[Plura-list] The gig economy's dark-money, astroturf "community groups"; The doctrine of dynastic wealth

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* The gig economy's dark-money, astroturf "community groups": Uber and
Lyft spent their way into a rep for racial justice.

* The doctrine of dynastic wealth: Abigail Disney on tax evasion and the
American caste system.

* This day in history: 2001, 2006, 2011, 2016, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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🏂🏼 The gig economy's dark-money, astroturf "community groups"

When CA's Proposition 22 passed in 2020, it killed the right of gig
workers to unionize and it permanently enshrined the practice of worker
misclassification: pretending employees are independent contractors, not
entitled to health care, overtime, pensions or basic protections.

Uber, Lyft and other "gig" companies spent $205m to pass the ballot
initiative, almost as much as was spent on *every* legislative race in
the state - it was the most expensive ballot initiative in American history.

That money was accompanied by some powerful endorsements, including the
California NAACP, which struck many observers as deeply strange, given
that the most exploited workers in the gig economy are Black.

The situation became clearer when we learned that $95k was funneled to a
"consultancy" run by CA NAACP chair Alice Huffman to help sell Prop 22.
Huffman resigned shortly thereafter, on news that her firm raked in
$1.7m to "consult" on ballot initiatives in 2020.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-11-20/california-naacp-leader-to-step-down-alice-huffman

A new investigative story in The Markup by Dara Kerr and Maddy Varner
reveals a vast corporate dark-money operation that spent millions to
make Uber and Lyft seem like paragons of racial justice.

https://themarkup.org/news/2021/06/17/uber-and-lyft-donated-to-community-groups-who-then-pushed-the-companies-agenda

They reveal over 30 orgs from communities of color that took donations
from Uber and Lyft's PACs and subsequently came out against state and
city initiatives to ban worker misclassification and secure benefits and
protections for precarious workers.

https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-gig-spending/blob/main/donations.csv

These orgs published op-eds endorsing worker misclassification as a way
for "independent workers to stay independent," placing them in respected
Black papers like the Chicago Crusader, Latinx papers like El Dia, and
mainstream papers.

Many of these op-eds were identical, not marked as press releases, and
with no disclosure of the financial relationship between the gig
companies they defended and the organizations who convinced the papers
to run the "editorials" (some ran anonymously, without bylines).

More remarkable than the orgs that have taken Uber and Lyft's money and
then joined their "coalitions" are groups that were added to these
coalitions without ever agreeing to do so, like Groundwork Buffalo, PUSH
Buffalo, Open Buffalo, and Coalition for Economic Justice.

These campaigns are orchestrated by PR firms like  Hilltop Public
Solutions, who boast of their "grasstops solutions” that help “clients
inject their voices into local policy debates."

This kind of Orwellian language is shot through the
pro-misclassification campaigns, which are styled as "protecting worker
independence" (independence from health care, workplace safety, a
minimum wage, a pension...)

It's hard to overstate how corrosive this is, how it discredits the hard
work of community groups and plays into cheap cynicism.

I've worked for a nonprofit off and on for 20 years and I've lost track
of the number of people who've called us "shills" because sometimes the
principles we fight for align with the actions of companies and we
support them.

The fact that we also fight them - sue them! - when they don't live up
to those principles gets missed out, creating a cheap, cynical discourse
that demoralizes the public and activists alike.

One of history's most wicked acts of political genius came from
Vladislav Surkov, who designed Putin's comms strategy. Surkov cheerfully
admitted that he had set up and created some of the anti-Putin
opposition groups and funded them - but never said which groups were fakes.

Surkov created a situation where no one knew if they were among
committed activists - or just a patsy for a false-front group. It's a
scorched earth tactic, one that demolishes the possibility of genuine
social movements.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/26/kremlin-puppet-masters-leaked-emails-vladislav-surkov-east-ukraine

That's the Lyft/Uber playbook: not just to create the appearance that
the workers they prey on enjoy it - but to annihilate the possibility
that *any* community group will be taken seriously.

