agency needs somewhere to live.
for a long time, work has been one of those places. but as machines take on more of that work, what can disappear is not just income, but also responsibility, judgment, bargaining power.
so where else can agency live?
work gives people leverage because institutions need something from them. but having a say does not have to depend on scarce labor or being indispensable. agency can also come from how people are organized in relation to one another: who can initiate, who can refuse, who can coordinate with whom, who can change the terms they share.
that asks more of systems than better outputs. it asks whether people can remain distinct, keep some things private, and still change shared state: the decisions, rules, and conditions they live with together.
agency does not have to belong to one actor or one scale. as shared systems become increasingly composed of people, institutions, and machines, the more interesting ones may be those that let different kinds of participants coordinate across difference and still shape what they share.