It appears you are a prophet. This actually gives me a bit of hope for the future.
On the other hand, there is a substantial portion of the population who don't have the motivation or intelligence to be independent contractors. Perhaps they can again be farm hands. But some of us are just born to be employees.
A matter of percentages. Question is whether the % of employees is higher than optimal. I suspect it is. There were employees and hierarchies during preindustrial times. Just not as many.
Just not as many.? Every social/economic structure is and has been hierarchical in some fashion. Numerically there were fewer, just because there way fewer people, but %-age wise? Certainly, the degree of self-sufficiency has changed, along with the nature of its fragility. And I think the 21st century "independent" contractor is even more faceless and disposable.
Yes, percentage-wise. Absolutely. Plenty of people worked for others, but in much smaller organizations. Military and diplomatic organizations were multi-layered, but not too much outside of that. Royal kitchens were exceptions. In her book, Cuisine and Empire, Rachel Laudan wrote: “Until a couple of hundred years ago, palace kitchen complexes were huge, staffed by hundreds or even thousands of bureaucrats, cooks of different ranks and specialties, baker, and scullery workers. It is not unreasonable to think of these kitchens as the first big manufacturing enterprises, carrying out the food processing that today is done in factories as well as preparing meals.” It's not till the Industrial Revolution, c.1800, that bureaucratic organizations became widespread.
Just thinking in terms of overall social economic hierarchies, rather than the narrower view of employer-employee relations--certainly a quite different perspective, but the latter is downstream of the former.
Here's a comment from my friend and colleague, Don Boudreaux. Great little 5-minute video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FSnvtcEbg. Midway through, Don says of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath: "We've transitioned from each of us doing many things to each of us doing one thing. Having a job only makes sense in a modern world where each individual typically does only one type of work."
A few comments/questions on the fertility issue.1) would be curious to know who the unmarried remote women are marrying. School and work are traditionally where most people meet spouses. If these women are working remotely, where are they meeting their spouses? Online? And are they indeed marrying or are they just more interested in getting married? 2) while it’s nice to have more women interested in getting pregnant, is it really societally important that more women over 35 or 39 be more interested? I would love to hear instead that more women over 25 embrace fertility.
Good question. One of my other speculations is that remote work and remote education may lead to a decline in relocations and more durable hometown bonds. I left the vicinity of my home town three times to advance my education and career. Given the world we live in, I have no regrets about those choices, but they came with serious costs. We left behind a huge network of friends when we left Richmond, Virginia, and moved 100 miles northward in 2007. We left behind a religious congregation that we truly enjoyed and have never found a satisfactory replacement after our move. I'm 69 and have friends in the Richmond area whom I have known since birth, and whose friendship I cherish, but I rarely see them. When my mother's generation came up three decades before mine, they tended to stay put. Lots of them married people whom they knew through elementary and high school, fellow members of their religious congregations, volunteer organizations, etc. This also tended to bond the families together in extended families. Today, we tend to marry people from college or work because all our other networks have atrophied--the problem described by Robert D. Putnam in "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community." I'm betting that the lost habit of marrying locals is on the upswing--along with online meetings. And yes, I think having women 35-39 getting pregnant is important--at least over the next generation when many waited. (My wife and I had our son when she was in that range, and our lives have been infinitely richer for his existence. And as we head into our later years, his presence is an immense comfort to us.) But yes, getting back to 25-year-olds starting families would be a welcome change. ... Thanks for asking, as I am now going to copy and paste this reply and use it in an upcoming essay. :)
To be optimistic, perhaps work at home women marrying local spouses rather than work related spouses is a sign that status based spousal selection is on its way out. That would be nice. Maybe they are choosing a person rather than a business card.
It appears you are a prophet. This actually gives me a bit of hope for the future.
On the other hand, there is a substantial portion of the population who don't have the motivation or intelligence to be independent contractors. Perhaps they can again be farm hands. But some of us are just born to be employees.
A matter of percentages. Question is whether the % of employees is higher than optimal. I suspect it is. There were employees and hierarchies during preindustrial times. Just not as many.
Just not as many.? Every social/economic structure is and has been hierarchical in some fashion. Numerically there were fewer, just because there way fewer people, but %-age wise? Certainly, the degree of self-sufficiency has changed, along with the nature of its fragility. And I think the 21st century "independent" contractor is even more faceless and disposable.
Yes, percentage-wise. Absolutely. Plenty of people worked for others, but in much smaller organizations. Military and diplomatic organizations were multi-layered, but not too much outside of that. Royal kitchens were exceptions. In her book, Cuisine and Empire, Rachel Laudan wrote: “Until a couple of hundred years ago, palace kitchen complexes were huge, staffed by hundreds or even thousands of bureaucrats, cooks of different ranks and specialties, baker, and scullery workers. It is not unreasonable to think of these kitchens as the first big manufacturing enterprises, carrying out the food processing that today is done in factories as well as preparing meals.” It's not till the Industrial Revolution, c.1800, that bureaucratic organizations became widespread.
Just thinking in terms of overall social economic hierarchies, rather than the narrower view of employer-employee relations--certainly a quite different perspective, but the latter is downstream of the former.
Yup!
Here's a comment from my friend and colleague, Don Boudreaux. Great little 5-minute video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9FSnvtcEbg. Midway through, Don says of the Industrial Revolution and its aftermath: "We've transitioned from each of us doing many things to each of us doing one thing. Having a job only makes sense in a modern world where each individual typically does only one type of work."
A
A few comments/questions on the fertility issue.1) would be curious to know who the unmarried remote women are marrying. School and work are traditionally where most people meet spouses. If these women are working remotely, where are they meeting their spouses? Online? And are they indeed marrying or are they just more interested in getting married? 2) while it’s nice to have more women interested in getting pregnant, is it really societally important that more women over 35 or 39 be more interested? I would love to hear instead that more women over 25 embrace fertility.
Good question. One of my other speculations is that remote work and remote education may lead to a decline in relocations and more durable hometown bonds. I left the vicinity of my home town three times to advance my education and career. Given the world we live in, I have no regrets about those choices, but they came with serious costs. We left behind a huge network of friends when we left Richmond, Virginia, and moved 100 miles northward in 2007. We left behind a religious congregation that we truly enjoyed and have never found a satisfactory replacement after our move. I'm 69 and have friends in the Richmond area whom I have known since birth, and whose friendship I cherish, but I rarely see them. When my mother's generation came up three decades before mine, they tended to stay put. Lots of them married people whom they knew through elementary and high school, fellow members of their religious congregations, volunteer organizations, etc. This also tended to bond the families together in extended families. Today, we tend to marry people from college or work because all our other networks have atrophied--the problem described by Robert D. Putnam in "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community." I'm betting that the lost habit of marrying locals is on the upswing--along with online meetings. And yes, I think having women 35-39 getting pregnant is important--at least over the next generation when many waited. (My wife and I had our son when she was in that range, and our lives have been infinitely richer for his existence. And as we head into our later years, his presence is an immense comfort to us.) But yes, getting back to 25-year-olds starting families would be a welcome change. ... Thanks for asking, as I am now going to copy and paste this reply and use it in an upcoming essay. :)
To be optimistic, perhaps work at home women marrying local spouses rather than work related spouses is a sign that status based spousal selection is on its way out. That would be nice. Maybe they are choosing a person rather than a business card.
Exactly!