HOW JOBS HAVE CHANGED
Today we take for granted what a job should be. You show up at a certain time and have a boss. They tell you what to do, and in exchange, you are paid in both cash and benefits. They offer security and a lifestyle.
We spend most of our waking hours at work, with our coworkers and bosses. Our employers bear lots of the risk we face. They pay us when we are sick, offer health and disability insurance and don’t cut our wages in disappointing years (unless things go badly for a long time. Then, they might lay us off.)
This arrangement works pretty well, though it had a rocky start. The early days of industrialisation featured displacement and terrible, dangerous working conditions.
As much as we complain today, work has become better, more secure and safer thanks to a confluence of factors: a rising middle class, pressure from unions, the quirks of the tax code and more infrastructure to support activities, such as commuting to work.
It wasn’t always this way. For most of human history, we worked at or near home, often alone or with a few people we knew well, on our own time. That changed with the industrial economy, which required large numbers of workers in one place at the same time.
The first hundred years of industrialisation were rough. People were used to the autonomy of working for themselves. Being forced to go somewhere else, be there all day and take orders was considered demeaning. It is one reason why factories initially hired women and children. It is also why we have universal school, to condition workers to take orders and show up on time.
A boss became the norm. Self-employment and entrepreneurship became less common – until recently. Things started to change in the years before the pandemic, and they changed a lot during the early 2020s.