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Predicting exceptional performance at the Olympics in Rio: science or chance?

As every four years, we are now quickly approaching to the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 5 to 21 August 2016. The Olympics are the biggest sports event in the world, followed by the FIFA World Cup in football and the Tour de France of cycling, with as many as two billion people tuning in at some point during the event. Throughout its relatively short history, the modern Olympics have increased from a 42-event competition with fewer than 250 competitors, to an over 300-event sporting celebration with as many as 10,000 competitors from over 200 different countries. The Olympics are hence, a unique and irreplaceable opportunity to see top class athletes competing at the highest level in the most popular sporting disciplines.

The edge of sports at the forthcoming Olympics

Human athletic performance is influenced by a number of variables, which mostly include genetic predisposition, training, ergogenic (licit or not) aids, mental attitude, environmental conditions, along with a reasonable amount of the so-called “l” factor (i.e. the “luck” factor). The fortunate combination of all these elements will make it possible that a “world record” (i.e., an extreme attainment, which represents the best performance ever attested in a certain sport discipline) can be broken. This notion leads the way to some rather understandable questions engaging the mind of most spectators of the forthcoming Rio Olympics. What kind of show are we expecting to see in next month in Rio? How many amazing performances are expected to occur? Is it possible that many world records will be broken?

Relay Race by ThomasWolter. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

A comprehensive quantitative analysis of world records reported in the database of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for measurable Olympic events was published in 2008. The progression of world records from the years 1900 to 2007 was analyzed in nine sports disciplines (100; 400; 1,500; 10,000 m; marathon; long jump; high jump; shot put; and javelin throw), and surprisingly revealed that the relative improvement of athletic performance was higher in women than in men, which had almost doubled across the different specialties. Notably, the largest improvements were seen for the javelin throw and shot put in both genders, whereas the improvement in race time was directly related to the race distance (the longer the running distance, the larger the improvement). Nevertheless, the most interesting outcome of this analysis was represented by the fact that some world records displayed a significant linear model of improvement over time, although such improvement has substantially stopped or reached a plateau in the past few years.

How many world records will be broken in Rio?

The progression of the world record in the 100m over the past 50 years. Graph created by author, Giuseppe Lippi, and used with permission.

Rather understandably, neither a crystal ball nor an oracle would make it possible to answer to this question. What has been definitively clarified now, after decades of research in physiology and sports science, is that the “genotype of the champion” only plays a part in explaining episodic athletic performance. The progression of the world record in the 100m (the most followed Olympic event) over the past 50 years, clearly attests how challenging it may be to predict the trend in Rio.

From 1964 to 2008 the progression has been almost perfectly linear (r=0.956), but in 2009 something exceptional happened. A formidable athlete, Usain Bolt, apparently subverted biology. In just two years he was capable to improve the world record by approximately 2%: an improvement of the same magnitude as recorded in the previous 20 years.

How can this be explained? As discussed, athletic performances are the product of genetic endowment, hard work, and sport science. We can hence suppose that further improvements in sport performance will be mostly due to chance that is the occurrence of ‘extreme outliers’ in the normal distribution of top-class athletes, as it is (probably) with Usain Bolt. Therefore, it can be concluded that whatever mathematical model used may be inherently unreliable for forecasting progression of world records during the Olympics in Rio. And, I would conclude, that this is the best part of the game, since the unpredictability of a sport competition is exactly the reason why it will be followed. So, enjoy the show, enjoy the Olympics!

Featured image: Rio de Janeiro by Poswiecie. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

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Who are the middle class in India?

The idea and category of middle class is not new to India. It was in the early decades of the 19th century, during the British colonial period, that the term began to be used for a newly emergent group of people in urban centres, mostly in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras, three cities founded by the colonial masters. Over time, this middle class spread its presence to other urban centres of the subcontinent as well. After Independence, with development and expansion of Indian economy, the size of the Indian middle class grew manifold. Beginning with the 1990s, the story of the Indian middle class witnessed a major shift. The pace and patterns of its growth changed with the introduction of economic reforms. By incentivizing private capital and encouraging foreign investments in India, the ‘neo-liberal’ turn helped India accelerate the pace of its growth substantially.

Popular views and academic analyses of the Indian society and its political processes have generally tended to place the differences of caste and community at the centre stage. Does the expansion of middle class imply a major shift in India’s political culture and social values? With its rise weaken and eventually end ascriptive hierarchies, based on caste, tribe and other such identities? Many analysts of the contemporary Indian scene tend to affirm this view. They see the ascendance of the middle class as evidence of a fundamental change in social relations and the mental disposition of the common Indian, the aam admi. This coming of age of the middle class is also viewed as the answer to all problems and challenges that India confronts in the 21st century. Once mobilized middle class has the capacity to dislodge the “corrupt” political elite and incompetent bureaucracy and turn the country into an efficient and modern nation-state. Individual members of this class, they argue, have already proven their worth abroad and can do so in India, provided that they are allowed to do so by the “system”.

However, the category middle class is not as simple and straight forward as it appears to be. The idea and identity of middle class is invoked in everyday life in contemporary India in a variety of different ways and contexts: urban and educated with a salaried job; qualified and independent professionals; enterprising, mobile and young women and men; consumers of luxury goods and services; a housewife of an urban family struggling to keep her domestic economy going with a limited income in times of rising prices; an agitated and angry office goer who always envies his/her neighbor for managing to keep ahead.

Even though being middle class in contemporary India is, in many ways, a matter of privilege, those located in the middle class tend to also view themselves as among those with a fragile sense of security. Along with the poor, they often complain about the manipulative and “corrupt” economic and political system controlled by the rich and the powerful, the wily elite. Middle class engagements with politics have been of crucial and critical significance in modern India; from the colonial period to present times. It is the middle class that generally produces leaders who challenge the existing power structures and provide creative directions to social movements of all kinds.

Mumbai Night City by Skye Vidur. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

The Indian middle class has also been accused of being a self-serving and self-obsessed category, indifferent to the poor and the marginalized. Middle class creates barriers and boundaries to keep the poor out of its sphere of privileges. On the other end, the poor aspire to join the middle class and work hard to achieve it. Even when they can’t afford to provide wholesome food to their children, they send them to private English medium schools with the hope that education would help them move out of poverty, to middle-class locations.

Besides its invocation in descriptions of social structures and spheres of inequality and power, the idea of the middle class is also invoked, positively, to describe the emerging Indian, who, through education and hard work, is trying to move upwards, with his/her own resources, and in turn, is transforming the country into a modern and developed nation. It is creative individuals from middle-class India who have been spreading themselves across the most valued and critical avenues of opportunities and expanding the Indian and global economy in neo-liberal times. Globally, mobile computer software engineers and management gurus of Indian origin, who have come to matter almost everywhere in the world today, all come from middle-class families.

