Dynamics of the Working-Class Authoritarianism and Power Relations in the GIG Economy Indonesia
Main Article Content
Abstract
This study examines the dynamics of working-class authoritarianism and power relations in Indonesia’s gig economy, with a focus on online transportation workers. The research addresses the paradox of why workers positioned in vulnerable and exploitative labor structures often accept platform domination and resist collective opposition. Using a qualitative phenomenological approach, data were collected through in-depth interviews, participatory observation, and documentation involving nine informants from government and private-sector backgrounds. The findings show that the relationship between digital platforms and workers is structurally asymmetrical, despite being framed as an equal partnership. Platforms exercise control through algorithms, incentives, ratings, and sanctions, while workers remain economically dependent on the system. The study also finds that ideological hegemony operates through narratives of flexibility, independence, and digital entrepreneurship, which normalize inequality and weaken critical class consciousness. In this context, working-class authoritarianism emerges as a psychosocial response to economic insecurity and the need for stability. The study concludes that domination in the gig economy is sustained not only through technological and economic control, but also through the production of consent. These findings highlight the need for stronger labor protection and the development of workers’ critical awareness in the digital economy.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
References
Acevedo, D. Das. (2022). Freedom at work inside and outside the gig economy. In The Routledge Handbook of the Anthropology of Labor (pp. 233–242). Routledge.
Akarsu, T. (2025). Older Adults and Gray Employment. In Informal Work and the Protection of Social Rights: The Gray Areas of Employment (pp. 55–78). IGI Global Scientific Publishing.
Aksakallı, A. (2025). Beyond the Third Way-Reconstructing Class Consciousness through Marxist Educational Theory. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS), 22(3).
Alonso, L. E., & Rodríguez, C. J. F. (2023). The emergent challenges of contemporary capitalist models and practices: the dynamics of the platform and gig economy and its social consequences for industrial relations in Southern Europe. In Work and Employment Relations in Southern Europe (pp. 163–187). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Bonina, C., Koskinen, K., Eaton, B., & Gawer, A. (2021). Digital platforms for development: Foundations and research agenda. Information Systems Journal, 31(6), 869–902.
Brown, W. (2025). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity.
Cheng, L., Wei, X., Li, M., Tan, C., Yin, M., Shen, T., & Zou, T. (2024). Integrating evolutionary game-theoretical methods and deep reinforcement learning for adaptive strategy optimization in user-side electricity markets: A comprehensive review. Mathematics, 12(20), 3241.
Cheok, A. D. (2024). The Convergence of Traditionalism and Populism in American Politics: From Bannon to Trump: From Bannon to Trump. IGI Global.
Chukwu, A. U., Emerole, B. O., Dialoke, I., Emerole, G. A., & Oko-Isu, A. (2025). Power dynamics, informal labor, and workforce management in small-scale enterprises: analyzing employment relations through regulatory and sociocultural lenses. Future Business Journal, 11(1), 208.
Cole, M. (2022). Social class, neoliberal capitalism and the Marxist alternative. In Education, equality and human rights (pp. 257–284). Routledge.
Cutolo, D., & Kenney, M. (2021). Platform-dependent entrepreneurs: Power asymmetries, risks, and strategies in the platform economy. Academy of Management Perspectives, 35(4), 584–605.
Disch, L. J. (2021). Making constituencies: Representation as mobilization in mass democracy. University of Chicago Press.
Eaosinsup, D., & Kulachai, W. (2025). Decoding trust: How transparency, political stability, and leadership shape public confidence in government institutions. วารสาร การ บริหาร การ จัดการ และ การ พัฒนา ที่ ยั่งยืน, 3(1), 258–271.
Gaudio, G. (2021). Algorithmic bosses can’t lie! How to foster transparency and limit abuses of the new algorithmic managers. Comp. Lab. L. & Pol’y J., 42, 707.
Ghosh, A., Ramachandran, R., & Zaidi, M. (2021). Women workers in the gig economy in India: An exploratory study. Available at SSRN 3944205.
Gramsci, A. (1999). Intellectuals and hegemony. Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings, 29.
Gramsci, A. (2024). Prison notebooks-Gramsci. Lebooks Editora.
Grimm, J. J. (2022). Contested legitimacies: repression and revolt in post-revolutionary Egypt. Amsterdam University Press.
Hall, S. (2024). Culture, the media and the ‘ideological effect.’ In New critical writings in political sociology (pp. 341–374). Routledge.
Hall, S., Lumley, R., & McLennan, G. (2013). Politics and ideology: Gramsci. In On ideology (pp. 45–76). Routledge.
Halliday, D. (2021). On the (mis) classification of paid labor: When should gig workers have employee status? Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 20(3), 229–250.
Hickson, J. (2024). Freedom, domination and the gig economy. New Political Economy, 29(2), 321–336.