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🏂🏼 The doctrine of dynastic wealth

The biggest news story of the moment Propublica's reporting on the
Secret IRS Files, a trove of leaked tax data on the wealthiest people in
America that show that they pay effectively no tax, through perfectly
legal means.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/15/guillotines-and-taxes/#carried-interest

The Bootlicker-Industrial Complex has completely missed the point of
this reporting and its followup, like the revelation that an ultrarich
candidate for Manhattan DA was able to pay no tax in many years where
her family booked millions in revenue.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/17/quis-custodiet-irs/#trumps-taxes

The apologists for super-rich tax-evaders lean heavily on the fact that
America has a tax-code that substantially reduces the spending power
(and thus political power) of people who work for a living, while
enhancing the wealth of those who own things for a living.

The rich are obeying the law, so there is nothing wrong here. But what
Propublica documented is that America has a different set of laws for
the super-rich than for the merely rich, and that these laws are in a
wholly different universe from the laws for the rest of us.

It's another example of America's unequal justice system - a subject
that includes long prison sentences for crack possession and wrist-slaps
for powder cocaine, long jail terms created by the cash bail system, and
a host of other race- and class-based inequities.

It's more proof, in other words, that America isn't a republic where we
are all equal before the law, but rather a caste system where inherited
privileges determine how the law binds you, how it punishes you and how
it protects you.

One person well-poised to describe how this system perpetuates itself is
Abigail Disney, granddaughter of Roy Disney and great-niece of Walt
Disney, inheritor of a vast family fortune shielded from tax by a
generation-skipping trust contrived solely to avoid taxation.

Writing in The Atlantic, the heiress describes how she was inducted and
indoctrinated into the system of American dynastic wealth, surrounded by
brilliant accountants who treated their exotic financial vehicles as
completely ordinary.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/abigail-disney-rich-protect-dynastic-wealth-propublica-tax/619212/

Personally, these financial enablers were "decent, good, kind men," and
they gave Disney 40 years' worth of gospel about protecting the capital,
growing it, and passing it on to the next generation.

As a credible 21 year old, Disney had no frame of reference. The
creation of a dynastic, ever-growing fortune through legal but frankly
bizarre accounting fictions was treated as normal.

To the extent that these tactics raised any doubts, they were addressed
through doctrine: the idea that government bureaucrats can't be trusted
to spend money wisely.

Disney doesn't say this, but a common trope in these discussions is that
the government is ever tempted to give money to poor people, and must be
protected from this impulse.

This racism and classism are dressed up as "meritocracy" - the tautology
that the rich are worthy, the worthy are rich, and anyone who isn't rich
is therefore unworthy.

In the first generation, this doctrine is merely sociopathic, but when
passed on to a new generation, it is eugenic. Walt and Roy demonstrated
their worth by founding a studio and navigating it through the
challenges of the market, and that is why the market made them rich.

But their children - and grandchildren - didn't get their wealth by
founding or running a studio. They got their wealth by emerging from the
correct orifice. If their wealth is deserved, those deserts are a matter
of blood, not toil.

In other words, they were born to be rich, not just as a matter of sound
tax planning, but as a matter of genetic destiny. They are part of a
*hereditary* meritocracy.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#inequality


Disney describes what it's like to be indoctrinated into the hereditary
meritocracy: her family told her that the appearance of philanthropy is
good, but actually giving money to poor people is a foolish enterprise,
"unseemly and performative."

And they urged her to marry her own class, "to save yourself from the
complexity and conflict that come with a broad gulf in income, assets,
and, therefore, power." Power should be in the hands of "successful"
people, because they know how to wield it.

Accept this ideology and you will be showered with wonderful gifts: like
private jet trips, which quickly become necessities ("once you’ve flown
private, wild horses will never drag you through a public airport
terminal again").

It's a subject that is well-documented in Mike Mechanic's 2021 book
JACKPOT, on the daily lives, dysfunctions, and above all, ideology of
the super-rich:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

As to the seductiveness of the ideology, I had my own experience with
the "decent, good, kind" professionals of the finance sector. When I
moved to London in 2003, I opened a checking account at Barclays, a
giant high-street bank.

I quickly discovered that part of Barclays' legendary profitability came
from understaffing its branches; when I had to see a teller, I could end
up waiting in line for an hour.

When I complained about this, a teller told me that for a nominal annual
sum, I could get a "premier" account that came with a host of benefits,
including priority tellers. I signed up and was inducted into the
premiership by my branch manager.

