Are You Taking Advantage of the New Freedoms?

Let's recognize that working from home sort of rules

In the 14th century, the Black Death led to higher wages across Europe. And of course it did — you know what’s a strong negotiating position? “I am the only blacksmith left in Europe” is a strong negotiating position. When it’s either you or a flaming pile of corpses in the town square, you pretty much get to name your price. Across Europe, serfdom was dismantled; social scientists have found that regions hit hardest by the pandemic were more democratic centuries later. The powerful pushed back against runaway labor prices by passing a law pegging prices to pre-pandemic levels, which ended up being an early example of price controls being an ineffective way to fight inflation. But in fairness, back then they didn’t have 700 years of evidence showing that that doesn’t work.

Covid won’t result in the same level of societal reshuffling as the Black Death, but it’s caused changes. The most obvious one is that for many people, remote work is here to stay. Before the pandemic, remote work was a slightly strange and possibly suspect way of doing things, kind of like getting a culinary degree by mail. But for many people, it’s suddenly the norm, and I think we might under-appreciate what a life upgrade that is for many people.