"Andy Merrifield’s The Amateur is a quite different beast. Merrifield is a leftwing “urbanist” whose thinking has been influenced both by obvious figures (Marx and Weber) and more unexpected ones (Baudelaire and Kafka). The Amateur is an old-style polemic arguing that many ills of the modern world (inequality, rising levels of stress and depression) stem from the increased specialisation of knowledge — or what Merrifield calls the “professional” mindset. He advocates instead a return to amateurism — which he defines as the pursuit of ideas for their own sake, and the freedom to roam promiscuously between disciplines."

See also this FT article on the 'gig economy'