Santa Cruz Duo at the Center of the New Naked Workplace

For all the technological progress around the Silicon Valley, the working world has become a throwback to the past.

Governments and corporations aren't taking care of people the way they used to. Instead, the workplace has become like an old fashioned barn-raising. People work out of their homes. They have trouble finding full time jobs or they stay at jobs they hate just to keep benefits. But when someone needs something done friends come over and help each other, in a community of entrepreneurs. 

That's one of the premises of a new book called The Rise of the Naked Economy: How to Benefit from the Changing Workplace (Palgrave/Macmillan $28) by Santa Cruz authors Ryan Coonerty and Jeremy Neuner. The book shows the modern workplace as an environment that lets workers surf in the morning, or mothers care for their children during the day, but takes away previous benefits such as healthcare and retirement.

It's a naked economy, one where most workers no longer have the benefits once given by companies and the government.

"When you are naked, you are vulnerable," says Coonerty defining the new economy of entrepreneurs. "But you can also have fun naked."

The authors look at companies that are trying to make life better for employees in a downturned economy and offer suggestions for budding entrepreneurs.

"This is a wave that is about to hit the rest of the world," says Coonerty, who co-owns a business called NextSpace, which rents office space to entrepreneurs and creates a social environment for independent workers. Workers rent space by the day or the month or the year, sort of like a gym for entrepreneurs. The business has grown from one office in Santa Cruz to seven in San Francisco, Berkeley and Los Angeles.

"From our perspective it could either be a race to the bottom, where everybody is scrambling for scraps or we could start to think about strategy and public policy that allows us to all be a little more prosperous."

Coonerty, who used to be a city councilman and mayor of Santa Cruz and is a likely candidate for the county Board of Supervisors seat his father is vacating in 2015, says that the government does need to come up with a safety net for all workers, not just part time workers, that includes health benefits.

"The mistake is to cling to a past that is really very short-lived," says Coonerty. "The idea that you are going to work for a company for all of your career, you are going to get a gold watch and a retirement plan. That only worked for a small portion of the population. It didn't work for women. It didn't work for young people. It didn't work for old people."

The worst thing for people and the economy, he says, is to have people cling to jobs they don't want for the old school benefits. Why? Because it stops them from pursuing businesses that could help them and the world.

One example in the book is a Santa Cruz man who wants to launch a green business, who has the funding and the team. But he can't leave his current job because his family needs his health care. 

"So not only is this company not created, which is what we need in a recession, but his job doesn't open up. Economists call this 'lob lock' and the impact on the economy is enormous. We want people to be out starting companies."

His book points out models already in place around the country that help freelance workers get health, retirement and sick leave benefits. He argues that if the government can provide those things for workers, the way they do in most civilized countries around the world, it would help entrepreneurs do what they do best: start businesses and rev up the economy.

If the government can't do it, he says, then people have to come up with ways to do it in groups themselves, a sharing economy.

"There's no reason everyone has to buy their own lawnmower," he says.

While much of the corporate world is shifting away from caring about workers, the authors found companies that go in the opposite direction. The makers of Fat Tire Amber Ale give workers a new bicycle on their first anniversary, to keep them healthy and to show appreciation in a novel way. After five years, workers get a bike trip to Europe to recreate the trip that inspired the company's founder to make the ale.

They also give them 4-6 week paid sabbaticals after 10 years, and, in a seeming contradiction in terms, a free 12-pack of beer every week. And most importantly, the owners made the company employee-owned, a model that breaks with the trend of many companies that do what they can to avoid helping workers and getting them benefits, while their owners become the richest people in the world.

The book is filled with examples of the ways people have adapted to the new "naked" economy and offers hope to those looking to break out of the old mold and thrive as entrepreneurs.

And Santa Cruz, he says, is at the cutting edge of the new naked economy.

"I think we were out in front in organics," says Coonerty. "We were out in front on lifestyle sports. I think we are out in front in how to work and how to live."