Of course. It was easy to do that...in the 80s. Starting in the mod to late 90s, depending on where you are, it became impossible. To use that as an example for today is meaningless.
I bet you can find contractors in business today, who were also in business in the 80s, and I bet their business and employee model is 180 degrees different.
If we could rewind to the 80s, a lot of things would be better.