Karl Marx defined the proletariat as laborers “unencumbered by any means of production” who were increasingly impoverished by the rise of machines. In that classic form, Marx’s favorite class doesn’t really exist in the rich world today, except in the so-called gig economy. Reports from the International Labor Organization and the JPMorgan Chase Institute describe the plight of different kinds of gig-economy workers who struggle to make even their countries’ minimum wage toiling for giant tech platforms.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-09-25/gig-economy-workers-are-last-of-marx-s-oppressed-proletarians