We didn’t land here by accident. The current state of work—precarious, extractive, and increasingly disconnected from basic human needs—wasn’t the result of technological inevitability or cultural drift. It was built. Deliberately. Over decades.
If we want to understand how to fix the future of work, we have to look back at how we got here. That means confronting the systems, policies, and decisions that reshaped the employer-employee relationship from one of shared responsibility to one of individual burden. And it means naming what we normalized along the way.
The 1970s: Profit Becomes the Only Purpose
The seeds of the current model were planted in the 1970s. In 1970, economist Milton Friedman famously argued that the sole social responsibility of business was to increase profits. That declaration wasn’t just an op-ed—it became a blueprint.
Corporate boards, investors, and politicians began to adopt this view, dismantling the idea that companies had responsibilities to their workers, communities, or society. The role of the corporation narrowed, and the definition of success shrank to one metric: shareholder return.
The 1980s: Policy Catch-Up and the Rise of the Layoff
The Reagan era supercharged this shift. Deregulation, tax reform favoring capital over labor, and union-busting tactics signaled that the government was no longer interested in acting as a counterbalance to corporate power.
Layoffs, once seen as a last resort and a sign of failure, became celebrated as a sign of tough, decisive leadership. Corporate raiders gutted companies and slashed workforces in the name of “efficiency,” with the stock market cheering them on. Entire industries were restructured to prioritize short-term earnings, not long-term stability or job creation.
The 1990s: Globalization Without Guardrails
In the 1990s, globalization accelerated—but without the labor protections, wage standards, or policy frameworks to ensure workers wouldn’t bear the brunt.
Jobs were offshored. Supply chains were stretched across continents. “Lean” became the management mantra, which often meant cutting headcount and replacing salaried workers with contract labor. Labor became just another cost to optimize.
Corporate profits soared. Wages stagnated.
At the same time, the “free agent” mindset emerged. Workers were told they were now the CEOs of their own careers. Lifelong employment was out. Personal branding was in. Companies shed responsibility under the guise of empowerment.
The 2000s: Tech Boom, Safety Net Bust
The early 2000s saw two things accelerate: technology and precarity.
As tech enabled more automation and outsourcing, companies leaned in. Support roles, customer service, administrative functions—once stable, entry-level gateways—were either eliminated or pushed into contract work.
Meanwhile, the social safety net continued to erode. Fewer jobs offered pensions. Employer-provided healthcare became more expensive and less reliable. Retirement security shifted from collective structures to individual 401(k)s, heavily dependent on market performance.
Responsibility kept moving away from institutions and toward individuals.
The 2010s: Legalizing Corporate Power and Branding Disruption
In 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling opened the door for unlimited corporate spending in politics. Corporations could now shape public policy even more aggressively in their favor.
At the same time, the tech industry’s language of “disruption” became the default. Companies marketed precarity as innovation: gig work was sold as freedom, not insecurity. The human cost of instability was rebranded as a feature, not a flaw.
Workplace culture became a distraction. Perks replaced rights. Foosball tables instead of fair wages. Unlimited PTO policies that no one felt safe using. Talk of “purpose” while cutting DEI teams and flattening career ladders.
The 2020s: The Acceleration
The pandemic exposed it all.
Workers were praised as essential but treated as expendable. Entire industries moved to remote work overnight, revealing how many meetings, commutes, and office norms had been about control, not necessity.
Companies made record profits. And many laid people off anyway.
AI entered the mainstream conversation not as a tool for support, but as the next phase of workforce reduction. HR functions were automated. Entry-level roles disappeared. Internal development pipelines dried up. Yet expectations on individuals kept growing: be upskilled, be resilient, be flexible, be grateful.
Burnout became common. Stability became rare. And trust—between people and employers—became harder to justify.
So What Now?
We need to stop acting like this system is inevitable.
The current state of work was designed. That means it can be redesigned. But not with new branding or better apps. Not with another pulse survey. Not with AI wrapped in empathy language.
We need a new playbook:
- Redefine value beyond shareholder return.
- Create policy that protects people, not just capital.
- Rebuild labor power and worker voice.
- Make stability the standard, not the exception.
- Hold leadership accountable for how results are achieved, not just that they are.
We have the tools. We have the data. We even have the talent. What we need is the will—to challenge what we’ve accepted, and to build something better before the future of work becomes just another word for survival.
Because if we don’t, the system won’t collapse. It will calcify.
And we’ll be left with a workforce optimized for output, but emptied of purpose.
