Flexible Labor Is The Future

Flexible labor is the future for the basic reason that it is the only viable model going forward.

If we can’t go forward, then let’s go back: this is the guiding philosophy of the labor movement that seeks security via strict work rules. The premise here is simple: employers could provide their employees with secure employment if only they weren’t so greedy.

Unfortunately, it isn’t this simple. Even the most generous employers–for example, worker-owned co-ops and state-owned enterprises–must generate a profit that can be reinvested to replace obsolete equipment and boost productivity.

To get guaranteed employment security, you must first guarantee profits that can be reinvested to keep the enterprise afloat.

In today’s world of global competition and stagnation, guaranteed profits and guaranteed employment security are both scarce. What could be more guaranteed than profits from oil? Oops. How about offering ObamaCare/ACA health plans? Oops. It turns out profits, even in supposedly rock-solid industries, are not guaranteed.

As a result, the entire idea that employers facing a rocky, uncertain future can guarantee employees anything is nonsensical. Flexible labor is the future for the basic reason that it is the only viable model going forward.

Even the most secure employer–the government–will start shifting to flexible-labor models once local government revenues start drying up and generous salaries-pension-benefits packages become unaffordable.

Rather than attempting to go back to a model that has evaporated, we have to move forward to a model in which employment security is not based on any employer. I sketch out just such a model in my book A Radically Beneficial World.

The insanity of basing employees’ security on any employer’s ability to permanently navigate increasingly treacherous waters is a core reason why healthcare in the U.S. is a mess: the obvious solution is a system in which employees have health coverage regardless of the financial health and stability of their employer of the moment.