Post-work societies

My regular Friday column this week in Expansión, Spain’s leading financial daily, is called “Post-work societies” (pdf in Spanish), and looks briefly at whether we are evolving toward markedly different societies to those of just a generation ago, in which work has a very different place. We could be talking about a major structural revolution, of the kind that literally would change the way we live our lives, and that for many people is still very hard to imagine.

Below, the article in full:

Post-work societies

Work, and the concept of work, is central to our society. To be a worker, or to have work are key components of our social function. Unemployment is a drama, and we assess the wellbeing of a society on its ability to generate employment. Work is a sacrifice we must make if we are to obtain the things we want and need in life. Everything, even down to the way our cities work, have evolved on the basis of work.

So what would happen if this value system were to enter into terminal crisis? If structural unemployment continued to grow, driven by ever-more versatile and efficient technology? And what if this weren’t a fall out from the system, but the logical consequence of its very evolution?

Some thinkers have already begun to question the concept of work as the spinal column of human societies, suggesting that its usefulness might soon be spent. They say we could be evolving toward a post-work society, one in which work is something vocational, a personal challenge we set ourselves, a way of stimulating us, something we do because we want to or because it interests us.

How are we supposed to deal with an idea that attacks the very foundations of our societies? Are we going to continue creating jobs that serve no real purpose so as to give the impression that we are still working? Or are we going to just accept that mechanisms once designed for situations of crisis are evolving toward a universal basic income, toward “earnings for being alive” while the connotations of work change completely? In the societies of tomorrow, only those who really want to work will do so, and they will enjoy their work. It’s an idea that will change everything. But it’s one we are going to have to get our heads round.

Here are a few interesting articles on the subject:

• “Antiwork — a radical shift in how we view ‘jobs’”, Contributoria
• “Work is bullshit: the argument for ‘antiwork’“, Fast Company
• “Could we afford a universal basic income?“ — EconoMonitor
• “Idea of paying citizens a yearly stipend is gaining support in Switzerland“, PBS

(En español, aquí)