Lone Rangers

Are those in the free-agent economy just getting to the future ahead of
everyone else?

Story at:
http://www.massinc.org/handler.cfm?type=1&target=2005-3/lone_rangers.htm

The summer issue of CommonWealth magazine is now in the mail and posted in
its entirety on our Web site, at www.massinc.org,
in both HTML and PDF formats. Click on a link below to go directly to the
story of your choice (one-time free registration required).

The cover story is associate editor Michael Jonas's report on the
"Lone Rangers," independent workers hailed as pioneers of an emerging "free agent
nation" during the New Economy boom who now look like harbingers of
less-secure employment arrangements for all. "Those in this category go by
different names - consultants and contractors, temps and contingent workers
- that conjure up very different images: They are either masters of their
own universe or interchangeable units in a brutal new economic order,"
writes Jonas. "What they have in common is that, to a far greater degree
than for those in the standard world of work, they are on their own." The
question is: Are the rest of us right behind them? "Their experience is an
extreme form of what many more Americans are experiencing," Yale political
scientist Jacob Hacker, author of the upcoming book The Great Risk Shift,
tells Jonas.

Note the cover page of the issue has a bad link:
Cover page: http://www.massinc.org/commonwealth/index.html
Story at:
http://www.massinc.org/handler.cfm?type=1&target=2005-3/lone_rangers.htm

Link to our site: articles/CommonWealth-Summer-2005.htm
Story, (in PDF), on our site: articles/CommonWealth-lone_rangers.pdf