jobs aren't beneath you until you are living off interest! Fuck man, it's how the game is played! Don't try to pretend the game doesn't have these systemic behaviors, because reality will grind you into proletarian dust.
You have to anticipate the boom-bust cycle, otherwise you go bust and can't realize the next boom. It's like clockwork so don't be surprised. Karl Marx told no lies about the systemic behavior of capitalism. Don't stick your head in the sand and pretend it isn't so because OMG socialism. It is so!
What are you going to do about it? Proletarian revolution? Abolish private accumulation?
lol, no you're not, because your primitive brains cannot construct an equitable culture. Your primitive brains cannot create a society that is not hierarchical and exploitative. You need kings, you need nobles, you need mercenaries, and you need peasants, and your primitive brains construct these roles as though they're inherent attributes of the person in the role. You struggle with the idea that these roles are external to the person and circumstantial in the capitalist era.
Hence your confusion about why your friend, who you (and he) thought was a noble, is living like a peasant.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 29 2020, @10:46PM (2 children)
Oh ho! That is going to be an extremely unpopular opinion here. All those people who have never read The Communist Manifesto, or Das Kapital are going to be along shortly to tell you how Marx personally murdered 100 million people, because he didn't like their tie.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 30 2020, @06:26AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 30 2020, @06:39AM
As someone who's read too much Marx, I will now happily dive in with an actual response to:
>>> Karl Marx told no lies about the systemic behavior of capitalism.
My response being:
Bullshit. Marx discombobulated completely and utterly on that matter. He viewed capitalism as *necessarily* self-destructive, which is what made revolution *inevitable*. However, while retreating to purer philosophising for a while (as preparation for writing das kap) he did manage to prove to himself that this wasn't the case, but then the cognitive dissonance got too much, so he purged that sensibility from his brain and went back to plan A and proceeded to lie through his teeth.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 30 2020, @02:33PM
To answer. He has tried to get a job at 60+y old. No young ass hat will hire him. "Too old" but they can't say that so they make up shit answers. He worked all is life and he has some land to rent. Better than most people whom squander their $ on shit like cell phones and hookers. Grow up ass. You'll be in that condition(old) one day. I just hope someone is there for you to fall back on when it hits the fan. If you die before then: well good ridens.