Last Friday morning I appeared on a panel about the future of work. This is of course a topic I have covered extensively here on Continuations and is a central subject of my draft book World After Capital.
One of the key recurring themes that I hear in this context is some version of “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.” This comes up for instance with regard to how quickly some jobs will be automated and where possible new jobs might come from in the future. This strikes me as a huge and misleading cop out because first, we do know what *is* happening, second we know what *has* happened in the past and third, we need to figure out what we *want* to happen now! Because “what’s going to happen” is not the result of some deterministic process of history or technology but will be the outcome of the choices that we make today.
First, we do know what is happening. We do not need to wait until full automation has arrived to see the effects of automation. A great example is driving a cab as a job. This was a pretty decent job for quite a few people as it required some degree of local geographic knowledge. With the advent of navigation systems though we made it so anyone who knew how to drive could do the job. That created a few interesting and high paying jobs making and programming navigation systems while reducing the income for many drivers who are now competing with a much larger labor pool. This same bifurcation effect due to technology has been playing itself out in many, many other labor markets including retail, banking. The resulting skewing of the income distribution can be seen clearly not just in aggregate statistics but has also been driving election results including Brexit and Trump.
Second, we know what has happened in the past. We have had a previous massive change with the onset of industrial technologies. That change required us to rework a social contract that had been based on the Great Chain of Being, in which aristocracy had a responsibility to assure the safety and well being of the commoners in their domain to one involving the relationship between labor and capital. We attempted two broadly different solutions to this: state control of both capital and labor (Communism) and markets with meaningful labor bargaining power (through unions, social safety nets). We know that the market based approach won out but it did so because of a new social contract –started in no small part by Bismarck – not in spite of it. And at the time what many people fought for and wanted was to have the benefits of industrialization to accrue to both labor and capital.
Third, we need to figure out what we want now. This is by far the hardest part and the one we should be spending time on instead of pretending we don’t know. The future is not pre-determined, it is for us to choose. This really is the essence of my draft book World After Capital: it is about choosing to leave the Industrial Age and enter the Knowledge Age. Choosing a new social contract that frees people from the job loop and allows them to participate in the knowledge loop. Some form of basic income is a central component of this new social contract but it is not enough. We also need to change who controls computation and information, shifting it away from the large centralized corporations and towards us, the people, at the edge of the network.
I am writing this post on May Day on purpose. May Day in many parts of the world is the equivalent of Labour Day here in the US. US Presidents have historically used it to for some affirmation of values. Values are crucial because they let us make choices. But we shouldn’t be looking for some kind of blind loyalty to a fixed doctrine. The founding of the United States in fact was about the exact opposite, a break with the doctrines of old. In World After Capital, I make a plea for increased freedom rooted in the values of a new Humanism. We need to invent the future, including the new social contract.
