In the first part I talked about inequality and motivation for inequality. In this part i will go a bit further on that subject. There is a new dimension to the "motivation", and that is: We need people to work, or the system will crash.
At one point in history, getting food for yourself, your family and your tribe, was the only work. Historians actually though the average working day for hunter/gatherer where only 2 hours. I lack the citation, but it doesn't matter, times will change. Even if this lifestyle was as dreamy as 2 hours of work can imply, there was drawbacks. Food access was variable, and a rough winter or drought could spell disaster. Just to clear this out of the way. Tribe people didn't barter with each other. It's a myth that fits our reality, but it just don't work in small tribe societies. Watch David Graeber talk on the subject:
And time change, we learned to grow our own food, domesticated animals, and to preserving food. This made cities possible, and we got our first cities with rulers, soldiers, craftsmen and artist. Civilization was born, with new jobs and population growth, but we also got inequality and classes. We went from rocks, to bronze, to steel and world population grew from 2,4 million in 10 000 BC to 603 million in 1700. Why stop counting in 1700 you ask? Because of the steam engine. Until now all manual labor was made by humans or animals. And even if we mastered irrigation and made better tools, production was limited to what human hands could manage or horses could pull.
Steam engine started a work revolution that kept changing the world far into last century. Factories, tractors, cars, boats, plains ++. Growing food went from the main work provider to a few percent. But we did get new jobs, didn't we? Well yes. People went from working primary industries, like agriculture, fishing, lumbering and mining, to secondary industries making products in factories. But even those jobs have been shrinking, and people went on from secondary industries to tertiary industries like sales, administration, advertising. I guess you can see a trend, we don't grow our food, machines grow it, and we don't make our tools or products, machines make them. And this is where we are now, yet nobody doubts the claim: "We need people to work, or the system will crash. " Why? Why do society need those people chasing jobs that are not there, to find jobs?
The answer don't have to do with societies needs for more food or goods, or even services. This is a question about morality, and the idea that we all must work for our share. But the obligation isn't on the society to provide or share jobs among the individuals, rather the unfortunate jobless individuals hold the responsibility alone, and will suffer poverty if he fails to solve this himself.
So what will the future bring? Jobs to everyone? Some claims that for every job lost to automation, a new job will be made making or maintaining that machine. But why make the machine, if it is as much job, as for the workers it replaces? No, future is even worse for the idea of every adult in a job. Machines started as plain muscles, but went on to get a speed, dexterity and accuracy no human can match. CGP Grey got a must see video on what to expect:
So what is the solution? First thing is we need to detach the link between a persons job and his worth. We must strive towards a society where work in the classic sense is no more, or where the few obligations still on humans are optional or for the ones with higher interest for that particular job. Yes, the same way people will volunteer for training preschool soccerteams, helping poor and join none profit organization, you will find people that do the last jobs of humanity for free. The rest of us will be part of a economy where everything basically are free, trough a resourced based economy like
https://www.thevenusproject.com/
Or trough Universal Basic Income. Not because the future is a hippie utopia, but because there will be no jobs for humans, and we need another source of income.
Universal basic income is when every person in that society have a right to get an income without obligations. Even if we aren't at the point where jobs are obsolete, we still can implement UBI with favorable result.
-No one will go without income, and we will not need government institution that picks who deserve support and who is trying to cheat the system.
-No one must take a job just to survive, but rather got the dignity to find a worthy job, or the economic freedom to make their own ideas into work.
-No one need to enter work sick or injured to support himself or a family that rely on that income.
-No one need to hurry into a job to support his family, and all can take the time they need to get the education that fits them best.
Even if UBI isn't accessible trough government yet, you still have the opportunity to join a exciting UBI movement called Manna. Manna is a universal basic income based on the blockchain, and it pay out Manna tokens weekly to everyone that joins. You can join by following this link:
https://www.mannabase.com/?ref=47pv8ch7k1
