Philippa Kaur

FEW FIRMS have spawned an industry. Warby Parker, a millennial-chic spectacles firm, has a decent claim to be one of them. A decade ago the startup pioneered selling products directly to shoppers online, using the internet to avoid the costs of bricks-and-mortar shops and chip away at clunky consumer-goods incumbents that relied on distributors and retailers. Thousands of direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies followed in its footsteps. Venture-capital (VC) firms threw money at them; Warby Parker’s latest funding round gave it a valuation of $3bn. On August 24th, in the biggest test yet of market appetite for the business model, it opted to go public—appropriately, selling shares directly to investors rather than through intermediaries as in a conventional initial public offering (IPO). A week later Allbirds, an online trainers-seller, said that it, too, will float its shares.Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

BEING AN OIL-INDUSTRY boss is an exercise in displeasing all sides. Pumping hydrocarbons out of the ground is lucrative, but angers environmentalists—including those sitting in boardrooms and governments. Renewables and other green projects are more palatable, but often fail to woo investors. TotalEnergies this week showed one way to straddle the divide.On September 5th the French oil major signed an agreement with the government of Iraq to invest $27bn there over 25 years. The money will go to projects from the virtuous (a big solar farm) to the carbon-spewing (expanding an existing oilfield). One scheme will capture natural gas burned off as a by-product of oil extraction and use it to make less grubby electricity.The deal is a boon for Iraq. It has struggled to lure investors to its energy sector. Corruption and political instability have pushed many of Total’s rivals, such as BP, Shell and ExxonMobil, to exit Iraqi projects or consider doing so. The solar plant and rescued gas will reduce reliance on gas imports and electricity from Iran, an old foe, which has cut Iraq off before owing to unpaid bills. Regular blackouts in an oil-soaked country look awkward for politicians ahead of elections next month.Total, for its part, has buttressed its reputation, tinging its carbon-belching operations with a green touch. A rebrand to TotalEnergies earlier this year is part of a push away from the black stuff and a commitment to “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050. The plan is backed by lots of climate-friendlier spending pledges.In seeking greener pastures the firm has waded into places others avoid. Patrick Pouyanné, Total’s pugnacious boss, has made clear that only old-fashioned oil profits can fund a shift to clean energy. He is avidly chasing the world’s most cheaply extractable hydrocarbons, often in the Middle East and Africa. While rivals have poured money into American shale, Total is investing in countries that grace the bottom rungs of ease-of-doing-business rankings (think Libya and Venezuela). If things go well, Total can expect a gusher of rewards—profits of $95bn may flow to it over the life of the Iraqi contract.Often they do not. Total’s big gas projects in Mozambique and Yemen have been disrupted by war and terrorism. This summer it lost $1.4bn as it wrote off some assets in Venezuela. In Iraq, too, Total has its work cut out. It will have to sink perhaps $5bn before seeing returns. It can at least expect help from high places as it seeks to manage political risk. The deal was signed in the wake of President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the country in late August—his second in less than a year. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Baghdad pay dirt” More

IN 2013 MEREDITH HALKS MILLER, a laboratory director at Illumina, the world’s biggest gene-sequencing firm, spotted something odd as she examined the blood of expectant mothers, looking for abnormalities in the fetuses they carried. In some cases, the DNA of the unborn children was normal, but that of the mothers was not. Suspecting the women had cancer, she went to her superiors, only to be met with scepticism. She pushed nonetheless. “I was determined to bring this to light. As a doctor, I really wanted to help these women,” she says. Her intuition proved right. “Sure enough, every person I predicted had cancer had cancer.”Her hunch led to the foundation of GRAIL, a pioneering company focused on detecting cancers using blood tests even before any symptoms have emerged. Illumina spun it out in 2016 (tech tycoons such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates were early backers), only to repurchase it again in a $7bn deal last month, shortly after GRAIL released a test in America that screens for up to 50 cancers from a sample of blood. And yet until a recent blog post by her daughter, noting how infrequently female scientists get credit for their work, Dr Halks Miller’s role was mostly airbrushed