Are we misunderstanding the endgame of the annoyingly named “gig economy”? At the behest of the UK government, Matthew Taylor’s review of modern working practices was published this week. The title could easily have graced a report from the 1930s, and the review is in many ways a conservative document, seeking to be “up to date” while preserving “enduring principles of fairness”.
Mr Taylor, chief executive of the RSA and a former policy adviser to the Blair government, wants to tweak the system. One proposal is to sharpen up the status of people who are neither employees nor freelancers, calling them “dependent contractors” and giving them some employment rights. In the US, economists such as Alan Krueger — formerly the chairman of Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers — proposed similar reforms.
There is nothing wrong with this; incremental reform is often wise. Quaint ideas such as the employer-employee relationship are not yet obsolete. Yet they might yet become so, at least in some industries. If they do, I am not sure we will be ready. The obsolescence I have in mind was anticipated by Silicon Valley’s favourite economist, Ronald Coase. Back in 1937, a young Coase wrote “The Nature of the Firm”, calling attention to something strange: while corporations competed within a competitive marketplace, corporations themselves were not markets. They were hierarchies. If you work for a company, you don’t allocate your time to the highest bidder. You do what your boss tells you; she does what her boss tells her. A few companies dabble with internal marketplaces, but mostly they are islands of command-and-control surrounded by a sea of market transactions.
Coase pointed out that the border between hierarchy and market is a choice. Corporations could extend their hierarchy by merging with a supplier. Or they could rely more on markets, spinning off subsidiaries or outsourcing functions from cleaning and catering to IT and human resources. Different companies make different choices and the ones that choose efficiently will survive.
So what is the efficient choice? That depends on the nature of the job to be done. A carmaker may well want to have the engine manufacturer in-house, but will happily buy bulbs for the headlights from the cheapest bidder.
But the choice between hierarchy and market also depends on the technology deployed to co-ordinate activity. Different technologies favour different ways of doing things. The bar code made life easier for big-box retailers. While eBay favoured the little guy, connecting buyers and sellers of niche products.
Smartphones have allowed companies such as Uber and Deliveroo to take critical middle-management functions — motivating staff, evaluating and rewarding performance, scheduling and co-ordination — and replace them with an algorithm. But gig workers could install their own software, telling it where they like to work, what they like to do, when they’re available, unavailable, or open to persuasion. My app — call it GigBot — could talk to the Lyft app and the TaskRabbit app and the Deliveroo app, and interrupt me only when an offer deserves attention.
Not every job can be broken down into microtasks that can be rented out by the minute, but we might be surprised at how many can. Remember that old line from supermodel Linda Evangelista, “We don’t wake up for less than $10,000 a day”? GigBot will talk to your alarm clock; $10 or $10,000, just name the price that would tempt you from your lie-in.
It is easy to imagine a dystopian scenario in which a few companies hook us in like slot-machine addicts, grind us in circles like cogs, and pimp us around for pennies. But it is not too hard to imagine a world in which skilled workers wrest back control using open-source software agents, join electronic guilds or unions and enjoy a serious income alongside unprecedented autonomy.
Nothing empowers a worker like the ability to walk out and take a better offer; in principle the gig economy offers exactly that. Indeed both scenarios may come true simultaneously, with one type of gig for the lucky ones, and another for ordinary folk.
If we are to take the best advantage of a true gig economy, we need to prepare for more radical change. Governments have been content to use corporations as delivery mechanisms for benefits that include pensions, parental leave, sick leave, holidays and sometimes healthcare — not to mention the minimum wage. This isn’t unreasonable; even a well-paid freelancer may be unable to buy decent private insurance or healthcare. Many of us struggle to save for a pension. But if freelancers really do start to dominate economic activity — if — the idea of providing benefits mostly through employers will break down.
We will need governments to provide essential benefits, perhaps minimalist, perhaps generous, to all citizens. Above that safety net, we need portable benefits — mentioned warmly but briefly by Mr Taylor — so that even a 10-minute gig helps to fill a pension pot or earn time towards a holiday. Traditional corporate jobs have been socially useful, but if you push any model too far from reality, it will snap.
Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 14 July 2017.
My new book is “Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy” – out now week in the UK and coming very soon in the US. Grab yourself a copy in the US (slightly different title) or in the UK or through your local bookshop.