The third popular invocation of the middle class is in relation to the market. As an economic agent, the middle-class person is a consumer par excellence. It is the middle class that sustains the modern bourgeois economy through its purchasing power. Given its location, middle class is presumed to be obsessed with consumption. Consumption for the middle class is not simply an act of economic rationality but also a source of identity. The shopping malls, mobile phones and growing reach of media are symbolic evidences of the growing significance of the middle class in India. Much of the advertising industry is directed at the middle-class consumer.

Identifying who belongs to the middle class appears to be quite simple: those in the middle, in-between the poor on one end and the rich on the other are all middle-class. Interestingly, this is how most of the contemporary discourse, shaped and shared by economists and policy makers, has been framed. Perhaps the only source of contention for mainstream economists has been the choice of objective criteria, income, consumption or something else, for drawing the boundaries on the two ends of the middle.

However, such a statistical view is limited and flawed because it tells us very little about the substantive social processes that unfold themselves through the emergence of middle-class social formations and how in turn middle classes in countries like India shape social, cultural and political life. Middle-class should thus be seen as a historical and sociological category. It emerges with the development of modern capitalist society, with markets and cities. Its rise implies the emergence of a new kind of social order: a system of ranking and social classification. It transforms the nature of social relations within communities and households; between men and women; and between young and old.

Given that it emerges historically within a given social context it does not necessarily transform everything in the pre-existing social structures of social inequality. Even when the rise of middle class transforms the way people think, behave and relate to each other, the process does not do away with inequalities of caste and community. Those trying to move up in the new social and economic order use their available resources and networks, including those of caste and kinship to stabilize and improve their positions in the emerging social order, with a new framework of inequality.

This is also the reason why the middle class is not as homogenous as it may appear at the first instance. Diversities within the middle class are many, of income and wealth as also of status and privilege. Middle classes are often sub-classified into the “upper”, the “lower” and “those in-between” segments, depending upon income, education, occupation, residence and life-style. As mentioned above, those who call themselves ‘middle-class’ or are classified as such, also do not abandon their other identities; particularly those that have been sources of privilege; of caste, community/religion and region/ethnicity. Thus, we have notions such as the “Bengali middle-class” or the “Muslim middle-class” or the “Dalit middle-class”. The rise and consolidation of a middle class within an “ethnic” or cultural group could work to sharpen those identities, rather than weakening or ending them.

Featured image credit: Colorful Goddess by Harsha K R. CC BY-SA 2.0, via

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Welfare states and the great unraveling

We appear to be on the verge of a great unraveling – a period in which the established arrangements of political and economic life are rapidly coming undone. And at heart of these events is the question of the welfare state and the security of working people in contemporary capitalism.

Many of us look on, incredulous, as one unimaginable event follows another. Last month’s Brexit vote rocked the foundations not just of the European Union, but also of Great Britain, where the major parties are in disarray and the future of the 300 year-old United Kingdom is suddenly in question. In the US, the unscripted success of maverick showman Donald Trump and self-described ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders highlights the weakness of America’s political party establishments, the visceral force of populist disaffection, and the utterly unforeseen nature of the present moment. Meanwhile in countries such as Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands, popular discontent nourishes the revival of ultra-nationalism and a powerful backlash against the project of European unification. And Austria’s next president may yet be the leader of the far-right, anti-immigrant Freedom Party. “Unbelievable!” we say. But each new development is another sign that the political settlements forged in the second half of the 20th century are now endangered by currents of nationalism, protectionism, and xenophobia not seen in the West since the 1930s.

These developments are replete with contradictions. In the UK referendum, the regions where support for leaving the EU was strongest were the biggest net beneficiaries of EU funding. Donald Trump draws his support from working people angry about the very business practices – offshoring, below-minimum wages, undocumented workers, tax-breaks for the very rich – that have helped Trump become a billionaire. And the migrant workers who attract so much hostility contribute considerably more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

But the motivating cause behind these developments is obvious enough. Dispossessed, insecure working people are making it clear that they will no longer tolerate an economic system that has long-since ceased to work for them. Following the decline of trade unions and of old-style Labour and Democratic parties, working people have seen their political and economic power drain away, only to see corporate and financial interests fill the vacuum and proceed to remake the economy in their own image.

Since the 1970s and the rise of neoliberal, ‘free-market’ ideas, inequality has increased, wages have stagnated, employment protections have been dismantled, and productivity gains have flowed to the very rich. And when this freewheeling casino-capitalism brought the economy to its knees in 2008, the governmental response was to bail out the banks and restore financiers’ bonuses while insisting that public services must be cut and austerity imposed in order to foot the bill. The opposition between ‘Wall Street’ and ‘Main Street’ has never been so apparent and it should surprise no one that we are now witnessing such a powerful wave of anger and resentment.

Working people rightly view ‘the system’ as being rigged against them. And frustrated by their powerlessness they take every opportunity to lash out, to protest, to punish the powers-that-be, whatever the result. A political whirlwind, long in the making, is suddenly being reaped.

The western world has seen such forces before and has witnessed the devastation they can produce. In the 1930s, when an unrestrained capitalism culminated in financial crashes, mass unemployment, and a Great Depression, the political result was that democracies collapsed, Fascism and authoritarian communism flourished, and the world was plunged into a cataclysmic war.

Social Security: Public Health nursing made available through child welfare services by Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

In the post-war reconstruction, western governments resolved to move away from the arrangements that produced these disastrous class conflicts and national rivalries. In their place they built various versions of the welfare state – a compromise settlement that married market capitalism to mass democracy by means of a social state that guaranteed social and economic security, union rights, full employment, and the political integration of working people. These welfare states – nested in an expanding world economy and an international monetary system designed to enable national governments to manage their own economies – gave rise to decades of economic growth, diminishing inequalities, and improved standards for working people. And the creation of the EU sustained a long-term peace on a continent that had so recently been torn apart by warring nation-states.

Since the 1970s, we have witnessed the erosion of these welfare states and the protections they provide – partly because of globalisation, but largely as a result of political choices that favour the financial sector and corporate power while rendering working class life more precarious. Three decades of peace and prosperity – together with the ideological insistence of a resurgent capital that Keynsianism is dead and there is no alternative to deregulated, unrestrained markets – make it hard for us to recall the disastrous political consequences that these economic policies previously unleashed.

Welfare states are not charity; nor are they a drag on economic growth. Economically, they are systems of social insurance and social protection that make market society fit for human habitation. Politically, they are the cross-class compromises that make capitalism compatible with mass democracy.