out of GRAIL’s story. When contacted by your columnist, she says she received no extra bonus or promotion for her efforts. Even today, Francis deSouza, Illumina’s CEO, refers to her simply as Meredith, and when asked about her says only that she has retired.Nonetheless, her brainchild is now firmly in the spotlight. GRAIL’s return to Illumina is intriguing for three reasons. First, in acquiring it, Illumina, described by its biggest investor, Baillie Gifford, a Scottish asset manager, as the “Google of genomics”, hopes to become a colossus of cancer care. In short, it wants to make screening the new search. Second, like Google, Illumina faces a showdown with trustbusters in America and Europe, irked by how similar early-stage acquisitions gave rise to today’s tech giants. Third, Illumina has defiantly gone ahead with the transaction before regulators have given it the green light. The battle pits an acquisitive company on the technological frontier against trustbusters keen to rewrite the rules of tech competition.There is no question that Illumina, worth $73bn, rules the world of gene-sequencing. Its machines control 90% of the market in America. Its vast global share is reflected in the fact that Chinese scientists used it for the first sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 genome at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Using technology acquired with the purchase in 2007 of Solexa, a British company, it provides gene-sequencing tools to genomics companies, including those developing liquid biopsies or blood tests for cancer. Mr deSouza reckons that the global market for cancer gene-sequencing could be worth $75bn by 2035. That looks promising for a gene-sequencing provider. Even more so if GRAIL can change the efficacy and economics of cancer care. Mr deSouza argues that Illumina’s global heft and ability to convince insurers to cover the cost of genomic testing will help GRAIL do that. Far from stifling competition, the takeover will stimulate it, he says. Money is pouring into startups trying to catch up with GRAIL.The trustbusters see things differently. Last year the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), America’s antitrust agency, blocked Illumina’s acquisition of another sequencer, Pacific Biosciences, on the grounds that it would be anticompetitive. Now the FTC says that Illumina’s takeover of GRAIL will harm innovation in the nascent market for early detection of cancer. The European Commission (EC) has launched a parallel investigation, alleging Illumina could restrict GRAIL’s rivals from accessing its gene-sequencing technology. On August 18th Illumina defied the Europeans, saying that because an EC decision was not expected until after the deal expires, it would complete the transaction anyway—albeit holding GRAIL separately. It is challenging the EC in a Luxembourg court, claiming that the EU’s executive arm does not have jurisdiction over the merger. Moreover, the commission has contested the deal using an untested and controversial mechanism called Article 22. Illumina’s strategy is a bold one—some would say reckless. Its share price has slumped since the closing of the deal partly because investors fear it may stir up a regulatory hornets’ nest.The antitrust concerns can be viewed narrowly or broadly. From a narrow perspective, customers of Illumina who hope to compete with GRAIL in testing may worry that Illumina will charge them higher prices for sequencers. That could give GRAIL, if it has lower sequencing costs, an edge. Illumina counters that it has no incentive to harm its clients, because it makes much more money selling sequencers than it does selling tests. It has also pledged to supply sequencers to them on the same terms as it does to GRAIL. More broadly, even if Illumina continues to lower the cost of gene-sequencing, the regulators’ focus on non-cost factors such as innovation may reflect a new approach to antitrust that goes beyond the duty to protect consumers’ pocketbooks. In a case of bad timing, or bad luck, Illumina has thrown down the gauntlet to the trustbusters just as they are determined to show they will not be doormats. It will be up to the courts to decide the outcome.Stick to your gunsRegulators are not the only concerned parties. According to Doug Schenkel of Cowen, an investment bank, some Illumina shareholders say that uncertainty about the outlook for the GRAIL acquisition and the implication that there could be increased risk to the company’s position as an “arms dealer” to the genomics industry are weighing on shares. So are concerns about whether Illumina is the best option for bringing GRAIL’s blood-based diagnostics to market. Some fear it could be the latest example of a hardware firm that bungles the move into software and services. That said, it is a long-term bet and Dr Halks Miller, for one, is excited. She says GRAIL’s new test is “incredibly powerful”. She relishes its success and has no regrets—even if she reaps few of the rewards. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Illumina and the holy GRAIL” More