He asked me if I needed any help with tax preparation, and boy did I
ever. I was filing tax returns in Canada, the US, California, and the UK
- it was a mess: not just expensive but confusing, and I couldn't make
heads or tails of the paperwork.

A week later, a very smartly turned out Barclays "tax specialist" came
by the academic research center where I'd borrowed a desk to meet with
me. She was wildly excited to discover that I was on a work visa and not
a UK citizen.

She told me that this made me eligible to become a "non-dom" - someone
living in the UK, but not "domiciled" there - and therefore not subject
to any tax at all.

She laid out a whole plan for me: I could establish residence in one of
the Channel Islands (Jersey, I think?), incorporate a shell company
there, and continue to get free health care from the NHS, use the public
roads, etc - all without paying a penny to HM Exchequer.

And when I was ready to buy a house, the whole thing would only get
better: I could buy it through the shell company, reverse-mortgage it,
rent it to myself, take fabulous deductions on the way, and pass it on
tax-free by transfering the shell company rather than the house.

It was dizzying, and I kept asking her to go back and explain it again.
She assured me that it was legal and normal, what every non-Briton
living in the UK should do, and really poured the pressure on.

It was weirdly spellbinding, like a wizard was demonstrating an
interdimensional portal to me and asking if I wanted to go through it to
a magical land - a magical land that "everyone else" was already
visiting on the reg.

I told her I'd think about it. Five minutes after she left the office, I
snapped out of the trance. I never called her back. I figured out my UK
taxes.

But today, reading Disney's account of having reasonable-seeming,
friendly experts tell you something bizarre and indefensible is normal,
I was powerfully reminded of my own brush with the dynasty-creation
industry.

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🏂🏼 This day in history

#20yrsago Scott McCloud on Napster, “piracy” and micropayments
https://web.archive.org/web/20010708054658/http://www.thecomicreader.com/html/icst/icst-6/icst-6.html

#15yrsago Flickr: we’ll give full access to competitors – if they
reciprocate
https://www.flickr.com/groups/central/discuss/72157594165399644/#comment72157594167782546

#10yrsago ICANN votes to roll out 400-800 new generic top-level domains
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wseltzer/5852419280/

#10yrsago KFC: support diabetes research by buying an 800 calorie, 56
spoonful of sugar “Mega Jug”
https://theweek.com/articles/483837/irony-alert-buy-kfcs-800calorie-soda-support-diabetes-research

#5yrsago Homeless in Seattle: five essays
https://www.theawl.com/2016/06/youd-have-to-be-crazy/#.k6um2lfs9

#5yrsago W3C DRM working group chairman vetoes work on protecting
security researchers and competition https://lwn.net/Articles/691108/

#1yrago Microsoft criticizes Apple's monopolism
https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/19/art-of-the-deal/#honi-soit-qui-mal-y-pense

#1yrago Trump wants to dismantle the OTF
https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/19/art-of-the-deal/#save-otf

#1yrago This is the EU's interoperability moment
https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/18/digital-services-act/#interop

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🏂🏼 Colophon

Today's top sources: Julia Angwin (https://twitter.com/JuliaAngwin),
Fipi Lele.

Currently writing:

* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests.
Wednesday's progress: 272 words (6274 words total).

* A Little Brother short story about remote invigilation.  PLANNING

* A nonfiction book about excessive buyer-power in the arts, co-written
with Rebecca Giblin, "The Shakedown."  FINAL EDITS

* A post-GND utopian novel, "The Lost Cause."  FINISHED

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues."  FINISHED

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism (Part 06)
https://craphound.com/nonficbooks/destroy/2021/05/10/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-part-06/

Upcoming appearances:

Recent appearances:

* The ACCESS Act, Consumer Reports:
https://www.consumerreports.org/digital-rights/an-interview-with-tech-activist-and-author-cory-doctorow-a1943952645/

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https://rcpress.podbean.com/e/out-dcoup-live-cory-doctorow-on-his-book-how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/

* Darts and Lasers podcast:
http://www.dartsandletters.ca/2021/06/11/ep24-darts-and-lasers-ft-cory-doctorow-nalo-hopkinson-batya-weinbaum/

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

* The Shakedown, with Rebecca Giblin, nonfiction/business/politics,
Beacon Press 2022

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