A LEISURELY FUTURE
5th May 2016 - A Leisurely Future
Recently I stumbled across the results of a survey in which just 34% of the respondents claimed they enjoyed their jobs. Seemingly the other 66% dragged themselves to work, put in the requisite number of hours and then rushed home. As I recall, the survey took place in either North America or Europe so didn’t include all the Chinese workers, third world farmers or deep level miners sweating away or the negative percentage could have been much higher. No doubt they all work because they need the income in order to be able to eat, have a cell-phone and generally stay alive. The survey made no mention of what the disillusioned would rather do, whether play golf, romp with the kids, pursue home crafts or simply add yet more trivia to their Facebook pages.
Relief could be at hand for that reluctant majority. Technology pundits are increasingly predicting that the next two decades will see as many of 70% of today’s jobs being done by robots of one form or another. It’s not going to happen overnight, just gradually. And each time the unemployment rate ticks up there’s going to be a cry from the politicians, the unions and the unemployed for more jobs to be created. It’s as though King Canute was back again sitting on his throne on the beach, only this time being swept away by a tide of technology.
I think it’s time for a paradigm shift. Instead of discouraging unemployment, we need to encourage it so people can lead more meaningful lives doing what they want to do rather than what they have to do. Organisations should be incentivised to automate and retrench as fast as they can. Governments should institute a universal grant paid to every adult in the country. It must be enough to live on comfortably. Employers would then be able to pay employees much less without reducing their standard of living and a combination of corporate, employee and wealth taxes would pay for the grants.
With several members of my family involved in educational initiatives, I found myself mulling on the future of education under this scenario. How much and what education do you give to someone who is never going to hold down a job? Will the wealthy ensure their offspring get the privileged education needed for the complex task of robot manager? On a more positive note, people would have leisure time to pursue life-long learning, some of it using virtual reality classrooms and knowledge transplants.
Now all of this is a concept that can only come about through political change. The problem is that voters in democracies have a track record of voting for leaders who don’t actually have the interests of their electors at heart. Instead, the politicians are in hock to wealthy vested interests who fund their ongoing re-election campaigns so they then legislate in their favour. However, as I watch what is happening in North America and Europe, I wonder whether voters, maybe as a result of social media, are starting to wake up to the wool being pulled over their eyes.
Back in the first half of the twentieth century Keynes was predicting a future where people would have much more leisure time; however his ideas were overruled in the Bretton Woods discussions at the end of the Second World War and unemployment became a dirty word. Many nineteenth century novels – take Jane Eyre or War and Peace for instance – extolled and described an idyllic world where no one seemed to work. In fact members of the merchant class were decidedly second rate while people who worked with their hands were rarely mentioned. Maybe we need to redevelop that leisurely way of life, rising late, extended lunches or exotic picnics and dancing till dawn – so much nicer than the drudge of working unnecessarily when a robot could take your place!
Useful References
If you have a stomach for dense, left-wing polemic then Inventing the Future – Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams is very thought provoking
In response to US presidential candidates promising to bring back American manufacturing from China and Mexico, a recent article in Atlantic magazine calculated that American factories were producing more with fewer workers – and the skill levels of the remaining workers are rising.
Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford produced a report Technology at Work v2.0: The Future Is Not What It Used To Be which concludes the pace of change has accelerated; the scope of technological change is increasing; and the benefits of technological change are not being widely shared.
Recently I stumbled across the results of a survey in which just 34% of the respondents claimed they enjoyed their jobs. Seemingly the other 66% dragged themselves to work, put in the requisite number of hours and then rushed home. As I recall, the survey took place in either North America or Europe so didn’t include all the Chinese workers, third world farmers or deep level miners sweating away or the negative percentage could have been much higher. No doubt they all work because they need the income in order to be able to eat, have a cell-phone and generally stay alive. The survey made no mention of what the disillusioned would rather do, whether play golf, romp with the kids, pursue home crafts or simply add yet more trivia to their Facebook pages.
Relief could be at hand for that reluctant majority. Technology pundits are increasingly predicting that the next two decades will see as many of 70% of today’s jobs being done by robots of one form or another. It’s not going to happen overnight, just gradually. And each time the unemployment rate ticks up there’s going to be a cry from the politicians, the unions and the unemployed for more jobs to be created. It’s as though King Canute was back again sitting on his throne on the beach, only this time being swept away by a tide of technology.
I think it’s time for a paradigm shift. Instead of discouraging unemployment, we need to encourage it so people can lead more meaningful lives doing what they want to do rather than what they have to do. Organisations should be incentivised to automate and retrench as fast as they can. Governments should institute a universal grant paid to every adult in the country. It must be enough to live on comfortably. Employers would then be able to pay employees much less without reducing their standard of living and a combination of corporate, employee and wealth taxes would pay for the grants.
With several members of my family involved in educational initiatives, I found myself mulling on the future of education under this scenario. How much and what education do you give to someone who is never going to hold down a job? Will the wealthy ensure their offspring get the privileged education needed for the complex task of robot manager? On a more positive note, people would have leisure time to pursue life-long learning, some of it using virtual reality classrooms and knowledge transplants.
Now all of this is a concept that can only come about through political change. The problem is that voters in democracies have a track record of voting for leaders who don’t actually have the interests of their electors at heart. Instead, the politicians are in hock to wealthy vested interests who fund their ongoing re-election campaigns so they then legislate in their favour. However, as I watch what is happening in North America and Europe, I wonder whether voters, maybe as a result of social media, are starting to wake up to the wool being pulled over their eyes.
Back in the first half of the twentieth century Keynes was predicting a future where people would have much more leisure time; however his ideas were overruled in the Bretton Woods discussions at the end of the Second World War and unemployment became a dirty word. Many nineteenth century novels – take Jane Eyre or War and Peace for instance – extolled and described an idyllic world where no one seemed to work. In fact members of the merchant class were decidedly second rate while people who worked with their hands were rarely mentioned. Maybe we need to redevelop that leisurely way of life, rising late, extended lunches or exotic picnics and dancing till dawn – so much nicer than the drudge of working unnecessarily when a robot could take your place!
Useful References
If you have a stomach for dense, left-wing polemic then Inventing the Future – Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams is very thought provoking
In response to US presidential candidates promising to bring back American manufacturing from China and Mexico, a recent article in Atlantic magazine calculated that American factories were producing more with fewer workers – and the skill levels of the remaining workers are rising.
Citi and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford produced a report Technology at Work v2.0: The Future Is Not What It Used To Be which concludes the pace of change has accelerated; the scope of technological change is increasing; and the benefits of technological change are not being widely shared.
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