IN AN INTERNAL memo to staff in 2016 JPMorgan Chase relaxed its dress code. The American bank’s 240,000 employees could hang up their suits and don business-casual attire—once reserved for casual Fridays—all working week. Some garments remained beyond the pale (T-shirts, flip-flops, tank tops, yoga pants). But many—polo shirts, skirts (of appropriate length), dress sandals—became fair game.JPMorgan was, sartorially speaking, ahead of its time among stuffy corporate giants (turtlenecks and hoodies have long been the fashion choice of Silicon Valley titans). Others followed suit, as it were. Men’s corporate uniform—and the female power suit designed to mirror it—increasingly came to be seen as a vestige of the male-dominated offices of yore and no longer fit for purpose in a world of greater (though still imperfect) workplace equality. As more and more people ran or cycled to work, they found that changing into a full suit was impractical, since jackets folded into rucksacks tend to lose their crispness.These days ties are no longer de rigueur in client meetings even for pinstriped investment bankers at Goldman Sachs. Purveyors of formal wear have fallen on hard times. Last year Brooks Brothers, which had been sewing button-down shirts since 1818, filed for bankruptcy. Last month Marks & Spencer, a British retailer, announced it would no longer sell men’s suits in more than half of its bigger stores.As the pandemic completely decoupled work and presence in the office, employees at many companies switched into something even less starchy. Unlike JPMorgan, however, most have not put any guidelines in place as to what is and isn’t appropriate. Although the Delta variant is forcing companies to delay a return to the office, that day will come. When workers are back at their desks, at least some of the time, new sartorial rules may be required.Much has been written about what people wore on Zoom calls during lockdowns (and what they did not wear: some retailers report that tops significantly outsold trousers in the past year and a half). Fashion designers like Giles Deacon in Britain have launched “work from anywhere” fashion collections, aiming for slightly looser-cut clothing that nevertheless looks smart. Two Japanese companies, Aoki and Whatever Inc, created pyjama suits—a hybrid of a suit and soft, comfy loungewear—perfect for the video conference attended from home. Aoki uses the same fabric as pyjamas but with a suit-like cut. Whatever Inc’s WFH Jammies are “business on the top, loungewear on the bottom”.That is not to say that business-casual Fridays have given way to athleisure work weeks. Indeed, some workplaces are already experiencing a backlash against informality. In 2017 Britain’s House of Commons decided that male MPs were no longer required to wear ties when attending debates; previously they could go tieless only on hot summer days. But at the beginning of September this year Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, announced that he expected all parliamentarians to smarten up. Jeans, chinos and sleeveless tops are out.Looked at in the aggregate, individuals’ clothes speak to more than just personal preferences. People’s sartorial choices add up to a zeitgeist. It is no accident that the cheerful glitz of the 1920s came right after the despondency of the first world war and the Spanish flu. Today’s tailoring brands hope that when the pandemic recedes at last male and female professionals will feel a renewed desire to dress up.So does Bartleby. Like Sir Lindsay, she would recommend that employees maintain a degree of formal presentation. Yes, some people can pull off a dishevelled look—but not everyone. Dressing with taste and elegance does not have to involve designer clothes or expensive watches. It signals commitment and seriousness. A freshly laundered, crisp shirt announces to the world that you have made an effort; a tracksuit does not.And if going to the office is a ritual, styling an outfit can be a pleasure, not a chore. The way one dresses is part of his or her self-expression. It also separates the public and the private. Peeling off formal office clothes and slipping into something cosy marks a daily transition from work to non-work. That line was blurred during lockdowns and could do with some sharpening. A man in a suit and tie is a man loosening his tie at the end of the day.For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Suits v sweatpants” More

