If We Get Rid Of Work, We Won’t
I greatly respect the magazine Current Affairs. I recommend everyone read it. However, there is a recent article I disagree with in it.
Not on every level. It’s simply that there’s a point being made in the article, and I have a counterpoint, that I might as well bring up.
The article, “The Rise of the Robot Barons,” by the brilliant CA contributor Brianna Rennix, discusses the possibilities of a world of total automation. There are, Brianna suggests, a few possibilities being talked about, and neither one seems really like a great idea. One would be putting a stop to automation. The other, a generous UBI, and letting computers do all the work. (This one, as those who know me would guess, is my preferred option.)
Brianna raises the issue of the moral value of work. This is not, as she (I presume she, but please correct me in case I am mistaken) points out, a concern merely of capitalists trying to trick the working class into doing stuff on their behalf. While we could suppose it is, she raises a wonderful point. Why, if this is the concern of capitalists, do so many of those white collar workers — And even the wealthy themselves — Engage in gardening when they retire? Or spend their days in the gym? Why do so many people who don’t HAVE to engage in the quite frankly insane act of recreational housecleaning when stressed?
Manual labor is something many people find satisfaction in. And Brianna raises the point quite well — We shouldn’t take jobs away, simply because we CAN, since people find enjoyment in the structure of a job. She suggests, quite rightly, that those of us who think we would have a world of painters, thinkers, and poets without the need for manual labor, are overly naive, optimistic, and probably have not considered how insufferable such a world would be.
(I concur with her on this point. I know writers. I am a writer. We’re kind of terrible.)
Those who look down on manual labor, and think that no-one would ever engage in it if they didn’t have to, happen to simply be the right combination of privileged enough not to have to, and not of the temperament to do so.
What Brianna does not raise, unless I have drastically misread her article, is the possibility that, in fact, getting rid of manual labor will not get rid of manual labor.
I firmly believe in the generous UBI plan, leading to a purely voluntary workforce. I believe also, however, that there will nevertheless BE a workforce. And not simply painters and artists. In this world, I believe, we will still have human electricians, human carpenters, even human housecleaners. (Those people who enjoy cleaning so much, given nothing to do, are welcome to make an attempt at my apartment. It will give them joy for months.)
I do jest with that last line, but let me explain what I’m trying to say.
Today, we live in a world where a machine can make a vase for your flowers in ten seconds. A glass one, even. And yet, someone I know recently spent hundreds of dollars for a blown glass flower vase that, from my perspective, really was no better than the $25 one I’d buy. Yet he was quite pleased with his purchase.
Humans are a social species. We find value, in the value found by others. We value the work that people put in as much as they value the doing of it. The joy I find in my neighbor’s beautiful garden is increased by the fact that I have seen her work so hard on it. Other gardens are just pretty flowers, but even though hers may not match them aesthetically, it is more important to me, because I know how much she did. That knowledge of her effort increases its value to me.
That, I think, is the same thing that would happen if we were to automate all manual labor jobs. People would take those jobs anyway, just as the glassblowers still blow glass decades after a machine started to do it for them.
I imagine that five hundred years ago, if you had asked if someone would still be blowing glass by hand in a world where these machines existed, they’d have dismissed the possibility. Why would I not think that, in a world where everyone can have a machine clean their house, some would take pride in hiring that world’s version of Merry Maids to do it for them? And those Merry Maids would, for once, actually live up to their name, because they all signed up because they liked housecleaning.
The structure of a job and work is one many people enjoy. We’re not all good at structuring ourselves. But fortunately, for every person who finds natural enjoyment in the cleaning of the room, there’s another who finds natural enjoyment in the managing of a timesheet. Those two might find the other a bit mad, but that’s the species for ya. Like the cat said to Alice, we’re all a bit mad here. They’ll find a way to meet, and then start working together. In the days before automated assembly, who would have thought a handmade fireplace would be at all desirable? In a realm with automated labor, who today would think a handcleaned home the same?
And yet, I believe it will be.
The message of the left has always been that a better world is possible. A world of comfort and voluntary-only labor? I can imagine that would be best. And indeed, I would argue, it is possible. Voluntary labor does not mean none.
We don’t need to worry about machines pushing us out of all the jobs. Given the choice, we won’t let them. We’ve already shown that.