But recent social and economic policies have undermined these vital institutions – especially in the neoliberal bastions of the US and the UK – and the political fallout now threatens the unity, peace, and stability so painstakingly constructed in the wake of World War II.

If there is any cause for hope in this dismal season, it is that the current US election has, for the first time in living memory, put wages, social security, and employment protection back on the agenda. Otherwise, the portents are distressingly clear. Unless our political classes rediscover the necessity of a strong social state, the future we face will be increasingly bleak and dangerous.

 Featured image credit: Hand help by smahel. Public domain via Pixabay.

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Is musical success written in the stars?

When we look at the so-called “miraculous gifts” of musical prodigies, it is easy to get caught up in the nature vs. nurture debate: are these prodigies born or made? But we won’t be entering here into the discussion as to whether genetics or education plays the greater role. Instead, there may be a secondary element to this debate that is often overlooked, an element that intrinsically ties together these two conflicting sides. That element is nothing less than destiny.

You don’t have to be a believer in fate to see that the influence of a supernaturally approved predestination could be surprisingly strong in these young people’s lives. Of course, I am not postulating here the existence of a higher being. Indeed, whether a divine power exists or not is utterly irrelevant; what is important is the following question: how does believing in a divine master plan shape a child’s development, and how do the parents and mentors of children that have been “touched by the finger of God” deal with their precocious child? To explore this question more closely, let’s examine the role of destiny in the early lives of three legendary musical prodigies.

Wolfgang A. Mozart

It is not difficult to understand why Mozart’s profound precocity elicited the belief that his musical inspiration came directly from God. For Mozart’s father, his son was nothing less than “a God-given miracle”. This belief would have been often communicated to the young Mozart, leading him to most certainly grow up believing in this divine intervention, and perhaps even seeing himself as a “chosen one”. Undoubtedly, this would have had a significant impact on his motivation, as well as that of his father who consecrated so much of his time, energy, and monetary resources to his son.

Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold Mozart. Portrait owned by the Mozarteum, Salzburg. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Niccolò Paganini

In Paganini’s case, it seems that the supernatural influence was more diabolical than divine. His mother was prone to prophetic visions and dreams, which instigated Paganini’s otherworldly image. It was even rumoured that when the young Paganini was only six years old, his mother sold his soul to the devil to ensure that he became the world’s greatest violinist. Throughout his life he was given such notorious titles as “fallen angel”, “magician of the south”, and even “witch’s brat”. This supernatural fascination with Paganini began in his early childhood, and was certainly fuelled by not only his mother, but also his tyrannical father. Paganini would have been educated to believe in his uniqueness, and so would those who came to see him, thus mirroring back to him this same belief. Paganini was not only considered by those around him to be a prodigy and genius, but also a confidant of the Devil, or even a demigod, placing him outside the realm of mere mortals.

Alberto Guerrero (standing) with his student Glenn Gould, Toronto ca 1947. The original uploader was Fawcett5 at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by LPLT. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Glenn Gould

For Gould, the belief in a divine purpose came not from his parents, but from within himself. After attending a concert by the celebrated pianist Josef Hofmann when he was just six years old, Gould, highly impressed, fell into a slumbering fantasy, whereby he recalls becoming magically transformed into Hofmann himself, and hearing himself (as Hofmann) playing. This fantasy must have been extremely vivid; Gould remembered the sensation of “playing as Hofmann” for the rest of his life, and it fuelled in him the understanding that he could and would ultimately reach that level of proficiency. For the young Gould, this youthful delusion seemed to act as “proof” of his musical destiny. While no exact mention of God was given, we are nonetheless left with the impression of the intervention of a higher order, and that a predetermined future had already been planned for Gould.

When a child believes or is led to believe that they are predestined to succeed, any setbacks are viewed not in a negative light, but as temporary hurdles that will be overcome. The anxiety and self-doubt felt by most young musicians at certain points of their musical development would be tempered, and inner conflict about the possibility of ever making it to the top all but dissipated. The sense of a predestined future – whether real or perceived – ultimately bestows on children, their families, and mentors nothing less than a powerful motivational momentum. When you have destiny on your side, you become unstoppable.

Featured image credit: Nicolo Paganini, by Richard James Lane, 1831. National Portrait Gallery: NPG D5451. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

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Talking peace in Burundi, once more at the cost of impunity?

On 10 June 2016, former Tanzanian president Benjamin Mkapa travelled to Brussels to meet the leadership of Burundi’s opposition coalition CNARED (National Coalition for the Restoration of the Arusha Agreement and the Rule of Law). CNARED is a heterogeneous group of exiled Burundian politicians opposed to the third presidential term of Pierre Nkurunziza, president of Burundi. Nkurunziza was sworn in in August 2015 after his party CNDD-FDD (National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy) won the controversial elections which, according to the UN electoral observer mission, were held in an environment that was not conducive for free, credible, and inclusive elections. What started as an electoral third term crisis, has by now seriously undermined Burundi’s internationally applauded transition from conflict to peace. Unprecedented street protests against President Nkurunziza started after his nomination for a third term on 25 April 2015, despite a two term limit laid down in the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement of 28 August 2000. The protests culminated in a failed coup attempt on 13 May 2015, while Nkurunziza attended an extraordinary summit of the East African Community (EAC) on the political crisis in Burundi. For more than a year now, Burundi has been the scene of a political, security, and humanitarian crisis. Violence is particularly prominent in the capital city Bujumbura, where senior military officials, civil society activists, political party members and journalists are targeted by grenade attacks and shootings. Hundreds of civilians have been executed or forcibly disappeared; according to UNHCR, more than 260,000 Burundians fled their country since the start of the crisis.

In March 2016, the EAC appointed Mkapa as facilitator to assist the mediation led by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. Mkapa’s visit to Brussels in June came shortly after a political dialogue he organized in Arusha (Tanzania) but failed to bring a political solution to the crisis. One of the controversial issues is the participation of CNARED in the talks, which the government is strongly opposed to, arguing that the UN Security Council urged for an inter-Burundian dialogue involving all peaceful stakeholders. According to the government, the CNARED leadership is responsible for the coup attempt of 13 May 2015 and is involved in the activities of the rebel movements that announced an armed struggle to topple the Nkurunziza government. When hosting a first round of the Burundi dialogue in Kampala (Uganda) in December 2015, mediator Yoweri Museveni called upon the government not to exclude the so-called ‘radical’ opposition but rather to grant them temporary immunity: ‘‘Don’t bring conditionalities […] These may be criminals.  But for the sake of peace, let’s assume… Just give them immunité provisoire.”

