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krdavis's avatar

Market structural features may explain the switching, particularly:

1. High numbers on both sides of the market with low switching costs. This frothiness enables frequent switching.2. Low trust, resulting in...3. ...One-way or mutual exploitation

I've gone into more detail in a Wordpress 'Responsicle' outlining how this might work, and using the labor and dating markets in NYC as examples: https://responsicles.wordpr...

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ColtInn's avatar

I agree on the carrots and sticks point.

I'm not so sure about the seasonal mass firing. It's difficult to imagine land owners not competing with each other for the best workers.

Maybe it was in fact the just the management culture, or maybe the workers played a big role. It's difficult to say from the passage Robin posted, as it contains seemingly contradictory clauses. You read "The people we are concerned with did not feel this instability as some kind of oppression or alienation. On the contrary, the migrant shepard changed his master more often than his shirt!" as the master's creating the instability, emphasizing the first sentence. I read the second sentence as meaning that the workers voluntarily changed their masters often (and that there was no oppression precisely because it was voluntary).

Robin says that in the text it is clear that the job leaving was initiated by the workers. I haven't read it, but it seems like the more likely scenario to me.

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