The war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity

Ok, so which “elites” are holding real estate portfolios and creating these stories in the media bashing remote work? Who are they?

I don’t think the world is so coordinated. Some people made a bad bet on real estate. Some other people want to write click bait pieces about lazy workers. Some other corporate leaders are scared that employees are goofing off outside the office (because productivity can’t be measured for most work).

The author keeps mentioning capital-E “Elites” and never names one or even defines what that means.

My Spidey senses go off whenever someone uses an undefined label to describe a sweeping societal change.

And, yes, it is all about real estate.

I don't think it is far fetched tho. If you have a couple of millions to spare, you can easily set up a little think tank on how to effect certain changes. If you're willing to throw money at something, it requires minimal effort to coordinate.

Your question as to who these people are, is still valid. So my objection is only to the extent that it being unknown doesn't mean it isn't likely.

> I don’t think the world is so coordinated.

I suggest you read or watch something about McKinsey.

I’ve heard this argument before and I don’t buy it. By that, I mean it may be true (that people want to prop up real estate prices), but I don’t think that this is enough of an explanation.

If it were just about real estate, then Amazon would not be calling for 5 days a week return-to-office. I don’t think real estate interests are powerful enough to push Amazon around and I don’t think they’re entrenched enough in Amazon leadership to make it happen. As an alternative contributing factor, I suggest that Amazon wants employee attrition, and five day return-to-office is a convenient tool for that. One of the things that makes return-to-office such a convenient tool for employee attrition is that it’s a deniable tool.

In cities like New York, it’s pretty clear that commercial real estate interests are in bed with the city government. I just don’t think that real estate has enough power to push through a return-to-office agenda at the scale that we’re seeing. Don’t get me wrong, I think commercial real estate interests have a ton of influence. I just don’t think it’s enough influence to explain RTO at this scale (but it can explain RTO policies in some specific cases).