The passion economy is a trap

There’s been a succession of labor models, from knowledge economy to gig economy to passion economy. Each new model brings simultaneously a greater and a more invisible exploitation and inequality.

In the passion economy, the keyword is individual creativity: make money of your distinct skills, talents, and knowledge. Top earning writers on Substack are earning half a million dollars a month, so can you!

But the dream of creative and intellectual autonomy is as false as it’s attractive. Just as Uber drivers have to work an ever-increasing number of hours to make a living, while Uber takes home an ever-increasing cut, turning one’s passion into livelihood is self-exploitation. Workers who sell their passion — the so-called cognitariat in place of the unskilled proletariat — and capitalists who own means of production — VC-based companies like Substack — are deemed to have an antagonistic relationship as the new sources of creation of wealth.

In the past, workers sold their labor; now passion workers sell their imagination and creativity. And while top writers on Substack can indeed amass a considerable profit, Substack itself, and venture capitalists who invested in it, amasses infinitely more. The passion labor model is a further economic reorientation towards privileged sectors of society, based on credentials, not salary. In the same way…