Cooperation, automation and liberation: the future of work in the 2020s.

Welcome to New World Same Humans, a weekly newsletter on trends, technology, and society by David Mattin.

?? If you’d prefer to listen to this week’s instalment, go here for the audio version of New World Same Humans #30. ??

Two weeks ago, a California judge delivered a pretty monumental ruling on Uber and its relationship to its drivers. So this week: reflections on the future of work.

Specifically, on why I think we might be about to see the rise of a thousand Hype House-type collectives: for accountants, journalists, designers and more. And why we could finally realise the promise of co-operative gig economy platforms.

As always, treat the Fast Download as the default read. If you’re as obsessed by the future of work as I am, dive into the essay for the full details.

I’ll be back on Wednesday with the second New Week Same Humans: news and super-fast analysis.

But now, let’s work this essay.

?? Fast Download: Work is Dead, Long Live Work!

?? Pandemics change the calculus when it comes to work. In the 14th-century the Black Death made human labour scarce, and so sparked the end of the feudal system. This pandemic raises its own questions about the future of work. Three welcome developments are possible. The rise of co-operative gig economy platforms. New collectives of independent knowledge workers. A historic change in the terms of the employer/employee relationship.

?? Workers have taken a hit across the last four decades. Some context. Neoliberals sought to tilt bargaining power away from workers and towards corporations and other employers. It worked. Today, workers in most affluent countries take a smaller share of national income, and work has become more precarious. But now this settlement could be broken.

?? Co-operative platforms are coming (at last). Let’s look first at the gig economy. New York and California judges both recently ruled that Uber should treat drivers as employees. Meanwhile, No Code tools mean the creation of a sharing economy platform is now non-technical, near-instant, and free. This is a huge deal: cost and technical capacity have been a moat protecting the sharing economy giants. The door is now open for a thousand and more local, pop-up, co-operative sharing economy platforms, which see workers share profits.

?? Knowledge economy Hype Houses will make sense in the 2020s. The pandemic has made a whole lot of marketers, accountants, journalists and more unemployed. Many won’t find new jobs quickly. Some, instead, will turn to new and online models of independent work. Eventually, these independent knowledge workers will come together in local collectives that provide office space, insurance, and other benefits. YouTube creators have the Hype House. Think a Hype House for accountants, marketers, or HR professionals.

??? These changes could spark a broader movement for reform. Yes, many people will remain in traditional, salaried employment. But could the changes outlined above lay the groundwork for a broader political reform of the relationship between employers and workers? New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern recently floated the idea of a four-day work week.

?? Work is dead; long live work. These scenarios are possible, but far from inevitable. One trend we can be more sure about: we’re building automated economies that can serve human needs while requiring ever-less human input. This imposes two imperatives. First, in an automated economy creativity is the most valuable human attribute. We should redesign the education of our children around creativity. Second, we should decouple work and economic recognition. A living wage should be a function of personhood, not work. That doesn’t have to mean the end of enterprise. It can mean a redefinition of work, and a world in which everyone, finally, is free to share their spirit and creativity with those around them.

?? Pandemics change the calculus when it comes to work

Pandemics cause economic mutation. Historically, foremost among those mutations has been a shift in the relationship between labour and the broader economy.

In the mid 14th-century the Black Death reduced Europe’s population by two-thirds. At a stroke human labour was scare. Agrarian labourers renegotiated terms with their landlords, and the centuries old feudal system – in which peasants were tied to the tiny patch of land they farmed on behalf of their lord – was broken. A bacterium that no one could see, let alone understand, had ended the old world and fired the beginnings of the new.

Thankfully, this pandemic isn’t the same. Still, the coronavirus is posing its own compelling questions about the future of work. So far the conversation has revolved around unemployment and new possibilities for remote working. But I wonder if this moment has laid the foundations of a deeper shift. That is, a new reassertion of labour power, and a renegotiation in which workers are able to reclaim the upper hand.

