According to just about anyone, creating jobs is a good thing. I couldn't disagree more. A simple question: Could we thrive working less?
Deeply embedded in American social policy is the notion that a man must earn his bread. Hard work breeds good people, or if not that, everyone must do his "fair share." Hard work pulls us forward, sloth and laziness holds us back. Not only is this belief condescending (demonstrating zero faith in the good intentions of one's neighbors), it may not even be the most efficient way to "progress" or "grow."
There's a fantastic article by Adam Gopnik in last week's New Yorker, which begins as a musing on razor blades.
Adam Gopnik in last week's New Yorker
Bare with me.
Simply put, he observes, both in current research on evolution, and in his musing about the constant "improvements" to the razor blade (3-blade, 4-blade, etc.), how we may invent and evolve best when we are relaxed. For example, the mouse trap wasn't invented until we had, through sanitary measures, rid ourselves of the mouse plague. When the plague was present, we were too "stressed" to invent something like a trap. Similarly, our genes are most "creative" when they aren't under a lot of stress. All of this makes complete sense: If you're primarily concerned with moment-to-moment survival, you won't risk innovation.
The flipside to this is that much of what we invent (the three-bladed razor) when we have excess resources is basically useless. In the case of the razor, Gillette is under pressure to grow its business, even though the razor reached its pinnacle about forty years ago.
In the USA, we have made a point of placing artificial pressures on people so that they are more productive. The forty hour work week is one; fabricated scarcity (of food, other necessities) is the biggie. As well all know, we produce not only enough food, but enough T-shirts and televisions to outfit several Americas. And just imagine if people reclaimed more public space for farming, wells, etc. There's more than enough of everything we need, but we believe people have to earn every nickel.
At the same time, we are in a state of repose, insofar as our relationship with the natural world is concerned. Our biggest problems are man-made, the most glaring of which is global warming. Perhaps the largest contributor to this problem is overproduction -- remember, the more jobs, the higher the GDP, the "better" we're doing.
What the Gillette story really says is that innovation driven by money will always look like innovation driven by money. Same goes for work in general -- what people aspire to do when it is for the sake of money (just to scrape by), often fails to expire. What are we really creating for people when we create jobs? We paint blue collar workers as "happy" to return to their factories. Certainly it's better than being downtrodden, depressed, starving... but the dichotomy we've created is lunacy.
We're only worried about the economy shrinking because we have a roundabout system of doling out necessities. If there's more than enough material wealth to support our youth and our elderly, how important is it that our paper wealth continue to grow? For whom is this important? Most importantly , what kind of innovation do we create for the sake of growing our economy? Just look to our health care system to understand the folly of allowing economic concerns to temper our decision-making.
It's worth noting here that Gopnick began discussing razor blades because one day he woke up and realized he'd purchased every single model. I'll only say that we need to begin questioning the model of consumer choice driving innovation.
Just imagine if everyone worked 20 hours a week, and if we provided a security net for everyone, regardless of what they were doing. In those jobs where we need additional labor, we would higher twice or three times as many people. People would have time to care for themselves and families (lower healthcare costs!). People would follow their calling (and take potentially fruitful risks!) rather than the scent of money. People could grow food, write books, perform music. I'm not trying to paint a utopian picture, just observe what most people I know would do with an extra twenty hours.
Of course there are certain jobs that, one could argue, require constant training (athlete, astronaut, president, doctor), and I won't argue with that -- as with every policy suggestion, you can't just blanket the entire population with it. And of course, some people thrive under the dog-eat-dog mentality (though I would argue that many of the "great" innovations of our time are mixed blessings at best -- subprime mortgages anyone?). There needs to be some nuance, but I'm just getting the ball rolling.
As always there's more to say, but I'll end here. Thank you Kos for providing an outlet for progressive thoughts.