Hornung, S., Höge, T., & Unterrainer, C. (2021). Ideologies at work in organizations: An emerging critical perspective and reflexive research agenda. Eurasian Business Perspectives: Proceedings of the 29th Eurasia Business and Economics Society Conference, 165–182.
Kapadia, S. (2025). The Historical Architecture of US Hegemony: Trump’s Second Term and the Evolution of Coercive Power.
Kast, E. J. (2021). Capitalism and the Logic of Deservingness: Understanding Meritocracy through Political Economy. Aberystwyth University.
Kougiannou, N. K., & Mendonça, P. (2021). Breaking the managerial silencing of worker voice in platform capitalism: The rise of a food courier network. British Journal of Management, 32(3), 744–759.
Kuhn, K. M., Meijerink, J., & Keegan, A. (2021). Human resource management and the gig economy: Challenges and opportunities at the intersection between organizational HR decision-makers and digital labor platforms.
Lipset, S. M. (2000). The indispensability of political parties. Journal of Democracy, 11(1), 48–55.
Maccarrone, V., Cini, L., & Tassinari, A. (2023). Resistance and struggle in the gig economy. In Handbook of research on the global political economy of work (pp. 360–370). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Marginson, S. (2023). Hegemonic ideas are not always right: on the definition of’internationalisation’of higher education.
Möhlmann, M., Zalmanson, L., Henfridsson, O., & Gregory, R. W. (2021). Algorithmic management of work on online labor platforms: When matching meets control. MIS Quarterly, 45(4), 1999–2022.
Montgomery, T., & Baglioni, S. (2021). Defining the gig economy: platform capitalism and the reinvention of precarious work. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 41(9–10), 1012–1025.
Ness, I., Ovetz, R., Roque, I., Swidler, E.-M., & Zwick, A. (2023). The Routledge handbook of the gig economy. Routledge London.
Nordlinger, E. A. (2021). The working-class Tories: authority, deference and stable democracy. University of California Press.
Osborne, D., Costello, T. H., Duckitt, J., & Sibley, C. G. (2023). The psychological causes and societal consequences of authoritarianism. Nature Reviews Psychology, 2(4), 220–232.
Osman, S. (2025). Taking consent for granted: A case for rethinking hegemony. Thesis Eleven, 187(1), 116–127.
Pahwa, M., Cavanagh, A., & Vanstone, M. (2023). Key informants in applied qualitative health research. Qualitative Health Research, 33(14), 1251–1261.
Parker, S. K., & Grote, G. (2022). Automation, algorithms, and beyond: Why work design matters more than ever in a digital world. Applied Psychology, 71(4), 1171–1204.
Pringle, T. P. (2021). The tech ecosystem and the colony. Heliotrope Journal, 12.
Putra, A. P., Astuti, S. J. W., & Ibrahim, K. H. (2024). Unconditional Cash Transfer Policy as an Effort to Prevent Stunting: A Study On Jember, East Java. BISNIS & BIROKRASI: Jurnal Ilmu Administrasi Dan Organisasi, 31(3), 153–165.
Rahman, H. A., Karunakaran, A., & Cameron, L. D. (2024). Taming platform power: Taking accountability into account in the management of platforms. Academy of Management Annals, 18(1), 251–294.
Rainone, S. (2022). Labour rights beyond employment status: insights from the Competition Law Guidelines on collective bargaining. In Defining and protecting autonomous work: a multidisciplinary approach (pp. 167–191). Springer.
Reiche, B. S. (2023). Between interdependence and autonomy: Toward a typology of work design modes in the new world of work. Human Resource Management Journal, 33(4), 1001–1017.
Seo, K., Fels, S., Kang, M., Jung, C., & Ryu, H. (2021). Goldilocks conditions for workplace gamification: How narrative persuasion helps manufacturing workers create self-directed behaviors. Human–Computer Interaction, 36(5–6), 473–510.
Sivonen, S., & Heikkilä, R. (2024). Exploring the limits and boundaries between cultural practices and political values in contemporary Finland. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 11(1), 101–123.
Srnicek, N. (2021). Value, rent and platform capitalism. In Work and labour relations in global platform capitalism (pp. 29–45). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Tirapani, A. N., & Willmott, H. (2023). Revisiting conflict: Neoliberalism at work in the gig economy. Human Relations, 76(1), 53–86.
Tolba, H. (2021). How the gig-economy is reshaping the world labor market. Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education (TURCOMAT), 12(6), 5246–5261.
Xu, Z., Wang, Y., & Qian, Y. (2025). The design and application of in-depth interviews in primary care research. Chinese General Practice Journal, 2(2), 100062.
Yao, Y. (2022). One foot in the online gig economy: Coping with a splitting professional identity. Journal of Professions and Organization, 9(3), 273–290.
Zlatanovic, S. S., & Ostojic, I. (2021). Labour law status of platform workers-between autonomy and subordination. Regional L. Rev., 269.