[Futurework] The world of work

[Charles Brass]

There has been a flurry of writing recently about the nature of work.  As someone who has been part of this list since it began in the mid '90's I see this theme recur every now and again - but never really get thrashed through.   Much of what is said recognises our current thinking about 'work' - that it is tedious, often poorly constructed and mostly about earning enough income to live.  From this perspective it is very hard to imagine how it might usefully be reconstructed (which is why the thread dies out so quickly, to be replaced by other things which appear easier to discuss even if they are no easier to resolve).   "Work" as we now know it has a less than two hundred year history.  This is not to say that people prior to that time didn't work, just they didn't think of work as we do now.   The concept of 'going to work' is an industrial, factory or mine, concept.  The idea that 'work' was something you did away from the rest of your life was invented at the same time as the industrial revolution.  Prior to that, work was what you did during your life to provide what you or those around you needed.  While there was a distinction between 'work' and 'not work' prior to the Industrial Revolution (people probably 'played' much more then than now, for example) it was only a theoretical distinction - both 'work' and 'non work' were part of life.   Only in the last two hundred years has work become outside life in the individual sense, but a critical part of life in a societal sense.  And therein is the dilemma.   According to our current wisdom, we need to sacrifice some portion of our individual lives in work in order for society to survive.  And, as many people have noted in recent days, much of this sacrifice is painful, non productive and just plain stupid, but it does actually contribute to societies survival (though some want to question whether what we experience ought to be called survival).   Undoing that current wisdom is very difficult, it pervades everything we see, and all the material things we own or watch others own.   But the fact is that it is a recent way of looking at the world.  In my experience over the past nine years now that I have been actively working to create a better future for work I have found that if we can actually look beyond 'economic work' (or job as I prefer to call it, because language becomes very difficult here) we can imagine other ways to organise ourselves to get done what needs doing (which is after all what our real objective is).   I know in my life and in the life of those around me, things have been greatly enriched when we have begun from a premise which at least provides the potential for everyone to have a meaningful place in the world (which is not one of the premises on which economics is based).     All of the above has been said without mentioning money, income or redistribution.  Which just shows how far we can get in our thinking if we also put aside these post-industrial revolution concepts as well.               Charles Brass Chairman the futures foundation PO Box 122 Fairfield  3078 Australia phone 61 3 9459 0244   the mission of the futures foundation is "...to engage all Australians in creating a better future..."