THE BIGGEST television drama of the past decade has been the story of how people watch it. Ten years ago nearly nine out of ten American households subscribed to cable or satellite. Today little more than half do. The collapse of pay-TV, amid the advance of online streaming, has upended the television industry and forced Hollywood giants like Disney to rethink their business model. And the pace at which consumers are “cutting the cord” from cable providers is only increasing.But not everywhere. On the other side of the Atlantic, cord-cutters are outnumbered by cord-knotters. As Americans tear up their contracts, Europeans are signing up for cable and satellite in greater numbers than ever. Pay-TV penetration in Britain will overtake that in America this year, according to Ampere Analysis, a research firm. In France and Germany it already has (see chart).Why has American media’s mega-trend missed Europe? One reason is price. America’s cable industry may look competitive: the largest player, Comcast, has only a quarter of the market. But it is highly regionalised, so most homes have few options, says Richard Broughton of Ampere. The result is an average monthly cable bill of nearly $100. British homes pay less than half as much. Tax loopholes have made pay-TV an even better deal in parts of Europe. Take-up in France rocketed from 30% to 90% between 2004 and 2014, after the government imposed a lower rate of VAT on television services than on telecoms, unintentionally giving phone firms an incentive to throw in a cheap TV package and pay the lower rate of tax. The loophole has been closed, but subscriptions remain high.A second factor is content. American cable TV is running out of shows as studios move their best ones to their own streaming platforms. In Europe, where some streamers have yet to launch, pay-TV firms retain the rights to many of the most popular titles. Britons seeking the third season of WarnerMedia’s “Succession”, for instance, must go to Sky, a Comcast-owned satellite firm, since Warner’s HBO Max has yet to stream outside the Americas.The last reason Europe still favours cable is that American streamers have forged partnerships with European pay-TV firms rather than competing with them. In the race for subscribers, the quickest way for streamers to bulk up in Europe has been to join forces with satellite and cable incumbents. They are the ones with access to consumers and the ability to handle local marketing and ad sales. In Spain, Vodafone offers bundled subscriptions to Netflix, Disney+ and others. Next year ViacomCBS’s Paramount+ will launch in six European countries on Sky’s platform.Will cord-cutting eventually cross the Atlantic? As long as Hollywood studios continue to license their programming to local players, consumers will have every reason to stick with pay-TV. For the studios themselves those deals are lucrative, points out Mr Broughton: “Doing a Disney and cancelling all those contracts, then replacing them with your direct-to-consumer service, leaves you with a bit of a gap in your financials.”In the long run, though, studios would rather bring viewers onto their own platforms, as in America. In that scenario, pay-TV firms may be left with little to offer but sport, alongside streaming bundles of the sort offered by France’s Orange or Britain’s Virgin Media. Warner plans a gradual European roll-out of HBO Max over the next few years. By the time the fourth season of “Succession” is out, audiences may be watching it online. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Cable ties” More

WHEN SATYA NADELLA took over as boss of Microsoft in 2014 he started by opening Windows. Unlike his predecessors, who had kept the software giant’s crown jewel hermetically sealed from the outside world, he exposed the operating system (OS) to the breeze of competition. The firm’s other programs, which used to run almost exclusively on Windows, could now operate on other OSs, including Linux, an “open-source” rival which Microsoft had previously called a “cancer”. The manoeuvre both broadened the market for Microsoft’s software and improved Windows by forcing it to compete with rival OSs on more equal terms. In the process, it shook up Microsoft’s culture, helped it shed its reputation as a nasty monopolist and paved the way for a stunning revival that saw its market value soar above $2trn. Now the other half of the once almighty “Wintel” arrangement, whereby PCs would run on Windows software and chips made by Intel, wants to throw the windows open. The American semiconductor giant has long guarded its core chipmaking business as jealously as Microsoft did its OS. After years of product delays, misplaced technology bets and changing management, it is ready for some fresh air. “Our processes, our manufacturing, our intellectual property through our foundry services [producing processors for other chipmakers]: all will now be available to the world,” professes Pat Gelsinger, Intel’s newish boss. If successful, Mr Gelsinger’s strategy could reshape a $600bn industry at the heart of the fast-digitising global economy for the better. Failure could, in the short run, compound the chip shortages that are making life difficult for manufacturers of everything from cars to data centres. In the longer term, it could lead to further concentration