“The correct answer to a question containing the word “surely” is “No””

John Venning.

Venning’s Law being what we require to evaluate this claim from Owen Jones:

Surely here is an opportunity to help define a new deal for the post-pandemic workplace.

By which he means, as an example:

But it’s not just the free market that denies workers power and control in their jobs....(...)...But a new settlement for the workplace must also be more democratic. ...(...)...The case for workers’ democracy is overwhelming

It is the free market which allows that power and control. Because it is exactly that free market which produces choice in which job it is that is applied for, or left if it doesn’t come up to scratch.

Democracy produces the tyranny of the majority, where all must work to the job rules that the plurality decides upon - this not being freedom nor power and control.

Yes, of course democracy is a good thing in its place - bloodless changes of power perhaps, decisions upon the overarching matters that must be taken at that national level. But working hours - say - or which flavour of pizza is to be produced (or even ordered or eaten), what combination of wages, benefits, services and goods in kind should make up labour compensation, these are all things that should be decided in a more fine grained manner than whatever the majority thinks they should be.

The reason being that we all have different desires about such things. Some prefer the certainty of a fixed wage, others the freedoms - and variabilities - of the freelance life. It is exactly that free market which produces the 30 odd million differences which make up the 30 odd million jobs in the country. The where, the what, the wages, the hours, the side gigs, the pension, the other compensations. That multivaried series of differently shaped holes into which we get to try and jam our own shaped pegs to maximise utility.

The imposition of majoritarian rules reduces that glorious freedom and liberty provided by that free market. Or, to put this another way, the free market enables us to vote with our feet, a much more powerful force for liberty than merely waving ballot papers.