Yoweri Museveni, President, Uganda by Chatham House. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

Museveni’s suggestion is a reminder of a long-standing academic and policy debate about the clash between peace and justice. At first sight, the use of temporary immunity is a clever and clean device to handle the devil’s choice between short-term conflict resolution imperatives, and longer term human rights accountability requirements. Unlike blanket amnesties, temporary immunities suggest that talking peace merely delays but does not preclude truth and accountability for past violence and human rights violations. As a policy tool, temporary immunities therefore seem to be in line with the normative – but empirically shaky – argument that the peace versus justice dilemma is a false one. However, Burundi’s recent past sheds important light on the limitations and on the perverse longer term effects of the use of temporary immunity. Presenting Burundi’s experience with temporary immunity as a success story that offers valid inspiration for other conflict situations, as President Museveni did in July 2004 in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan concerning the crisis in Ituri (Democratic Republic of the Congo) is therefore highly questionable.

In recent work, I’ve analyzed in more detail the longer term perverse effects of what, from a short term conflict settlement perspective, appears to be a useful instrument in the toolbox of mediators. Burundi’s transition from ethnic conflict to peace was based on a series of negotiated settlements and complex but successful political and military power-sharing arrangements. During the decade after the first post-conflict elections in 2005, Burundi seemed to be a success story of peace and reconciliation without truth and accountability for the horrendous crimes committed prior to and during the civil war that started in 1993, after the assassination of democratically elected president Melchior Ndadaye. The ongoing crisis triggered by the 2015 elections proves the failure of that experiment. If — once again — an internationally mediated dialogue and some kind of power-sharing compromise are to offer a way-out of the crisis, it is essential to avoid reproducing and internationally legitimizing the longer-term perverse effects of Burundi’s previous experience with temporary immunity.

What were those perverse effects? In summary, temporary immunity laid down in Burundi’s peace agreements turned out to be anything but temporary. Furthermore, it was granted not only to opponents and insurgents, but also to government security forces and pro-government militia members (today the infamous Imbonerakure CNDD-FDD youth wing). In addition, it did not only offer protection against prosecution (which is what immunity usually amounts to) but served additional purposes. Most worryingly, the design of temporary immunity legislation created an incentive structure to postpone, as much as possible, a process of truth telling and accountability for human rights crimes that were not covered by the temporary immunity. As a whole, Burundi’s earlier experience shows that temporary immunity was a stepping stone to peace but also to long lasting impunity. Even more worryingly, it created an incentive structure that encouraged recidivism by rewarding successful (insurgent and incumbent) entrepreneurs of conflict and violent repression. A renewed bite at the immunity cherry, without learning lessons from the previous bitter aftertaste, is therefore likely to sow the seeds of a new round of (electoral or other) political violence.

Feature image credit: Burundi Bujumbura 01 by Stefan Krasowski. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

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A tale of two referendums

One of the consequences of the vote for ‘Brexit’ in the EU referendum on 23 June has been to focus renewed attention on the Scottish question. In this blog I want to look both forward, to the possibility of a second independence referendum, and backward, to compare the EU referendum with the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. The result of the latter, with 55% voting to remain within the UK and 45% to leave was simultaneously a rejection of independence by a decisive margin and an uncomfortably close call for supporters of the union and suggested that Scotland was a divided nation. Post-referendum events, particularly, the SNP’s near clean sweep of Scottish seats in the 2015 general election, suggested that the question of Scotland’s future in or outside the union had not been resolved. The even narrower margin of victory for ‘Brexit’ in the EU referendum has brought the Scottish question back to centre stage.

In the EU referendum, Scotland voted very differently from the rest of the UK. While England and Wales voted to leave the EU, 62% of Scottish voters voted to Remain (there was also a Remain majority in Northern Ireland). The possible consequences of that outcome had been well trailed in advance. The statement in the SNP manifesto for the 2016 Scottish elections that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to hold another independence referendum if there were a significant and material change in circumstances such as Scotland being taken out of the EU against its will was one of many to that effect. Since the result of the EU referendum result was announced, the former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond has said that there must be a second independence referendum and current First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has said a second independence referendum is “highly likely“.

Nevertheless, another independence referendum in the near future is not a foregone conclusion. There is no legal obligation to hold a referendum in any circumstances under the UK constitution; it has always been a matter of political judgment. The current SNP leadership is clearly wary of holding another referendum, as to lose two in quick succession might set back the cause of independence indefinitely. It has good cause to be concerned that, despite what Sturgeon has term the ‘democratic outrage’ of Scotland’s voters being dragged out of the EU against their will, they will not turn to independence in much greater numbers than in 2014. If the gloomy predictions from many quarters of the adverse economic and political consequences of Brexit look like they will be borne out, Scottish voters may judge that the risks of independence are not worth running in such difficult times. The current Scottish Government is unlikely to press strongly for another independence referendum unless it feels it can win it or it has been backed into a corner by events.

Nicola Sturgeon has said a second independence referendum is “highly likely”

If it were to call for a second referendum there might also be legal and political obstacles. During the 2014 referendum campaign, the UK Government maintained that the Scottish Parliament had no legal power to hold a referendum. The Scottish Government disagreed, but the dispute was resolved politically by the October 2012 Edinburgh Agreement. It is unlikely that the UK Government would agree to a second independence referendum in the near future and there would be a high risk of legal challenge if the Scottish Parliament tried to proceed without authorisation by a UK statute. Nevertheless, a second referendum cannot be ruled given the major political upheaval that Brexit represents and the difficulty of predicting its consequences.

Space precludes a full comparison of the two referendums, so I will confine myself to a few issues. The most obvious comparison is that the EU referendum was more rancorous and divisive. Certainly, the Scottish independence referendum excited the passions of both campaigners and citizens and the turnout was considerably higher at 85% compared to 72%, the campaign was partisan and some participants, particularly in cyberspace, were rude, aggressive, or threatening. But, taking the campaigns as a whole, there was more unpleasantness generally and more disrespectful behaviour from senior politicians in the EU referendum. This may have an important but negative legacy. Despite its relative moderation, there is evidence that the independence referendum may have increased a sense of division within Scottish society. The divisions created by the EU referendum are likely to have deeper and more lasting consequences.

The overall quality of the debate and the level of reliable information provided to the public were also lower in the EU referendum. Whilst there was much ill-informed ranting in cyberspace, all the relevant issues were well aired in the Scottish referendum. This was aided by the fact that both sides published a full statement of their case. The Scottish Government published a 600 page white paper setting out its proposal for governing an independent country, and the UK Government produced its Scotland Analysis series of eighteen lengthy papers. We don’t know how many  citizens actually read these documents (although the white paper was downloaded many times) but the key facts and arguments – filtered through the media – emerged into public debate.

