Ciar McCormick | Deputy Opinions Editor
In 1930 John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by the turn of the century, technology would have advanced in such a way that the working week could be shortened to 15 hours. He was not the only one to foresee this: philosophers Bertrand Russell and Herbert Marcuse, as well as futurist and former head of Mensa Buckminster Fuller, drew similar conclusions.
With the turn of the century come and gone there has been no sign of, or even consideration of, shortening the work week. On the contrary, many of us are now working longer hours than ever before.
Consumerism is the generally accepted answer as to why this is the case, but reports suggest that the numbers employed in domestic services, manufacturing, and farming in Western countries have dramatically fallen. Meanwhile, the professional, managerial, and clerical sectors have tripled in size. Employment in these areas has risen from one quarter to three quarters of total employment. Even in countries like India and China the percentage of workers in manufacturing is not what it used to be. This suggests that the manufacturing jobs that should be provided by consumerism have become increasingly automated.
With the turn of the century come and gone there has been no sign of shortening the work week. On the contrary, many of us are now working longer hours than ever before.
Rather than seeing a shortening of the work week to provide time for leisure and the pursuit of personal goals, there has been a boom in the service sector. This has come in the form of the creation of sectors like telemarketing and the expansion of sectors like financial services, corporate law, human resources, public relations, and academic administration. The latter example can be seen at Trinity, which employs 84 financial staff, 46 Human Resources staff, and 11 communications and marketing staff.
One can imagine if all the nurses and teachers, doctors and mechanics stopped working it would be catastrophic, but if the financial CEO’s and HR people, accountants and corporate lawyers stopped work would it be the same? Equally, at a time when junior lecturers and teaching assistants are underpaid and precariously employed, could a college function as well without them as it could without a myriad of financial advisors? In both cases, the latter types of jobs are what anthropologist David Graeber calls ‘bullshit jobs’.
There is no objective measure for social value, so who can say which jobs are pointless and which are not? I am a philosophy undergraduate, which in some circles is considered nothing more than a ‘bullshit’ discipline. I’m not trying to convince anyone who is sure that their job is meaningful and provides value for others that it isn’t. But what about those who believe their own job is pointless?
It is common to hear media and political types obsessing over the creation of jobs, or lack thereof, as if jobs in themselves were the new product.
You would think that a society based around market efficiency should weed out jobs that are not necessary. Neo-liberalism seems to be about being lean and cutting to the bone. Everything must be done to cut costs and make a profit with the minimum amount of people. But at the same time there appears to be an opposite objective to create jobs seemingly for their own sake. It is common to hear media and political types obsessing over the creation of jobs, or lack thereof, as if jobs in themselves were the new product. It is almost as if the expansion of the job market is a substitute for economic growth.
There is a distinct emphasis on growth in our current model, but growth has nothing to do with market efficiency. Growth is about more jobs instead of less. Journalist Eliane Glaser makes the point that there is an ambiguity in the current paradigm in which jobs are both “the symptom and the fake remedy” to the neoliberal model.
As part of an attempt to refresh the thinking of a failed political left, some thinkers have taken up where Keynes left off by questioning the nature of work entirely. This anti-work phenomenon is not unfounded, with the effects of unsustainable growth on the environment, a crash due to an under-regulated and overheated financial sector, and the precarity of modern work all reasonable arguments in favour. Any potential solutions for re-imagining work are likely to run up against deep-rooted social and psychological biases in favour of labor. However this move should appeal to those on the right who are truly in favour of market efficiency and not simply taking existing conditions for granted.
Technology has the ability to render labour redundant. It seems time to ask questions about how and why we value work, and whether it is the best way we could be spending our time.
Re-imagining work has the potential to divide both sides of the political spectrum. Those on the left too close to workers’ unions have been calling for more work rather than less with their ‘right to a job’ campaigns, which reflect a lack of imagination for how people could otherwise be spending their lives. Similarly, those on the right may be too wedded to the neo-liberalistic status quo to accept the chance of true market efficiency.
Technology has the ability to render labour redundant. It seems to me that we have to ask questions about how and why we value work, and whether it is the best way we could spend our time. In the same sense, Russell concluded: “Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.”
Illustration by KVDP
