
Who Owns Work, and Its Future? - imartin2k
https://workfutures.io/who-owns-work-and-its-future-65da5728c4ee
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eb3c90
One possible future we should think about is one where humans are more capable
(through technology) and can provide for more of their needs. So work would go
back to being owned by us.

It would be a more self-sufficient life style, but on a higher technology base
than farmers.

I'm blogging about it here at
[https://improvingautonomy.wordpress.com](https://improvingautonomy.wordpress.com)
. My post on universal basic income is probably the most relevant.

[https://improvingautonomy.wordpress.com/2017/08/05/what-
afte...](https://improvingautonomy.wordpress.com/2017/08/05/what-after-
universal-basic-income/)

I hope this line of thinking can be part of our discussion about the future of
work.

~~~
maxxxxx
It will be interesting to see what will happen when we have the technology to
live in a self-sufficient way. My pessimistic self tells me that capitalists
will find ways to make this impossible or illegal without paying them through
IP or other laws.

~~~
dasmoth
I'd point to property taxes as a plausible way this can happen. They're
already a non-trivial consideration for people looking at low-tech self-
sufficiency, and I can only see this getting more pronounced.

(This is something in the back of my mind whenever I hear calls for a shift to
land value taxation. I can't really see it happening in a way that doesn't
further normalise wage labour).

~~~
eb3c90
This will be a big thing. We could give people an allowance of a certain
amount of land that is tax-free (as we have in the UK for income).

In the longer term, government could also be self-sufficient. This might be
unstable though, it might be better for there to be a contribution of
materials/energy/information to the the government from self-sufficient
communities. The government would still provide the value of
protection/arbitration to the self-sufficient communities.

~~~
dasmoth
Agree an allowance would be a sensible way to go about this. But given that,
as far as I can tell, most of the motivation for an LVT in the UK is some
variant of "stick it to small private landlords", I think it's unlikely.

------
swombat
> _For the individual, work is at best an accommodation to the pressing need
> to provide for ourselves, and that can provide the wherewithal to pursue
> happiness. At the worst, it is a global system that requires the majority of
> adults worldwide to dedicate a large chunk of their waking hours to
> demanding bosses, harrowing commutes, stressful and dangerous work places,
> and often tedious, repetitive and unrelenting labor._

Well that's a cheerful perspective...

How about this for the "at best" scenario?

Work is how we give meaning to our lives. It is our way of contributing to
each other's existence, and to challenge ourselves and thereby grow as human
beings. Without work, with only leisure, our lives become superficial and less
meaningful.

Now let's talk about the future of work.

~~~
aisofteng
Indeed. The article is based on a false premise, and that quote gives a very
good idea of the framing of the entire piece.

~~~
bittercynic
Which of those descriptions of work resonates best with you will differ from
person to person, and I would imagine that the description from the article
resonates very well with a substantial fraction of all people.

------
trjordan
One of the dangers of writing structural critiques like this is that it's easy
to feel like the problems are structural in a way that makes individual effort
irrelevant. On this particular topic, I think there is a huge amount of
individual latitude to attack the problem.

I'm lucky enough to work on problems that I find interesting, important, and
personally challenging. I optimize for this at the expense of salary and
stability. One of the biggest things that's helped me in a cultural safety net
of believing that this is OK, with a network of people that help me out. I
think there's also enormous potential for individuals to reinforce the values
they think will define work in the right way.

\- Can you support your friends when their companies attack their work/life
balance? Can you help them come up with ways to fight back without hurting
their careers?

\- Can you share information that's not typically public, in order to help
others make better decisions? Salary to peers is an easy place to start.
Harder is telling younger folks what Sales Engineers and Product Managers do
(and how it can be really fun, fulfilling, and lucrative!).

\- Can you normalize behaviors that benefit workers at the expense of
companies? Unions used to be great, but I personally think they're the wrong
tool for the problems of 2017. Working from home 2 days a week shouldn't break
any team, but it's still a cultural taboo.

I'll admit that these are pretty 1st-world problems and I can't do much for
people outside of Bay Area tech, but Bay Area tech is where I live and work.
We can't change where we are right now, but there's a pile of small problems
that are right on your doorstep that you can shove in the right direction. I
think there's more ground to be won there than trying to overhaul the whole
system.

We overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in a
decade ;)

Aside: I disagree somewhat with the framing as a Wicked Problem. That method
seems to deliberately conflate multiple problems, in order to make the
discussion more sweeping. I think there's value to breaking down "Work" into
smaller, more tractable problems. That aside, there's a lot of meat on this
bone, so it's good to acknowledge that.

------
microcolonel
Work is an abstract concept, not a tangible object. We can spout all the
baloney we want about it and it won't change a darned thing.

Everyone's got an opinion, everyone's got a magic bullet policy. I implore
everyone who has a _" solution"_ to first consider if it is really any better
than doing nothing at all, all things considered.