There was a clear contrast in the EU referendum. The tone of debate was particularly rancorous and there was a great deal more ‘misinformation’, making it difficult for citizens to make an informed judgment. Whilst, both sides were at fault, the principal blame for this lies with the leave campaign which persistently peddled untrue or misleading information (such as the claim that the UK sends £350 million to the EU each week), ignored inconvenient truths and made large, but rather vague, promises that could not be or were not likely to be fulfilled. Moreover, the leave campaign did not present anything resembling a clear manifesto outlining the future of the UK outside the EU.

The negative aspects of the EU referendum were most apparent in the discussion of immigration. This turned out to be both the most significant and the most divisive issue in the campaign and the one that leave campaigners treated as their most effective weapon for engaging and persuading voters. The issue of immigration had far less traction in Scotland.

Overall, the experience of these two, and of other, UK referendums suggest that they do not necessarily resolve the issues they were designed to address and sometimes have other negative consequences. . The 1975 referendum did successfully settle the European question for many years and the Scottish devolution referendum of 1997 demonstrated overwhelming popular support for devolution. By contrast, the 2014 referendum did not definitively settle the question of whether Scotland remains part of the UK nor has this one settled the question of the UK’s place in Europe and it threatens to further unsettle the union that is the UK. It may also leave a number of difficult legacies that will make it more difficult to govern the UK (or what is left of it), including increased racial and religious prejudice encourage by the anti-immigration rhetoric that was so prominent in the campaign, major political parties that have become dysfunctional and adverse effects on the peace process in Northern Ireland, all of which suggests that politicians should be cautious in the issues on which they decide to call referendums.

Featured image credit: ‘Scotland’. Photo by Moyan Brenn. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

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The heterogeneous “kl”-clan again: “clay,” “clove,” and all, all, all

Last week, I mentioned Francis A. Wood’s rhyme words and rhyme ideas and cited his example cloud and crowd. In my life, such a pair is gleaning and cleaning. We need not bother about their possible relationship; it is the proximity of senses that counts: providing a set of gleanings (ideally, every fourth Wednesday) is like monthly cleaning. The end of the kl-series is in view: what has not been said can be guessed from the previous posts, and the main ideas have already been brought home. However, some odds and ends remain. Today I would like to comment on the suggestions by our readers and make a few additional points.

Many English kl-words are incontestably sound-imitative: for example, click, clack, cluck, clink, clang, clap, clash, and clatter. Clap “gonorrhea” deserves special treatment, and it is anybody’s guess whether the verbs clip and clutch have anything to do with sound imitation. “Bright” and “loud” are related concepts: one refers to dispelling darkness, the other to breaking through the noise. What is clear can also be loud, and this is the reason why clear, from Old French, ultimately from Latin clārus, is sometimes thought to be allied to calāre “to call.” Clamor and claim, related to Latin clāmāre “to cry; call,” belong here too. Call, a borrowing from Scandinavian, is one of the most puzzling words in our vocabulary because the syllable kol ~ gol is connected with producing sound in many languages. Why should kl ~ k-l be associated with giving voice? Br-, kr-, dr-, and their likes are seemingly better suited for this role.

Do you have a clue to why this picture has been chosen?

Another group of kl-words reminds us of stickiness. The poster child of this group is cling. Clamber and cleave “to adhere” are its next of kin. Hence the names of rather numerous plants; such is German Klette “burdock” (compare German klettern “to climb”) and, quite probably, Engl. cleavers, clivers, and clover (clover was the subject matter of a recent post). When many things stick together, they form a mass. Cloud, clod, clot, clutter, cluster, cleat, along with German Kloss “lump” and Klotz “chunk,” as well as Engl. clout, developed from “lump; mass” (hence “patch, wedge”). Clew “ball of thread” is another mass, and there is an uneasy connection between clew and claw. A “mass” can be produced by squeezing, and this is where clam and clamp “band of metal” come in. By the way, an earlier form of clam “shellfish” was clamp.

Nice exterior but a nasty middle. (Plants and humans often share important characteristics.)

Clay also makes one think of stickiness, especially when we take into account German Klei “clay” and Kleie “bran.” The etymology of Kleie is debatable, but, as concepts, “bran” and” stickiness” are not too remote. In my opinion, Engl. bran is related to brain, with both meaning “mass.” Engl. clump “a compact mass of trees” looks like a close neighbor of all those words. In any case, Dutch klomp means “lump” and klamp means “heap,” whence Engl. clamp “stack of bricks; turf.” Those interested in the origin of club “cudgel” and club “association” (an association is of course a “mass”) will find my thoughts on this subject in the posts dated 13 July and 20 July 2011.

All this bears out the idea I promoted in one of the essays of this series. We seem to be dealing with words that are related, but their kinship is based on the presence of a rather vague idea. Language chooses the complex kl-, adds alternating vowels to it, and we get a picture like the one illustrating a recent post: a stump with a cluster of mushrooms growing on it. Those words resemble climbing plants, ivy, for example. Next to a “stump” producing the soil for sound effects stands another one supporting words with the general meaning “adhering; mass; stickiness.” Occasionally such “stumps” exchange hostages. One could well imagine a verb like cling meaning “to ring, clang,” and, sure enough, this is what German klingen means.

On this unsafe ground, one has to tread gingerly. Consider the history of Engl. clove. Clove is either “a division of the bulb of garlic, etc.” or “an evergreen tree, a flower bud from it; the spice obtained from such a bud.” Skeat did not doubt that he was dealing with two meanings of the same word and began its history with French clou “nail” (clou de girofle “clove, from the semblance to a nail”; girofle yielded Engl. gillyflower).  He cited Spanish clove “nail” and “clove.” Middle English had clow. In Skeat’s opinion, the change to clove, in the sixteenth century, was due to the influence of Italian chiovo. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (ODEE), which partly followed the OED, derived only clove “dried flower bud” from clou de girofle and added: “The change from clow is difficult to account for; it may have taken place in Anglo-Norman, clou de giving *clov/de, perhaps with the same change as in lieutenant” (an asterisk marks unattested, reconstructed forms; lieutenant is pronounced leftenant in British English). Clove “segment” is said, as in the OED, to go back to Old Engl. clufu, the plural of clufe. The word occurred as an element of at least two compounds and had cognates elsewhere in West Germanic. Especially revealing is Old Saxon cluflōc “garlic.” German Knoblauch, from klobalouch “garlic,” is an exact counterpart of cluflōc (Engl. garlic means “spear leek,” with gar– as in garfish and others).

This is a clove tree. No garlic grows on it and it has no cloven root.

Skeat often rewrote his etymologies in light of James Murray’s findings, but in this case he stuck to his initial conjecture and refused to separate clove1 from clove2. Not unexpectedly, he avoided giving reasons for his stubbornness. The OED online has revised the second entry, disregarded the additions made in the ODEE, and offered a new phonetic hypothesis, but the riddle of the sound change is bound to remain unsolved.

