It won't be today. But without any
doubt, technology leads us to a no-work future.
The purpose of
technology is to make life easier for human beings and therefore,
their job. Over the course of time, technology has destroyed jobs and
has created new ones, although to a lesser extent.
Work is the only
available means for the majority of the population to subsist in an
independent way. Even as a means, work has become a scarce resource
whose purpose is to get another scarce resource as money. Reducing
the supply of jobs on the market naturally leads to a fall in wages
and, consequently, to an impoverishment of workers. The shortage of
jobs will increase as the need for human intervention in productive
processes continues to decline.
As if this were
not enough, the population does not decrease but it increases. From an
optimistic approach, we will not consider the possibility of a
significant decrease in population: wars, pandemics, big natural
catastrophes, etc.
Throughout the
last decades we are witnessing an impoverishment of the middle class.
The difference between the rich and the poor increases year after
year -the gap between work and capital, too- recalling more and more
situations that occurred in past centuries. But the middle class is
essential for Democracy. Democratic systems are supported by middle
classes. Without middle classes, the Democratic system makes no
sense.
On the other
hand, the stimulus that is intended to give to entrepreneurship seems
to want to recreate figures socio economically similar to artisans and
petty bourgeois of the European Middle Ages. It is as if one wants to
admit that large-scale employment is dying. Thus, the cycle initiated
in the first industrial revolution -factories with a large number of
workers- would be terminated and there will be a return to the
previous idea of self-employment. Perhaps we may witness the birth of
a new middle class constituted (essentially, or at least in a greater
proportion that until now) by entrepreneurs and freelancers.
In fact, it is a
suggestion that lately you hear a lot: First, learn by working for
others and when you have learned, work for yourself. The idea is not
new, but it was not so popular some decades ago.
But it seems to
be the same as what was happening with the apprentice and the artisan
in the European Middle Ages. A point will be reached when the artisan
will not be able to pay what the apprentice is worth and then, the
apprentice will have to become an artisan himself.
At first,
machines were designed to replace humans in the heaviest jobs. Then,
in the most repetitive activities. We know that, along the time,
everything that could be automated was automated and, today is the
same. Until machines are able to evolve by themselves, man will have
to intervene in the productive process. There will come a time when
this will not be necessary.
However, long
before this happens, we should see an overall reduction in the annual
number of working hours.
In broad terms,
we are faced with two possible situations:
1. Part of the
population works and another part does not.
2. All -or the
vast majority- of the population works and there is a reduction of
working hours. (This is nothing to do with a social -or
technological- dividend. Both things are not mutually exclusive).
So, given that
the first option causes social inequality by itself and that the
second option seems to offer a seamless transition -at least a known
transition-, the latter seems more plausible.
Due to historical
issues dating back to the XIX century, in much of the western
countries, a work-week consists of, approximately, eight hours a day
and five work-days a week.
“During the Industrial Revolution the production in large factories transformed
the traditional labor life, both of rural and guild, imposing long
days and conditions of work close to slavery.
The regulation,
established since 1496 in Great Britain, according to which the
working day lasted at most 15 hours: from 5 in the morning until 8 at
night, was not applied. Working conditions without regulation or
control deteriorated the health, well-being and morale of workers.
Then, the use of child labor was common.”
Anyway, eight
hours a day is not a magic number to be worshipped, not even a
transcendent number like e or π. It is a variable that had a value
in the past, today has another, and that will take a different one in
the future. It is a variable that tends to zero with the time.
Indeed, in 1930,
John Maynard Keynes introduced the term “
technological unemployment” and forecasted a 15 hours work-week in one century
(
Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren). In the 1950s, the
concept of a
four-day work week to make workers more happy and more
productive, was introduced by American labor union leader Walter
Reuther. A reduction in working hours was proposed in 2010 by the
"New Economics Foundation" , recommending a
week of 21working hours to alleviate a number of problems, including
unemployment, low welfare, entrenched inequalities, overwork and lack
of free time. In 2014, Google's co-founder, Larry Page, suggested a
four-day work-week, “so as technology continues to displace jobs,
more people can find employment”. Polls show that 70
per cent of millionaires think the
four-day work-week is a “valid
idea”. Recently, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim actually called
for a
three-day work-week.
Keeping salaries
will be a crucial point in reducing working hours.
Along the
Industrial Era, technology have been causing a reduction in human
working hours, in a more or less continuous way. If the next
significant reduction is not soon, it will not take a long time,
either.
The fact that
reducing the number of working hours could have other beneficial
consequences on the sustainability of the planet, consumption of
resources, workers’ health and productivity, etc. has not been
considered object of this article. Only it has been taken the
question that technology, unavoidably, sooner or later, for good or
for evil, will end with the need for human beings to have to work for
a living. Because that is its reason to exist.
When winds of
change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.
- Chinese proverb
In the writing of
this article, Otis Redding ((Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay, The Dock Of The Bay) has collaborated in an involuntary but decisive way.
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1. Picture: Henning Larsen Nordea by Sandro Katalina | Unsplah.
2. I want to thank Karen Johnson for her critical opinions as well as for her revision of this text.
