Policy proposal:
Massive subsidies / incentives for employers who make jobs fully remote. Massive enough to overcome all the whining about how it doesn’t work as well. Massive enough that basically no white-collar employee will ever step into an office.
Maybe this works in FIRE and web-land software where things are totally detached from reality?
I’m white collar in name only.
It also works in the mid-to-upper echelons of many otherwise-undifferentiated business and government institutions, even if they have front-line operations that are more concrete.
…there are obviously lots and lots of jobs where it just doesn’t work, like, at all. And, shrug, “white-collar” might not be the right differentiating term, I chose it kind of carelessly.
But there are a lot of jobs where it would work, at the cost of some vague marginal “our team isn’t as cohesive” or “people have to spend a little longer flailing around to find their feet” or something. (A lot of jobs that have already more-or-less acknowledged this, for that matter, and allowed people to work remotely in part – just not enough to, y’know, actually use that fact to make good lifestyle changes.)
These are real costs, but trivial ones in the face of all the benefits to be gained from an upper middle class that can physically disperse.