I think there is a chance for three welcome developments:

• The rise, at last, of co-operative gig economy platforms
• New collectives of independent knowledge and creative workers
• A historic change in the terms of the employer/employee relationship

?? Workers have taken a hit across the last four decades

First, some context.

In affluent countries the share of the economic pie going to workers has been trending downwards for more than three decades. The breaking of labour power was a central tenet of the 1980s neoliberal revolution enacted by Thatcher and Reagan, who made reforms intended to tilt bargaining power towards corporations and other employers.

It worked. In the US in 1980, around 62% of national income went to workers; by 2018 that had fallen to around 56%. The west has been getting richer but its workers have not; most of the gains have gone to corporate profits and the top 1%.

Meanwhile, work has become more precarious for millions. The UK gig economy more than doubled in size between 2016 and 2019, and now accounts for over 4.7 million workers.

In short: the last four decades have been an Age of Capital. Workers have taken a hit.

But now, the pandemic is colliding with technological and social change in ways that could break this settlement.

?? Co-operative platforms are coming (at last)

Look, first, at the gig economy. Legal headwinds and technological change are creating the conditions in which a new ecosystem can bloom.

Uber has spent hundreds of millions around the world fighting legal battles to prevent drivers from being classed as employees. But the pandemic is accelerating a legal pushback. In June a New York federal judge ruled that the state must pay drivers unemployment benefits during the pandemic, in a ruling that supported the idea that Uber does employ its drivers. And in August a California judge gave Uber and Lyft two weeks to reclassify drivers as employees. The ruling is being appealed.

Another shift could be even more consequential.

Back to those judgements for a moment. When the California ruling was announced, the most common criticism of it ran along these lines: what about the benefits to workers of the gig economy? Some drivers value the freedom to work whenever they want. What about those who can’t find another source of income? If these rulings take Uber down, it’s those drivers who will be hurt the most! If some people are happy to drive on the terms as they exist now, why should we interfere?

It’s true that the gig economy does make possible new and more flexible forms of work, and that’s great. The problem has never been with the gig economy. Only with the current model, which sees a handful of vampiric Silicon Valley giants suck all the value out of the system.

What Uber and its advocates conveniently ignore is that it’s perfectly possible to have the wonderful freedoms of the gig economy, without having to strike a deal with the Vampire. We all know how: via co-operative platforms established and owned by the workers themselves. Think an Uber owned by the drivers. An Airbnb owned by the hosts.

So far, none have taken off. The cost, time, and technical capacity needed to build a competitor platform have been prohibitive. They have acted as a moat around the business of sharing economy giants.

But now, that is changing. The last couple of years have seen the quiet maturation of the No Code movement. New tools allow non-technical people to build sophisticated web and mobile apps that only a few years ago would have needed a team of developers. In future, tools such as GPT-3 – which writes code based on natural language instructions – will further commoditise the technology needed to run a sharing economy platform.

This is a huge deal for the sharing economy. That basis of that economy is nothing more or less than platforms that allow people with to connect with people who need. Once the creation of these platforms becomes non-technical, near-instant, and free, everything changes.

In the 2020s, I think we’ll see the blossoming of a thousand and more local, sometimes pop-up, sometimes informal co-operative gig economy platforms. Profits will be shared. Drivers and delivery riders will give themselves insurance, sick pay and benefits. Because these platforms can be hyper-local, they can be more responsive to the needs of customers.

No one gets to be a billionaire. Workers win; vampires lose.

?? Knowledge economy Hype Houses will make sense in the 2020s

The chance for a reassertion of labour power goes beyond the gig economy. It extends to various kinds of knowledge and creative workers, too.

New technologies and globalisation have helped hollow out the professional middle class in affluent countries. But they have also created new ways for individual knowledge workers to provide their services, find customers, and get paid. This is rise of the Passion Economy, written about by Adam Davidson and others.

