Radical work

Ben Moroney and Eliza June (Australian Young Greens Co-Convenors)

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in 10,000 of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery…” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller wrote those words in 1970. At the time, it seemed logical that, at some point, the advance of productivity due to machinery and the harnessing of energy would result in an economy where we all worked far less, with ample time for leisure, creativity and invention. That we would one day realise we are simply making work for ourselves, or even that such make-work, termed by David Graeber as “bullshit jobs”, would fade away due to the action of market forces. Buckminster Fuller had a utopian view of technological progress, compared to the views of the original Luddites, the English textile workers from the early 1800s who were so threatened by the concept of machines destroying their jobs that they smashed the looms.

Sadly, sometimes it seems as though the Luddites had the right idea. The reaction to our astounding ability to create and manufacture has not been one of spreading the bounty of productivity. We live in one of the most grossly inequitable periods in history. Rather than using the ability for the labour of one to support 10,000 comfortably, the labour of 10,000 delivers their riches ten-thousand-fold to one. The top 1%, the global elite, own half of the world's wealth. In Australia, the top 1% own more wealth combined than the bottom 60%, and the gap widens by the day.

Those not lucky enough to join this club are locked into a cycle of chasing an ever-dwindling number of jobs, less secure, more casual, lower pay, no benefits, and as automation and productivity march on, even those will seem like a distant dream. We are already being warned that computers are going to destroy large swathes of traditional employment, and when we ask if those jobs will be replaced in the new industries, we are met with a resounding shrug.

This trend is particularly bad for young people. Youth unemployment is currently higher than 13%, and as high as 20-25% in some areas. The destruction of traditional areas of long-term employment, such as manufacturing and even in the resources sector, means we are competing with people 10 and 20 years our senior for what should be entry-level, low-skill jobs, denied the opportunity to gain experience and pad out a resumé for future work. In response, we are told to go and get an education, and that we should take on mountains of debt for the privilege of doing so — even if we have no idea whether there's a job waiting for us at the end.

ET TU, NED LUDD?

So what is the solution? Like the Luddites, do we raise our hammers and smash the modern-day looms? Of course not. Even a moment's thought would conclude that productivity is, in and of itself, a good thing. It is always better to be able to perform necessary tasks faster and more efficiently. The fear of technology and obsolescence of particular industries is only symptomatic of a society that blames workers when they are replaced.

Fortunately, there is another solution — the basic income. An unconditional payment made to all residents of the country, with no eligibility requirements and no paperwork. Funded by taxation, the basic income frees people to take command of their own economic situation, to educate themselves with impunity, to wait for better opportunities, and not to fear the destruction of their job. Far from being a socialist flight of fancy, the minimum income has been trialled around the world — most notably in Dauphin, in the Canadian province of Manitoba, where the introduction of “mincome” saw tremendous social benefits including nearly a 10% drop in emergency room visits from fewer work-related injuries and car accidents. The new Finnish government has pledged the implementation of a basic income experiment as part of its government program. Parties the world over are adopting it as part of their policy platforms such as Podemos, D66 in the Netherlands and the UK Greens. The Australian Greens even identify a guaranteed minimum income in our own policy platform, though it is rarely mentioned.

The radical oncoming change in our economy is going to require radical restructuring of our society, and how we see ourselves and our labour. As the mining boom winds down and the new knowledge economy looms over us, perhaps it's time that the Greens start digging up that forgotten policy and beginning a conversation about it. After all, we can't smash looms forever.

Ben Moroney and Eliza June,
Australian Young Greens Co-Conveners