In discussing the origin of cloud, I noted that, though the ties among many kl-words are loose, they are not the flotsam and jetsam of the Indo-European vocabulary.  The moment we begin to look through the gl-list outside Germanic, we find many exact synonyms of English nouns and verbs.  Russian glei corresponds to Engl. clay (glei is a technical term; the usual gloss of clay is glina, that is, the same glei with a suffix). And since many kl-words in and outside Germanic are also synonyms, the question constantly arises whether some of them were borrowed. Opinions, naturally, differ. Some suggestions in this area are truly surprising.  German klitsch-klatsch is an interjection, and it has been surmised that French cliché goes back to the printers’ word designating the sound produced by the dropping of the matrix on the molten metal.

Among the kl-words, not yet featured but deserving a special look, are clever, cloth, clean, and cliff, and I am ready to discuss them. But I would like to know whether my fairly recent idea of presenting series rather than disjointed essays was a happy one. I offered such series on bad, god, and dog. A university professor with decades of teaching behind me, I have learned that every public speaker’s (journalist’s, instructor’s) paramount duty is to provide fun (whatever fun means). In my capacity as the author of long series do I live up to this duty? Or should I rather choose “the word of the week” and run away with it? The success of a columnist depends on the feedback from the readers. Last week, I received a letter from a stranger who said that he followed my blog and appreciated it. But one letter, like one swallow, does not a summer make, even in the middle of July. Unless I hear from disgruntled readers, I will go on with the present series, even though it is grounding to a halt. It would also be interesting to know the opinion of our readers about the illustrations. Choosing them is not as easy as it may seem.

Image credits: (1) “Cat Isolated On The White” by George Hodan, Public Domain via PublicDomainPictures. (2) “burdock” by Miroslav Vajdic, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr. (3) “The clove tree in Pemba island” by  Prof. Chen Hualin, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Featured image: Garlic by Gadini, Public Domain via Pixabay.

The post The heterogeneous “kl”-clan again: “clay,” “clove,” and all, all, all appeared first on OUPblog.

Continuing to smoke after breast cancer diagnosis lowers survival rate

After being told they have breast cancer, many female smokers say “what the heck?” and continue to smoke, figuring they have nothing more to lose. A new study finds that’s not true—that quitting is advantageous even after such a dire diagnosis.

The study included more than 20,600 women with breast cancer. Those who quit had a 33% lower mortality rate from breast cancer than those who kept smoking. This is one of the largest studies of survival outcomes based on smoking habits in women with a breast cancer diagnosis who included their smoking habits both before and after receiving the news of their diagnosis.

Fifty years ago, it was considered unladylike for women to smoke cigarettes, and when they did, it was at night, in secret, and only while sitting. Then in 1968, Virginia Slims were marketed to young professional women with the slogan “You’ve come a long way, baby.” Soon after, other brands and advertising geared toward hooking female smokers appeared.

According to the US Surgeon General Report in 2014, the disease risks for women in the United States have risen sharply over the last 50 years with breast cancer as the second leading cause of female cancer deaths; plus, women are now equal to men for lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cardiovascular diseases, the report states.

In this new population-based prospective observational study, researchers compared the smoking status of women in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts before and after breast cancer diagnosis. The Collaborative Breast Cancer and Women’s Longevity Study included 20,691 women, aged 20–79 years, diagnosed with incident localized or regional invasive breast cancer between 1988 and 2008. The researchers compared the causes of death of four groups of women: those who never smoked, smokers who quit before diagnosis, smokers who quit after diagnosis, and smokers who continued to smoke after diagnosis.

According to lead researcher Michael Passarelli, PhD, MPH, MS, postdoctoral scholar in the Epidemiology and Biostatistics department at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, follow-ups were made on 4,562 of these women, on average, six years after diagnosis. Data collected from subjects included whether they had smoked at least 100 cigarettes during their lifetime, how old they were when they began smoking, and the average number of cigarettes they smoked daily.

Cigarettes by Geralt. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay.

The researchers controlled for other risk factors, including alcohol usage and body mass index. Hazard ratios were calculated according to smoking status for death as a result of not only breast cancer but also cancers of the lung, pharynx, or intrathoracic organs, along with other cancers as well as respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

By 2010, 6,778 study subjects had died. The leading causes of death were breast cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Passarelli said that during the timeframe of the study, the prevalence of smoking among women was about 20% and that the prevalence of smoking in women on average about six years after their breast cancer diagnosis was 10%. “This means that only half of those smoking up to the time of their diagnosis quit long term. I believe this 50% quit proportion after cancer can be improved upon.”

Jamie S. Ostroff, PhD, chief of the behavioral sciences service and director of the Tobacco Treatment Program at Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center in New York, agrees. “This study contributes to the robust literature that assessing and treating tobacco dependence in the context of cancer care is a quality of care indicator that needs to be routinely adopted.”

Unfortunately, noted Passarelli, those who continue to smoke after being diagnosed with cancer are some of the hardest people to persuade to quit. Many smokers doubt that quitting after cancer offers any benefit. Specifically, breast cancer patients may find it too hard to focus on quitting, and some believe it is just too late to make a meaningful improvement in long-term prognosis. “Our study suggests that for breast cancer survival, it is not too late.”

Passarelli said smokers are more likely to have treatment-related complications, such as toxic effects on the heart, and may need to stop treatment earlier than intended. He noted that the same issues arise in treating many cancers. “I would say that this could be a way that our results extend to patients of other cancers. In fact, many women with breast cancer are more likely to die from a cause other than their breast cancer.”

For example, in addition to a lower mortality rate from breast cancer for those who quit smoking after diagnosis, researchers also found a reduced rate for respiratory cancer. That conclusion did not surprise Norman H. Edelman, MD, vice president for Health Sciences and professor of preventive medicine, internal medicine, and physiology and biophysics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is also executive vice president and chief medical officer of the American Lung Association.

“There used to be this myth that when people get severe lung disease or lung cancer, they would say the damage is done and continue smoking,” said Edelman. “There’s now plenty of evidence that quitting smoking with regard to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that that’s not true, that the damage progresses, so quitting smoking at any time improves health and survival, and we’re beginning to see that for those being treated for lung cancer do less well if they continue to smoke after diagnosis.”

An editorial appearing in the same issue as Passarelli’s study reports that half of medical oncologists do not aggressively promote smoking-cessation methods. The main reasons cited include unclear evidence of benefit; lack of time; priority of primary treatment; and inadequate training and expertise, especially when patients exhibit high psychological stress and depression.

