It seems that the earlier promise of a less work-centred future is finally upon us. The Guardian’s Last Job on Earth animation ends with a sobering quote from Professor Moshe Vardi, who suggests that machines could take 50% of jobs in the next 30 years.
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It was thought by Keynes, for example, that society’s growing stock of knowledge, along with the rise of remarkable new production technologies, would radically reduce the need to work and eventually leave us free for other things: for culture, politics, and the organisation of productive and socially beneficial activities outside the formal economy. What is perhaps most confusing about the work-centred world in which we find ourselves is the extent to which it deviates from one of the original promises of industrial development, which was to gradually eliminate the need for toil. When David Cameron declared the coalition government a “government for hard-working people”, the ethical lines were firmly drawn: are you a worker or a shirker? There is no space to occupy in between, no way of making a social contribution other than through work. A lack of work, we are often told, signals a lack of character.
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This is evident in the negative stereotypes of the jobless frequently portrayed, for example in TV programmes such as Benefits Street. There are also few activities that grant the same level of ethical approval as paid work.
It is now more or less accepted that the main goal of education should be to equip young people with the skills and certifications required to access work. Work is also a key source of status and identity.Įngagement in paid work marks the passage to maturity, with the connection between work and identity forged the first time adults ask their children what they want to “be” when they grow up. Work is the main social mechanism for distributing income, and therefore represents the main way most people meet their material needs. We live in a profoundly work centred society.
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