In debates about the future of work, scholars and policymakers often treat economic efficiency and distributive justice as the principal values at stake. Those who argue for the end of the employment relationship appeal to economic efficiency. They extend law and economics scholar Ronald Coase’s classic theorization of “transaction costs,” arguing that technological innovation has dramatically reduced the transaction costs of economic coordination. As a result, they argue, work today can be more efficiently performed through independent contracting and automation than through the institution of employment.
In response, those who defend the legal form of employment invoke distributive justice and equality. They argue that employers should not be able to circumvent the social safety net constructed around employment simply by reorganizing production. Yet, in emphasizing the benefits of that social safety net, rather than benefits inherent to employment as a form of economic production, some concede the potential acceptability of a world without employment—so long as the social safety net lives on independently of it, whether through universal basic income, portable benefits, or other policy innovations.
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