The authors of the editorial and Ostroff point out that the National Comprehensive Cancer Network has published new Guidelines for Smoking Cessation to help oncologists advise patients. “[The American Society of Clinical Oncology] also has some wonderful resources and toolkits oncologists and clinicians can access to help their patients quit smoking,” said Ostroff, a member of the society’s tobacco subcommittee.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Journal of the Nation Cancer Institute.

Featured image credit: Smoking by Thong Vo. CC0 Public Domain via Unsplash. 

The post Continuing to smoke after breast cancer diagnosis lowers survival rate appeared first on OUPblog.

How workers can get a better deal out of Uber

Platform businesses are the current darlings of digital disruption. Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, and their ilk dodge the overheads of traditional businesses. Their services are provided by private contractors and not by employees with all of their expensive entitlements. The platform business model has permitted Uber to rapidly acquire a market value in excess of the established corporate heavyweights 21st Century Fox and Ford. The news is not quite so good for Uber’s drivers – or, as Uber prefers – its “partners.” Investing in Uber may be a way to achieve great wealth. But partnering with it isn’t.

It’s pointless to demonize Uber. Indeed, we can be thankful for some of the things it has done. Uber has challenged complacent incumbents. It has brought cheaper rides and flexible employment. But these pluses don’t respond to the unfairness of Uber’s way of divvying up its wealth. Uber retains more than 20% of the money paid by passengers, leaving drivers to cover their expenses out of their end. It would be hard to imagine cardiac surgeons tolerating an arrangement in which a fifth of the value of their procedures went to the company providing what they would view as platform services.

One thing that Uber has taught us is that if a well-engineered platform business enters your industry and you confront it as an individual then you won’t do particularly well. The platform will suck up almost all of the additional wealth it helps to generate, leaving you with scraps. A problem is that unions, the historically most important instruments of worker protection, find themselves wrong-footed by the likes of Uber. Unions are a legacy of the Industrial Revolution purpose built for the factory floor. Platform businesses and the gig economy call for new ways to organize workers. They call for worker platforms that mirror key features of the platform businesses that they are built to confront. Uber came into existence as a website and an app. And this is how a ride-sharing worker platform can originate. Uber’s profits grow as its user network grows. Worker platforms gain bargaining power as their worker networks expand.

Platform businesses feature low barriers to entry. It’s easy and free to sign up to Uber. A ride-sharing worker platform should copy this feature. It should not charge membership dues. Like many platform businesses, it will originate as a website that invites membership very broadly. If the platform business it confronts operates internationally, then the membership of the worker platform must be international too. It shouldn’t begin in a particular city and then look to expand. There are Uber drivers in Rabat, Reno, Riyadh, and Rome. The Internet is there too. A worker platform that responds to Uber must be equally available to drivers in all of those places. There are many differences between drivers in Rabat, Reno, Riyadh, and Rome, but if they are partners of Uber, there is likely to a shared concern about how much of the money paid by passengers trickles down to them.

Uber taxi ad by Alper Çuğun. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

Platform businesses keep their overheads low. So should worker platforms. They might launch themselves on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. There they would seek small sums of money sufficient to sustain a focused range of activities. Funding might come from angel investors. Here I mean genuinely “angel” investors, wealthy individuals worried about the effects of economic and technological dislocation on the bottom 90%, rather than those with narrow commercial interests in startup businesses. A worker platform represents the interests of workers most effectively by renouncing any interest in a piece of the action. There are many platform businesses seeking to monetize aspects of the way users interact with each other. The lack of any commercial interest should make the platform more appealing to workers. We expect politicians to be free of conflicting commercial interests. Workers should expect the same of a platform set up to represent them.

Low-overhead worker platforms must limit what they do. They cannot hope to do many of the things done by traditional unions. A ride-sharing worker platform will lack legal teams that can credibly threaten to take Uber to court. It cannot deal with individual complaints about ill treatment. Its central purpose is to get better deals for workers out of platform businesses.

Why should Uber listen to a ride-sharing worker platform? Historically this has been a big problem for unions. It’s difficult to argue for workers whose employer refuses to recognize you. Here again there are lessons from platform businesses. The value of a platform business lies principally in its network of users. And that is where the power of a worker platform lies. Uber won’t listen to a ride-sharing worker platform with ten members, but it should listen to one with ten thousand. A ride-sharing worker platform stands ready to talk to Uber –and to any incoming ride-sharing platform business that might offer drivers a better deal. It doesn’t rely on notions of fairness that are unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing from Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, a self-proclaimed devotee of Ayn Rand. The worker platform can use the power of its network to appeal to Kalanick’s self-interest. It offers something of great value to an Uber competitor prepared to offer workers a better deal – its entire membership as partners for the new business. Drivers don’t need to fight Uber, instead they can subvert it.

Uber is certainly not the only ride-sharing business. It faces competition from Lyft in the US and BlaBlaCar in Europe, for example. Left to their own devices businesses tend to conform to the ecological principle of competitive exclusion – they find different niches in the ride-sharing economy. Lyft places greater emphasis on community engagement. Uber owns the luxury car market. The interests of workers are best served when Uber and Lyft compete directly. A direct competitor is the ideal recipient of an ill-served worker network.

An emerging worker platform faces some of the same obstacles as a new platform business. It’s difficult for an emerging platform business to generate a critical mass of users. The value of a platform increases as the number of users increases. This makes it difficult for platform businesses to get started. A dating site with a million members is much more valuable than one with ten. The problem is how to get from ten to a million. Who wants to join a dating site with ten members? The growth strategy for an emerging worker platform is obvious; it knows exactly where to find its users. It parasitizes the membership of the platform business it seeks to confront. The common themes in driver complaints about Uber form the basis of its pitch.

A worker platform has low barriers to entry, but it requires some degree of commitment from its members. It shares this feature with platform businesses. You aren’t much use to Uber if you sign up, download its app, but never click on it. The ride-sharing worker platform needs something from its members too. Those members must show some interest in negotiations on their behalf. They must demonstrate some disposition to act on its advice and to switch partnership to new ride-sharing platform that offers workers a better deal. They should feel confident that many members of their worker platform will join them in making the switch. Those who negotiate for better deals need to credibly claim to Uber and competing businesses that drivers will accept their advice. Uber can’t really complain. The facility with which it sheds unwanted partners suggests a reciprocal freedom to find preferable ride-sharing platform businesses.

Membership of one worker platform does not preclude membership of others or indeed of a traditional union. In the gig economy workers are told that they must be prepared to take on many roles. They can drive for Uber in the morning and make deliveries for Taskrabbit in the evening. They would register with all of the worker platforms that represent their various gigs.

We’ve heard far too many stories about the billionaires made by the digital revolution. It’s time for a greater focus on how wealth can be spread around rather than allowed to pile up in the bank accounts of a few Internet-appointed masters of the universe.

