di Louis Hyman
The recent election unearthed an enduring debate about American capitalism: What exactly is a good job? For a long time, we need to remember, the very idea of a “good” “job” was a contradiction. Until the 20th century, it was self-evident that there was nothing good about a job. What was good was being independent, which usually meant being an artisan, a retailer, or, most commonly, a farmer.
The longing many Americans feel for owning their own business, the celebration of entrepreneurship in our culture, and our homesteading heritage are not just about money — or buying houses. Yet for several generations, we have made it easy to own a home but hard to own a business. The rise of the new economy, as the last election showed, has left many people, especially rural people, behind. This new reality of our decentralized digital economy, however, offers the possibility of returning to our core American values of security and independence.
If the only answer to rural downward mobility is to turn everyone into software engineers, then there is no hope. The idea that every truck driver or coal miner can, or should, become a member of the modern professional class is closely related to the belief that unless you have those particular skills, you have no value — which isn’t the case. No one wants to feel like they are a waste product or have nothing to contribute.
Right now we are too fixated on upskilling coal miners into data miners. We should instead be showing people how to get work with their existing skills.
Many rural Americans, sadly, don’t realize how valuable they already are or what opportunities presently exist for them. It’s true that the digital economy, centered in a few high-tech cities, has excluded Main Street America. But it does not need to be this way. Through global freelancing platforms like Upwork, for example, rural and small-town Americans can find jobs anywhere in the world using abilities and talents they already have. A receptionist can welcome office visitors in San Francisco from her home in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Through an e-commerce website like Etsy, an Appalachian woodworker can create custom pieces and sell them anywhere in the world. These microbusinesses need capital, they need educational support, and they need respect as “real” businesses.
Americans, regardless of education or geographical location, have marketable skills in the global economy: They speak English and understand the nuances of communicating with Americans — something that cannot be easily shipped overseas. Right now we are too fixated on upskilling coal miners into data miners. We should instead be showing people how to get work with their existing skills.
Everyone has something to offer. We just need to find a way to reach everyone. Technology will make it possible, but what will make it happen is collective will to finally achieve the real American dream. That’s where our legislators come in.
There is more than one path to supporting an independent workforce. One option is radical individualism: Each person has portable benefits that are contracted through private firms, with each temporary employer chipping in, alongside wages. We refresh our laws to account for independent workers who are neither W-2 nor 1099. Another, more collective path would be toward a universal benefits system—like every other industrialized country possesses—where workers could change jobs without worrying about losing their benefits. Risk takers could become entrepreneurs and create jobs for other Americans. A still more radical path would be a citizen’s share. Whatever course we take, we need to make choices. The economy has changed, but our institutions—and our needs—have not.
The Conservative Path
The most powerful tool of the New Deal was its recognition of how to channel private capital for a public purpose. As of May 2017, U.S. banks had a reserve requirement of $127 billion, which sounds like a lot of money sitting idle until you realize that they have another $2 trillion sitting idle on top of that, with nowhere to go. All that capital is money that is not invested. We ought to look to the investment innovations of the New Deal to inspire us to invest in our most basic needs (like the Federal Housing Administration), our infrastructure (like the Rural Electrification Administration), and our futuristic industries (like the Defense Plants Corporation). We need broadband in rural America today, just like we needed electricity in the 1930s. Our far-out technologies that will create millions of jobs (climate jobs, green transportation) need capital.
If the only way to make an Uber job viable is through the use of tax deductions, then we need to make sure all Uber drivers know that.
At the same time, we should empower small- and medium-size businesses that are less sexy but still necessary — like plumbing supply companies. These kinds of firms might not be disruptive, but they still create jobs and growth. The Small Business Administration’s flagship lending program, 7(a), accounts for only 0.65 percent of all small loans. That needs to increase to make an economy of independence work.
The federal government gave away homesteads to create stability and self-reliance in the 19th century. Most Americans today don’t need farmland, but they do need other kinds of support — health insurance, skills education, maybe even a basic income — to take the risks upon which success depends. A minimum safety net enables maximum risk taking, unleashing the true growth potential of capitalism. Rather than thinking of these as the last gasps of a defunct welfare economy, we should instead see them as the first steps toward an independent economy. In place of seeing benefits as a cost to taxpayers, we ought to see benefits as an investment in our collective future. Only with the knowledge that their families are safe can entrepreneurs and inventors recreate capitalism anew. Portable benefits seem like the perfect solution for many of the flexible worker’s needs. Just like the 401(k) divorced pensions from a job, we need to find a way to divorce all other worker benefits from a workplace: health care, childcare, etc.
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