
‘I Would Prefer Not To’: The Origins of the White Collar Worker - pepys
http://blog.longreads.com/2015/03/24/i-would-prefer-not-to-the-origins-of-the-white-collar-worker/
======
Animats
That's a delightful read, the story of the rise of the "clerk", and the growth
of office work.

A useful question today: when do we hit "peak office"? At some point, the
demand for office workers and office space should max out. More of that work
is being done by computers, of course. In particular, new companies tend to
have much smaller office staffs than older ones.

We passed "peak paper" a few years ago, much to the annoyance of the paper
industry. (Packaging usage is up, but paper documents are way down.) Why
hasn't "peak office" been reached yet?

~~~
saalweachter
Just out of curiosity, what do you imagine happening in the "post-peak-office"
world?

The "post-peak-paper" world was well known and forecast for decades before it
actually happened: people would replace paper documents with electronic
documents.

The post-peak-office question is trickier. There's a general feeling that
"computers" will replace most jobs, eventually. But then what? Do only some
people work, in either a Star Trek utopia or a "Beggars in Spain" dystopia? Do
people do something else, that doesn't involve offices?

Right now, while you might argue that automation and productivity gains reduce
the need for office work to "get things done", the savings are ultimately just
spent on more office work: advertising and the financial sector.

~~~
brianberns
I think you're describing a "post-peak-employment" world, not just a "post-
peak-office" world. Automation is reducing the need for human labor, and at
some point there will simply not be enough jobs to go around. I believe
governments will then have to provide a basic income to everyone, whether they
have a job or not. People who want more money than that will have to find a
way to earn it.

~~~
peteretep

        > Automation is reducing the need for human labor, and at
        > some point there will simply not be enough jobs to go
        > around
    

UK population in 1815, about the time Luddites were smashing up "newly
developed labour-replacing machinery": 16m.

Despite a 300% increase, and the most mind-bending increase in automation and
productivity until then, there are still enough jobs to go around.

~~~
dagw
The difference is that those improvements where matched with an unprecedented
growth of a relatively wealthy middle class that opened up for the creation of
a service sector to take all the laid off workers. There doesn't seem to be
any such new sectors being created this time around.

At the end of the day I too am reasonably optimistic, but your comparison the
the events of the 19th century are too simplistic.

~~~
zhte415
Those improvements were the cause of the unprecedented growth of a relatively
wealthy middle class.

Today? Tea shops, bubble teas. Gourmet kebabs made from organically grown
meat. Breakfast bars with 150 varieties of breakfast to choose from and
combine in one tasty bowl with hand squeezed udder milk. Weekend breaks in
scenic spots with cable cars and a robot serving you breakfast. Local organic
wild vegetables cooked in various ways.

Each one of these is true today, employs orders upon orders of mechanization
and automation to get the job done, yet exist and are mainstream.

Yet they require human interaction at some critical parts, be it construction,
testing, maintenance, on-going quality control, or increase in scope of
function.

The comparison with luddites in the 19th century was not simplistic, it was
spot-on: the luddites didn't realize the possible growth of the non-land-
owning and non-hereditary base of power which, at that time, was sparse and
dependent on the favour of classes above.

~~~
dagw
_Those improvements were the cause of the unprecedented growth of a relatively
wealthy middle class._

Absolutely.

 _the luddites didn 't realize the possible growth of the non-land-owning and
non-hereditary base of power which, at that time, was sparse and dependent on
the favour of classes above._

Again, absolutely agree. However I disagree that we can necessarily
extrapolate anything useful from that fact. I just don't see it as a given
that we'll see the same level of job growth coming out of this bout of
"creative destruction" over the next 50 years. As you pointed out even our
leisure activities are requiring less and less workers even as their variety
might be growing. We're going to have to find a fundamentally new source of
employment or the numbers just don't balance out.

But as I said, I'm an optimist at heart and I think we'll be fine, but I also
suspect the we have to fundamentally rethink things like the meaning of "full
employment" and the nature of the 40 hour work week.

------
nl
I love this:

 _In a piece for the New-York Enquirer in 1848, he wrote, “It is particularly
recommended to those of sedentary habits, to undergo the training which is to
be found [on Crosby near Bleecker].” As if responding to the satire of people
like Walt Whitman, Tailer argued that after regular exercise “narrow and
contracted chests are soon turned into broad and expansive ones, and the puny
limbs of him who is not accustomed to exercise are soon changed into well
developed and finely formed ones, and he imperceptibly finds himself re-
established in health and strength.”_

CrossFit, 1850 style.

------
markvdb
Read "The overcoat", by Nikolai Gogol. Synopsis at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overcoat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Overcoat)
.

~~~
leonroy
Can't beat Russian literature for amusingly depressing tales of the
proletariat. The summary was enough for me!

------
nl
_in 1853, when the story was written, the term “office”—and the sort of labor
that was performed there—had nowhere near the universal significance it has
now._

This is a nice piece of writing. It's a pity that it's technically wrong.
While it's true "clerks" have become less significant, "office" has pretty
much always been at a fairly high level of use[1]. There's a quote that seems
accurate here[2].

[1]
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=clerk%2Coffice...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=clerk%2Coffice&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cclerk%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bclerk%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BClerk%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BCLERK%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Coffice%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Boffice%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOffice%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BOFFICE%3B%2Cc0)

[2] _When Geldermans told me that Anquetil always moved his water bottle to
his back pocket during climbs, so his bike would be lighter, I began paying
attention. I noticed that in all the old pictures of Anquetil climbing, his
bidon is always in its holder. That’s straining at gnats. Geldermans’ story
strikes to the soul of the rider, and is therefore true. Those pictures are
inaccurate._ ; "The Rider" \- Tim Krabbé.

~~~
_delirium
As usual it's tricky to conclude things from Google Books ngrams due to
polysemy. If you look at the actual results for "office" in e.g. 1800-1820,
the majority of them are for other words that happen to be spelled
identically, not for "office" in the sense of "I work in office 802b". From a
rough spot-check I'd guess only about 10% of the uses refer to offices in the
sense of a place with a desk in which clerical work is done (or related
senses, like "office building").

Examples of other, more common uses:

    
    
        Sermons on the Person and Office of the Redeemer
        Lectures on the Nature and End of the Sacred Office
        If a coroner be remiss in coming to do his office...
        The Office of Holy Week in Latin and English
        And, though it be the office of Bishops and Presbyters to instruct...
        ...shall not be obliged to serve the office of sheriff.

~~~
nl
It's a fair point.

It does seem interesting that the level of usage stays so similar even if the
actual way the word is used changes, though.

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oracle2025
I enjoyed reading that article while secretly substituting "tech worker" for
"clerk" in my mind.