of the already cosy chipmaking market, with Intel increasingly eclipsed by rivals. And it may cement Asia’s dominance of the industry, creating all kinds of geopolitical complications. Although Microsoft and Intel reside in different parts of the tech universe, they used to be structural twins. Just as Windows and Office, Microsoft’s package of business applications, were designed to work best with each other, Intel has been designing its own microprocessors and making them in “fabs” optimised for the purpose. As the tech industry has grown bigger, more diverse and more networked, this once dominant “integrated device manufacturer” (IDM) model has fallen out of favour (just as vertical integration became a drag for Microsoft as other tech “ecosystems” popped up). As with the Microsoft of old, Intel’s arrogance and insularity discouraged other chipmakers from working with it, for instance by combining chip designs. Instead they ploughed their own furrows, focusing increasingly either on designing chips (for example, AMD, Arm, Nvidia and Qualcomm) or fabricating them (notably Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC). Intel has managed to stay closed for longer than Microsoft thanks to the boom in cloud computing, which boosted demand for pricey high-end processors that power servers in data centres where its so-called X86 architecture is now dominant. These contributed one-third of Intel’s total revenue of $78bn in 2020, and much of its $21bn in net profit. Now, though, the company is being overwhelmed by open systems like that of Arm, whose blueprints are used in most of the world’s smartphones (a market which Intel missed) and are starting to appear in data centres—and which was last year acquired by Nvidia for $40bn (though trustbusters may yet scupper the deal). At the same time TSMC took advantage of Intel’s technological and management missteps to pull ahead in both cutting-edge technology and production volume. Both TSMC and Nvidia are now worth more than twice as much as Intel (see chart), despite lower revenues and profits. Enter Mr Gelsinger, who in February became Intel’s third chief executive in as many years. He was the firm’s chief technology officer until 2009, when he was pushed out. This background—plus what he calls a decade-long “vacation from the chip industry” as the boss of VMware, a software-maker—allowed him to shake things up within weeks. Rather than split Intel into a foundry and a chip-designer, as some analysts and activist investors wanted, his “IDM 2.0” strategy doubles down on integration. Mr Gelsinger sees this as Intel’s competitive advantage. And an independent foundry arm would struggle to compete with TSMC, argues Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research, who estimates that Intel’s manufacturing costs are 70% higher than the Taiwanese firm’s.Instead, Intel is opting for a sort of virtual decoupling. The firm will make more use of outside foundries, including TSMC, to save costs but also to benefit from TSMC’s leading-edge manufacturing processes. In July Mr Gelsinger said his company intends to catch up with TSMC and Samsung in its ability to churn out top-end chips. His ambitious plan is to introduce at least one new high-end processor a year, each with smaller transistors and faster circuitry. By 2025 it aims once again to be ahead of the pack with designs that are no longer measured in nanometres but in angstroms, the next smallest metric unit of measurement, equal to one ten-billionth of a metre.At the same time, the company will offer this manufacturing magic to others by relaunching its own foundry business. In contrast to its earlier iteration, which was created in 2012 but never really took off, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) will have its own profit-and-loss statement and, soon, at least two brand-new fabs, which Intel will build in Arizona at a total cost of $20bn.Mr Gelsinger is now off on a global tour to explain and promote his new strategy, for instance at a trade show in Munich on September 7th. He will need all his enviable communication skills (another thing he shares with Mr Nadella) to convince investors. After a jump earlier this year Intel’s share price has slumped back roughly to where it was before his appointment was announced. Mr Gelsinger seems undaunted. Investors are asking two questions, he says, both fair: can Intel execute this strategy successfully? And when will this show up in earnings? “I’m OK with that.”Finding its old GroveThe answers will depend in part on whether Intel can change its culture. That means rekindling what Mr Gelsinger calls its “Grovian culture”, a reference to Andy Grove, the firm’s legendary co-founder, who is best known for his mantra that “only the paranoid survive”. It also entails shedding its insularity. “My team needs to exercise a different set of muscles,” explains Ann Kelleher, Intel’s chief technologist. Among other things, she