Prison is a nightmare. But could it lead us to utopia?
How the inmates of San Quentin find meaning in the post-work world
by James Kaelan
“Most jobs that exist today might disappear within decades,” writes Yuval Noah Harari in a 2017 essay for The Guardian. “Consequently, by 2050 a new class of people might emerge — the useless class. People who are not just unemployed, but unemployable.”
“The same technology that renders humans useless,” he continues, referring to the machines that will replace living workers, “might also make it feasible to feed and support [them]… The real problem will then be to keep the masses occupied and content. People must engage in purposeful activities, or they go crazy.
“So what will the useless class do all day?”
As one possible answer, Harari points to a segment of Israeli society that reports some of the highest “levels of life-satisfaction” in the country: government-supported, ultra-orthodox Jewish scholars.
They’re all married men. And while they hunch over their Torahs, their wives work to augment the family income. But the source of the subsidy, in Harari’s framing, is less important than how these men find meaning in their lives when they aren’t worried about a paycheck.
