If you're forgive me for quoting myself:
One thing that the Internet has shown me is not just the productive capacity of the human species, but the productive desire, the need to create, and also the need to share. And it's not just people writing blogs and recording podcasts, although I value that too. It's "how do I make my own cheese," "here's how you make a bookcase," "this is how to rebuild an engine," "let me help you with your taxes," "here's some schematics for this circuit board." We have so much desire to do things, and to share our knowledge of doing things, and I believe a desire to do things for other people, if the conditions are right. And we have so much need, so much want. When you look at what people are capable of making and sharing, and you look at how much material need there is, you can't help but conclude: something has gone wrong here.You've got to resist the urge to extrapolate from what you or others do in their free time now to what they would do with their time when they don't need a full-time job. People say to me, "lots of people just sit in front of the television when they have free time." To which I say, some do-- but that's after having spent eight or nine hours of doing their wage-labor. It's no surprise that so many people zonk out after working at their desk job all day. People will have energy for their inspiration in a world where they don't sink all of it into securing their minimal material security.
I find the hoary old conservative fear that, if you provide for people's material needs, they'll stop working and sit around on the couch all day just fucking bonkers, man. I find it totally incompatible with my experience. If you give people what they need to survive, will some small number of people sit around and smoke weed all day? Sure. But I doubt many will, and the reality is that as technology continues to erode the amount of human labor needed to provide human society with goods, we can bear the cost of some people who don't work. And as I recognize no positive value in work that is independent from its contribution to human need-- in contrast with, say, the Puritan work ethic of the American mythology-- I see no failing at all in such a situation.
How do we harness that productive capacity and direct it towards the greater good, which people want to contribute to, if they can? By removing their fear of a loss of material security. You take away people's fear that they will lack shelter, food, clothing, transportation, education, and health care, and suddenly, they can spend their time doing those things that they enjoy and understand. Right now we've got a vast army of various trained construction workers-- educated in a particular craft-- who are out of work. Their productive capacity is going to waste, and those of them who have a productive desire are unable to implement it. Why can't they use their productive capacity to help people who have no homes? In large part, because they have to fear for their material security. They have to worry about feeding their families, about paying the rent. But you remove that fear of immediate material security, and suddenly, new doors open.
This doesn't mean the end of commercial enterprise, at least not at first. There will still be unpleasant jobs that people only do for pay. And note that you can share your productive and creative capacity for money even if you aren't living primarily on it. A guy might want to spend his life giving guitar lessons right now, but he just can't make the math work. But you give him a UBI and let him know that he won't starve if he doesn't make enough on those lessons, and suddenly, the enterprise becomes practically viable. Want to make a magazine, but you know you can't live off of it? Make the magazine, sell it for what you can get, and know that your kids won't starve based on the fickle chance of the day-to-day.
If you're just worried about the fact that some people will exist without working, perhaps you should consider the fact that they already do. There are plenty of people in the world who receive an inheritance and sit on the interest for the rest of their lives. Trust fund babies exist. Some people get lucky on a stock deal and spend the rest of their lives enjoying it. One of the weird tensions in conservatism is its zealous defense of the prospect of living off of rents combined with an endorsement of the necessity and righteousness of work. I'd like a society where a larger number of people can live modestly without toil and can supplement their incomes with light work, rather than our current system where a far smaller number of people can live lavishly without toil. And that's even before we consider all the people who want to provide for themselves in our current economy but can't.
I don't believe in the perfectibility of human life, but I do believe in human progress. The question we have to ask is whether we want it to be spread to all people or to follow recent history and accrue disproportionately to those at the top. I don't know if we can achieve it right now. But I know that it will come far later than it should unless we work to achieve it, together.
What will you do with yourself in a post-work economy? You'll live! You'll be you. If you like making bookcases, you'll make them, and maybe you'll make them for others, when you're freed from a job that a computer can do better, faster, and cheaper. If you like to sing, you'll sing. If you like to wire circuit boards you'll do that. If you want to work a traditional job for a wage, doing unpopular labor, you can still do that. If you want to sit under the stars and ponder the ineffable, go for it. Right now I am sitting at my computer, writing a post that I will receive no money for and which is not part of any career plan. It's a little thing, obviously. But why do I do it? Because human beings aren't little efficiency machines. Human life is what you experience when you aren't busily accruing material resources. If I can have food to eat, a modest apartment, maybe raise a child-- give me a sunny spot and a chalkboard and I'll teach for free for the rest of my life. I have work to do that has nothing to do with enriching myself materially, and I bet you do, too.
Update: The biggest impediment here is not conservatism as such. The biggest impediment here is the inertia of "this is how it has always been." And that kind of inertia tends, in my experience, to be cross-ideological. You must always remember: change in the macroeconomy of the human species is the rule. Ancient Egyptians could not imagine a productive capacity without slavery; feudal lords could not imagine human society without vassalage; early industrialists could not imagine the abolition of child labor or the rise of the two-day weekend. The move has been and must be towards making people more free and less subject to the whims of the powerful. Wage labor comes next.
Update II: I imagine other people are out there writing blog posts and Tweets and Facebook comments and assorted about Douthat's post, and will receive no money for doing so. To the ones who are expressing skepticism: why are you participating in that labor if it accrues no material benefit to you?
0 comments:
Post a Comment