In the fight to regulate the gig economy, unions, workers, and their allies have only fought half the battle: they have tried to defend the definition of employment against technology-enabled erosion. Antitrust prohibitions against vertical restraints, which prevent firms from exercising control in the absence of an employment relationship, offer a complementary strategy to address the threat posed to workers by the gig economy.

This post, an exchange between Andrew Hart, Marshall Steinbaum, and Daniel Markovits, continues their debate from our March 2020 series discussing The Meritocracy Trap.

Marshall Steinbaum and Andrew Hart argue that Professor Markovits' The Meritocracy Trap omits capitalists from the story in part by relying too heavily on the flawed theory of human capital.