Working for living is a problem to be solved.
The purpose of technology is to automate things, increase free time.
The purpose of politics is to distribute gains justly, whatever that is.
There used to be a lot more horses… I’m finding 25 million in the US in 1920 compared with 3.8 million today. Of course, they can no longer occupy the niche in society they used to, and so like in nature; when the niche is removed; they can’t just find some other way to be productive or even survive. I don’t think we are so different. Based on the past, I think it’s dangerous to believe some few will keep the rest of us around. Dangerous, because unlike horses, this will cause significant unrest, and ultimately we can’t predict the outcome. My guess is ultimately, with fewer jobs, there will eventually be less people, for better or worse.
I imagine it looks like a transition of the middle class to the lower class (with some going to a higher class with specialized technology roles as class traitors), and then the lower class, having had their labor invalidated, being put on UBI and being sucked like cattle by corporations, eroding their rights and sovereignty. With social media addiction, rampant disinformation, newer generations won’t even have the faculties to conceptualize their fate and resist. I also don’t think unrest could ever reach a boiling point in the US with how addicted, misinformed, and manipulated most of the population is.
Eventually, we see a complete unification of the wealthy with the state and we transition back into serfdom. People trapped in debt, dependent on the state for sustenance, except this time the state has no dependence on their labor. What happens next is your choice of dystopian horror fiction.
I strongly, viscerally disagree with this. People (mostly) need to feel like they are capable agents and also like they are contributing to something larger than themselves. I’ve seen friends struggle to get a job and find their place in the world; sitting alone at home and watching TV for weeks straight is an inhuman way to exist, and that’s where a lot of people will end up without work, as the average person seems to be pretty terrible at stimulating themselves intellectually.
Note that this doesn’t strictly require capitalism or a 40 hour workweek or anything like that. Since AI is so great at solving everything, maybe one day it can organize the distribution of work to keep the remaining humans busy. I don’t know.
similarly : work exists outside of wages, as do co-operative and unpaid grand works.
the (probably fantastical) hope is that when a 'living wage' as a concept disappears it will free up people to pursue things that they're actually passionate about to form an identity and purpose.
put from another angle : do you think it's great that people can't find identity without employment?
it seems to me we should treat 'lack of identity and self worth due to lack of employment' as a pathology rather than something that we need to feed employment into. the human condition has lasted a lot longer than our current hyper-capitalism-centric ethos about work and passion; if people are becoming worse for it we should probably change the habits and motivations rather than providing their pacifier and acting as if it's a normal human thing for a psyche to dissolve when allowed to act as a free agent.
That’s like asking me if I think it’s ‘great’ that people have two legs and a finite lifespan. It just is. What you choose to do under constraints is a big part of your identity.
> it seems to me we should treat 'lack of identity and self worth due to lack of employment' as a pathology
Man, is there anything that isn’t a pathology these days?
It is, but I'd argue that's a failure of imagination on their part to do anything else other than watch TV. There are many opportunities to volunteer somewhere and get engaged with a community, but they have to get off their couch to do it. (don't even need to get off the couch, given the right set of skills.)
Wall•E predicted a world of rich, fat humans amusing and eating themselves to death. It got the rich part wrong.
The people on the ship where the 1%ers.
100%, but that doesn't mean it has to be work. That doesn't have to be a job, especially one that you enjoy only 30% of the time. Purpose can come form lots of things, but we just push everyone to make that thing commercial, part of capitalism
I had a job where I got payed, but had no real work. It was genuinely awful.
Not to cry about my mental health, but it was very taxing for me. I was just sitting around doing random things occasionally.