As Urban Company launches its Insta Help programme promising rapid home maid services, questions arise about the implications of worker exploitation and the true cost of convenience in today’s capitalist society
Urban Company, formerly known as UrbanClap, has launched its new pilot programme, Insta Help, aimed at revolutionising home services. Previously known as Insta Maids, this service now promises to deliver home maid services in just 15 minutes. With this, Urban Company seeks to address the increasing demand for quick, reliable, and hassle-free domestic assistance, ensuring that busy individuals can effortlessly maintain clean and organised homes. Some see it as the modern social trend as “technologia”, and some see it as a capitalistic revolution to ease our lives and assist those in need. Is it the whole picture? No, I believe. The entire picture is hidden behind the well-fantasised, psychologically appealing advertisements and start-ups, and it is something that we call modern-day slavery.
Modern socialisation has, no doubt, helped us to integrate all the levels of institutions of our social structure in various forms. One example is the “instahelp” service, which has integrated the domestic workers’ force into the mainstream, but at the expense of what? It may look to us that “Instahelp” has eased life in urban hubs, as well as helping those in need of jobs. However, the cultivation of this capitalistic start-up is harbouring the old slavery as modern-day slavery. Long before, humanity faced itself in the chains, and today, it is in the chains of profit margins of start-ups. Yesterday, I was a Chattel Slavery; I fought and transitioned from that phase. Today, they manifested it by polishing them in various forms, one of which is InstaHelp. Slavery was never abolished; rather, it has redefined itself in newer forms. One of which is in the form of worker exploitation.
For 2023-24, the average monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) in urban India is estimated at Rs 6,996, according to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) conducted by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). Now imagine a worker working under this company for 24 days a month for about 5 hours @ 49/hour a day will earn about 5880 rupees per month, which doesn’t fall under the average MPCE of 6996. Our society has been on the path of development, including our social institutions, but it is our material conditions in life that determine our consciousness. A person ready to work at this rate doesn’t mean they accept it, but as Marx argued in ‘‘German Ideology’’, it is not consciousness that determines life, but it is your material condition in your life that determines your consciousness. This exploitation is not only profound in the markets, but the very human nature has been restricted to this notion of self-interested and self-centric individuals. It has caused humans to constantly demand more and more, and there is no end to these wants. There is only one element that differentiates humans from animals, i.e. consciousness, the ability to think critically. And thus, if one loses this human ability, it is just another form of slavery that capitalism has produced.
At this juncture, there have been a lot of cries from the unions and other activists, but it needs a look from the government agencies and civil societies. As the Indian constitution integrates the principle of economic justice, it shouldn’t be merely on paper, but it should be integrated into the policy framework of the nation. India lacks a uniform national minimum wage, apart from other steps taken by other nations concerning the domestic workforce. Well, the fabric of capitalism is densely packed with complexities and conspiracies that have taken their roots in our international economic model, social institutions and political institutions.
Describing historical context accurately and understanding what is happening at a given spatial and temporal location is a fundamental prerequisite for good writing. The root cause of the worker’s exploitation is not a lack of unions or activism but the very embedded structure in which we, our intrinsic human nature, and our existence lie. It should be at the helm of our Social Consciousness rather than within the limits of unions and social activism.
The social revolution of philosophers and social theorists has been at the very end of this struggle. Our moral values and norms have been demoralised and devalued due to the lack of social consciousness. At this very juncture of time, we should educate ourselves and others about the working of our material conditioning and how this has been violated by the multi-national Companies (MNCs) and Global corporations. It is not “they” but “we” who can challenge and break this system of modern slavery by acting and choosing consciously; it is we who are responsible for “we” and who account for this fabric. If we act rightly now by using our choices and social consciousness, we can rebuild our society on the values of a sound foundation and judgments rather than on the vulnerability of being exploited by ourselves. Today, it is domestic workers; tomorrow, it can be us. So, the choice remains ours to act, to choose, to rebuild and to strive.
In conclusion, this opinion wants to explain the workings of our system. We should not allow others to be our masters; rather, we should be the masters of our actions and choices, particularly our consciousness. In the forthcoming world of affairs, the power dynamics of the social structure will entail social consciousness, the whole foundation of our moral values, social development, and the functioning of power today reside in social consciousness.
As of now, social consciousness has been a tool of the larger interest groups of our society, but it is rebounding in the structure, bypassing the larger interest groups and leading to the minority hands such as Global corporations and international mafias. In essence, the above statement suggests that as power dynamics become more complex and visible, there will be a greater need for individuals to be aware of their place within society and the impact of social structures on their lives.
The writer is a student at the Department of Philosophy at Aligarh Muslim University. He works on public policy and governance. He can be reached at www.linkedin.com/in/aawani2000
Arooj Ahmad Wani
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