says, it must learn how to work with external customers and use tools that are built elsewhere. Above all, though, success will be contingent on flawless execution. Cutting-edge chipmaking involves around 700 processing steps and many nanoscopic layers printed and etched on top of each other. Adding to the complexity, Intel will at last fully embrace “extreme ultraviolet lithography” (which TSMC and others have already been using to great effect). The company’s announcement in late June that it would postpone production of next-generation server processors for a few months hints at the trickiness of the task.IFS, too, faces challenges. Most analysts agree with Mr Ferragu that the foundry business cannot really compete with TSMC. This is not only a matter of costs, size and a technological lag. Intel must also persuade customers that it can overcome a built-in conflict of interest in trying to be both an IDM and a foundry, points out Willy Shih of Harvard Business School. Amid a future semiconductor shortage the company may need to decide whether to allocate capacity to its own processors or honour the contracts it has with foundry customers. Intel nevertheless hopes it can carve out a big and lucrative niche for its foundry. It is reportedly interested in beefing it up by buying GlobalFoundries, spun off from AMD in 2009 and currently owned by an Emirati sovereign-wealth fund, for around $25bn. Although the talks had stalled and GlobalFoundries filed to go public in August, they may be restarted once the smaller firm gauges other investors’ interest—and so its possible price tag.With or without GlobalFoundries, Intel pledges a new spirit of openness. It will no longer force customers to use its proprietary tools when designing their chips. More important, it will grant them access to its chip designs and the technology it has developed for “packaging” semiconductors into the chips that end up in electronic devices. Big cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), will be able to take the design of an Intel server processor, optimise it for their data centres and combine it with other processor designs on a single chip. There seems to be growing interest in mixing and matching, says Linley Gwennap of the Linley Group, a consultancy. AWS and Qualcomm will be among IFS’s first customers. There is also interest in doing this domestically. American politicians point to the actual pandemic-induced chip shortage, and potential threats from China, particularly to Taiwan, as reasons to worry that most chips are nowadays made in Asia. Congress is expected soon to approve a $52bn subsidy package. The European Union has even more ambitious plans. Building new fabs in Asia would be 30-40% cheaper, Mr Gelsinger concedes, “but the incentive dollars allow me to invest more and go faster” at home. That appeals to customers who are particularly sensitive about security. America’s Defence Department recently decided to use Intel’s American foundry. Attracting government money may be the foundry’s main raison d’être, observes Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein, a broker. Becoming reliant on state support risks blunting the very competitive edge that Mr Gelsinger hopes to sharpen. And as a mind-numbingly complex hardware business, Intel may find it more difficult to turn itself around than Microsoft, which benefited from the faster change that characterises the software industry. The stakes are therefore high—and not just for Intel. If the company continues to lose its edge, the result will almost certainly be further consolidation. Today’s handful of big chipmakers could eventually be whittled down to a duopoly. Even if more survive, most fabs would probably all be based in Asia (though TSMC plans to build a fab in Arizona). Around 80% of the world’s semiconductor capacity is already there, Mr Gelsinger estimates; America accounts for 15% and Europe for the rest.Only the open surviveWestern governments are not the only ones who ought to pay attention to the fate of Mr Gelsinger’s opening gambit. So, too, should today’s tech titans. Like Microsoft before it, Intel got in trouble largely because it was overprotective of its crown jewels. Others might decide that the best way to avoid such problems is to open up pre-emptively. Apple could be a less harsh steward of its App Store; Facebook could make its social network more interoperable with rivals; and Google could give phonemakers more freedom to tinker with its Android mobile OS. This could ease trustbusters’ worries—and make shareholders happier, too.For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter. More