Now, the pandemic has made a whole lot of marketers, accountants, journalists and more unemployed. Many won’t find new jobs quickly. Some, instead, will turn to independent work and one-person businesses, run from their homes on the outskirts of major city centres.

Huge opportunities exist to serve this new army of independent workers. We’re going to see the rise of new platforms that allow these people to connect and collaborate, inform and inspire one another.

Imagine a platform that allows, say, a freelance marketer to connect to other marketing professionals in her neighbourhood. Eventually, one says: ‘hey, I have spare room in my house, why don’t we all gather here to work tomorrow?’ The group grows; they club together to hire a local space. Next they create a shared piggybank for insurance and other expenses. Jane, who works in marketing for a big brand, looks at this arrangement with increasing envy. She works from home anyway, and the brand doesn’t pay her that well. Maybe she should jump ship, go independent, and join the local collective?

In the 2020s, these kinds of knowledge worker collectives will make sense for rising numbers of people. We’ve watched (and laughed) as hip YouTube creators form collectives such as the infamous Hype House. Now, expect a thousand Hype Houses for local accountants, HR professionals, or Etsy sellers.

Independent knowledge and creative workers of the world, unite!

??? These changes could spark a broader movement for reform

Not all jobs are amenable to this kind of change. You can’t have a Hype House for independent nurses, train drivers, or security guards. Many people will remain in traditional, salaried employment.

But I wonder if the shifts outlined above can set the stage for a realignment of terms even when it comes to this kind of work.

How might that play out?

As independent knowledge and creative work becomes more viable, employers may be forced to offer middle-class professionals better terms. What changes would be on the shopping list? Think a four-day work week. More flexibility when it comes to working hours, and working from home. Profit-share arrangements as standard. Childcare services as standard. 

Could that, in turn, spark a movement for change that encompasses all employees?

In the end, that would mean a political shift that redraws the balance of power between workers and employers. Is such a shift possible? Not so long ago, the idea that the leader of an industrialised nation might float a four-day work week would have seemed ridiculous. But New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern recently did just that.

?? Work is dead; long live work

Critics might say all this amounts to so much wishful thinking.

The changes I’ve outlined here make for one set of scenarios. I contend that they are possible; they are not inevitable. We could end up in a much different, and far darker, place.

But underlying all this is a single and powerful trend that we can be more certain about.

We’re building automated economies that can serve human needs while requiring ever-less human input. That is the central and unavoidable trend governing the future of work. And it imposes two imperatives.

First, in a world of automated value creation, what use are humans? A huge part of the answer is creativity: many more people than ever before will make a living entertaining, inspiring, and just generally being with others.

The British educationalist Ken Robinson died two weeks ago. In an iconic TED talk, widely shared after his death, he argued that we must re-design the education of our children around the 21st-century economy’s need for creativity above all else.

Second, we need to accept that in future millions won’t find a place within the traditional economy. We does this mean?

We should embrace the decoupling of work from economic recognition. In the 21st-century I think we’ll come to believe that the right to a living wage is a function simply of personhood, and not of work. This idea still seems strange to us, and even makes some people angry. But I think its victory is inevitable in the long term. We are all the inheritors of the technological and economic legacy that makes automated output possible. We all deserve, at some minimum level, to share in that output.

In this world, work as we know it today might fade away for most people.

It doesn’t have to mean the end of enterprise. If you want more than your minimum share, go ahead: start a business, succeed, get rich.

Nor does it have to mean the end of structured action, purpose, and the dignity that goes with it.

It can, instead, allow us to redefine work in fruitful ways: work as care, truthfulness, beauty, being there for one another. It could finally liberate us into a world in which all, and not just a lucky few, are able share their spirit and their most authentic selves with those around them.

Work it

Thanks for reading this week.

The world of work is changing fast, and recentering around creativity, community and care. That shift will impact us all in the years ahead. So what to do?

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See you next week,

David.

David Mattin sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Consumption.