WORKWISE

When we drafted this section in 2019, it started with a plea to prioritize small businesses. Now amidst the pandemic this imperative could not be more important. We need more small and mid-size businesses, a lot more. A robust and diverse small-business ecosystem is not only good for the over-arching economy, it's arguably better for individuals, communities, innovation and the environment.

We also need businesses that support and nurture employees, encourage a healthy work-life balance and don't exhaustively extract from their workforce. Employees should have a voice in when, how and where they work. This exists in other countries, why not here? A 2019 APM Marketplace radio story about Finnish companies experimenting with remote work arrangements drew skepticism about the possibility of the same in the U.S. Now, after the disruptions and tragedy of Covid, reconfiguring our workplaces and priorities doesn't seem as impossible.

In that Marketplace radio piece, a description of how Finnish cultural values supported remote work highlights a few priorities we should consider:

"If you speak to sociologists, historians, economists, they'll all tell you it's a lot to do with the culture having low hierarchies, a culture that values consensus, and equality and financial security. And there's also just a general emphasis on work-life balance. So people are supposed to spend time in nature. They're supposed to spend time with their families. There's an understanding that this brings good things to people's lives and can make them more productive at work. And so increasing flexibility in Finland is more of a natural step on from that."

Stronger worker, employee and union representation on boards - much like what you find in Germany and Finland - also creates more equitable and stable working conditions. Living wages should be the standard and we need more cooperative structures and worker collectives, with less - far, far less - shareholder tyranny.

There's a lot to aspire to and learn about but there's no shortage of promising examples - Jesse Kamm's limited growth model, B Corps, Slow Fashion (descendant of Slow Food), Workers Co-opts, Circular economies, Profit Sharing, The Right to Repair, Community Land Trusts and Public Banks. Business as usual has to change in this country. It's time to move beyond extractive, speculative and exploitive economic models that have expanded over the past 4 decades. Predatory business models, the erosion of worker protections, wage stagnation and widespread inequality must no longer be the norm.