CARMAKING IS sharply divided between the old and new. Recent electric-vehicle (EV) entrants, with Tesla at the forefront, command effervescent valuations largely based on being new and different. The share prices of established carmakers suggest that they will soon go out of business. Yet many of the former will probably fail and most of the latter survive. Rivian, one of the newcomers, filed paperwork for an initial public offering on August 27th and is reportedly seeking a valuation of at least $70bn, roughly the same as General Motors. Do its plans match the fizz?Listen to this storyYour browser does not support the element.Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

THE NOTION that the modern economy lacks “good jobs” is as uncontroversial as saying that Lionel Messi is good at football. Pundits decry the disappearance of the steady positions of yesteryear, where people did a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. “Where have all the good jobs gone?”, wonders one recent book, while another talks about “the rise of polarised and precarious employment systems”. President Joe Biden takes after Donald Trump in promising to bring good jobs “back”. But what if the whole debate rests on shaky foundations?It certainly lacks historical awareness. Compare the current discussion with the one during America’s postwar boom. Few people back then believed that they were living in a golden age of labour. Commentators were instead full of angst, worrying about the “blue-collar blues”. They said that unionised factory jobs—the very sort that today’s politicians yearn to restore—consisted of repetitive, dangerous work which involved all brawn and no brain. Others fretted over pay. Workers “are getting increasingly frustrated by a system they think is not giving them a satisfactory return for their labours”, proclaimed a high-ranking official at America’s Department of Labour in 1970.In fact the notion that the world of work is in decay is as old as capitalism itself. Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, a Swiss writer who inspired Karl Marx, said that factories would turn people into drones. John Stuart Mill worried in the mid-19th century that the rise of capitalism would provoke social decay. People would focus on nothing other than earning money, he feared, turning them into dullards (just look at Americans, he warned). The rise of big business and white-collar work in America provoked a new set of anxieties. It was soon predicted that the self-made men of yore would be replaced by effete company drones who did what they were told.This is not the only reason to question today’s pessimistic narrative. By any reasonable standard work is better today than it was. Pay is higher, working hours are shorter and industrial accidents rarer.It is harder to tell whether workers enjoy their work more than they did. Gallup, a pollster, has kindly supplied Bartleby with a smattering of job-satisfaction surveys from the 1960s and 1970s. Certainly there is little to suggest that workers back then were any happier than they are today. More comparable data, also from Gallup, from the early 1990s onwards show gradually improving job satisfaction. Last year 56% of American employees said they were “completely” satisfied with their job, an all-time high. A growing “precariat” of insecure workers gets a lot of headlines. But 90% of American employees said in 2020 that they were completely or somewhat satisfied with their job security, up from 79% in 1993.If the jobs-are-bad narrative falls down on the facts, why is it so pervasive—and so intuitive? Partly it is because no one has bothered to look at the evidence. Other observers just don’t like the constant change and churn which has always been part and parcel of capitalism. More still may subscribe, perhaps subconsciously, to what Friedrich Hayek, a philosopher, called an “atavistic” view of markets. The very notion that people must sell their labour, for cash, in order to survive may violate some deeply held notion that humans are a fundamentally co-operative species, rather than a competitive one.Yet perhaps the most important reason is that people dislike acknowledging trade-offs. Mill seemed unable to square his concern about the stultifying effects of capitalism with his argument that the division of labour had massively increased living standards. People often make similar errors today. The decline of trade unions may have hurt some workers’ wages; but it is less commonly acknowledged that this has also made it easier for less “traditional” workers, such as ethnic minorities and women, to enter the labour market. Sedentary office jobs can make people fat; but people are far less likely to die on the job than they once were.A relentless focus on the problems of labour markets still has its uses. It encourages people to think about how to make improvements. The evidence suggests that on average managers have got better in recent years but clearly some firms have a long way to go. Many people are still exploited by their employers. Today’s world of work is far better than its critics would like to admit. But there is every reason to try to make it better still.For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “‘Twas ever thus” More