Featured image credit: Uber app by freestocks.org. Public domain via Flickr.

The post How workers can get a better deal out of Uber appeared first on OUPblog.

How workers can get a better deal out of Uber?

Platform businesses are the current darlings of digital disruption. Uber, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, and their ilk dodge the overheads of traditional businesses. Their services are provided by private contractors and not by employees with all of their expensive entitlements. The platform business model has permitted Uber to rapidly acquire a market value in excess of the established corporate heavyweights 21st Century Fox and Ford. The news is not quite so good for Uber’s drivers – or, as Uber prefers – its “partners.” Investing in Uber may be a way to achieve great wealth. But partnering with it isn’t.

It’s pointless to demonize Uber. Indeed, we can be thankful for some of the things it has done. Uber has challenged complacent incumbents. It has brought cheaper rides and flexible employment. But these pluses don’t respond to the unfairness of Uber’s way of divvying up its wealth. Uber retains more than 20% of the money paid by passengers, leaving drivers to cover their expenses out of their end. It would be hard to imagine cardiac surgeons tolerating an arrangement in which a fifth of the value of their procedures went to the company providing what they would view as platform services.

One thing that Uber has taught us is that if a well-engineered platform business enters your industry and you confront it as an individual then you won’t do particularly well. The platform will suck up almost all of the additional wealth it helps to generate, leaving you with scraps. A problem is that unions, the historically most important instruments of worker protection, find themselves wrong-footed by the likes of Uber. Unions are a legacy of the Industrial Revolution purpose built for the factory floor. Platform businesses and the gig economy call for new ways to organize workers. They call for worker platforms that mirror key features of the platform businesses that they are built to confront. Uber came into existence as a website and an app. And this is how a ride-sharing worker platform can originate. Uber’s profits grow as its user network grows. Worker platforms gain bargaining power as their worker networks expand.

Platform businesses feature low barriers to entry. It’s easy and free to sign up to Uber. A ride-sharing worker platform should copy this feature. It should not charge membership dues. Like many platform businesses, it will originate as a website that invites membership very broadly. If the platform business it confronts operates internationally, then the membership of the worker platform must be international too. It shouldn’t begin in a particular city and then look to expand. There are Uber drivers in Rabat, Reno, Riyadh, and Rome. The Internet is there too. A worker platform that responds to Uber must be equally available to drivers in all of those places. There are many differences between drivers in Rabat, Reno, Riyadh, and Rome, but if they are partners of Uber, there is likely to a shared concern about how much of the money paid by passengers trickles down to them.

Uber taxi ad by Alper Çuğun. CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr.

Platform businesses keep their overheads low. So should worker platforms. It might launch itself on Kickstarter. They might launch themselves on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter. There they would seek small sums of money sufficient to sustain a focused range of activities. Funding might come from angel investors. Here I mean genuinely “angel” investors, wealthy individuals worried about the effects of economic and technological dislocation on the bottom 90%, rather than those with narrow commercial interests in startup businesses. A worker platform represents the interests of workers most effectively by renouncing any interest in a piece of the action. There are many platform businesses seeking to monetize aspects of the way users interact with each other. The lack of any commercial interest should make the platform more appealing to workers. We expect politicians to be free of conflicting commercial interests. Workers should expect the same of a platform set up to represent them.

Low-overhead worker platforms must limit what they do. They cannot hope to do many of the things done by traditional unions. A ride-sharing worker platform will lack legal teams that can credibly threaten to take Uber to court. It cannot deal with individual complaints about ill treatment. Its central purpose is to get better deals for workers out of platform businesses.

Why should Uber listen to a ride-sharing worker platform? Historically this has been a big problem for unions. It’s difficult to argue for workers whose employer refuses to recognize you. Here again there are lessons from platform businesses. The value of a platform business lies principally in its network of users. And that is where the power of a worker platform lies. Uber won’t listen to a ride-sharing worker platform with ten members, but it should listen to one with ten thousand. A ride-sharing worker platform stands ready to talk to Uber –and to any incoming ride-sharing platform business that might offer drivers a better deal. It doesn’t rely on notions of fairness that are unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing from Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, a self-proclaimed devotee of Ayn Rand. The worker platform can use the power of its network to appeal to Kalanick’s self-interest. It offers something of great value to an Uber competitor prepared to offer workers a better deal – its entire membership as partners for the new business. Drivers don’t need to fight Uber, instead they can subvert it.

Uber is certainly not the only ride-sharing business. It faces competition from Lyft in the US and BlaBlaCar in Europe, for example. Left to their own devices businesses tend to conform to the ecological principle of competitive exclusion – they find different niches in the ride-sharing economy. Lyft places greater emphasis on community engagement. Uber owns the luxury car market. The interests of workers are best served when Uber and Lyft compete directly. A direct competitor is the ideal recipient of an ill-served worker network.

An emerging worker platform faces some of the same obstacles as a new platform business. It’s difficult for an emerging platform business to generate a critical mass of users. The value of a platform increases as the number of users increases. This makes it difficult for platform businesses to get started. A dating site with a million members is much more valuable than one with ten. The problem is how to get from ten to a million. Who wants to join a dating site with ten members? The growth strategy for an emerging worker platform is obvious; it knows exactly where to find its users. It parasitizes the membership of the platform business it seeks to confront. The common themes in driver complaints about Uber form the basis of its pitch.

A worker platform has low barriers to entry, but it requires some degree of commitment from its members. It shares this feature with platform businesses. You aren’t much use to Uber if you sign up, download its app, but never click on it. The ride-sharing worker platform needs something from its members too. Those members must show some interest in negotiations on their behalf. They must demonstrate some disposition to act on its advice and to switch partnership to new ride-sharing platform that offers workers a better deal. They should feel confident that many members of their worker platform will join them in making the switch. Those who negotiate for better deals need to credibly claim to Uber and competing businesses that drivers will accept their advice. Uber can’t really complain. The facility with which it sheds unwanted partners suggests a reciprocal freedom to find preferable ride-sharing platform businesses.

Membership of one worker platform does not preclude membership of others or indeed of a traditional union. In the gig economy workers are told that they must be prepared to take on many roles. They can drive for Uber in the morning and make deliveries for Taskrabbit in the evening. They would register with all of the worker platforms that represent their various gigs.

We’ve heard far too many stories about the billionaires made by the digital revolution. It’s time for a greater focus on how wealth can be spread around rather than allowed to pile up in the bank accounts of a few Internet-appointed masters of the universe.

Featured image credit: Uber app by freestocks.org. Public domain via Flickr.

The post How workers can get a better deal out of Uber? appeared first on OUPblog.