The path to post-work
More have enough to quit
A percentage of the global population has enough money to stop earning and still survive for the rest of their lives.
In other words, they could stop working and use their savings to pay for at least their basic needs every day until they die.
As our wealth per capita continues to increase, the percentage of the population for whom this is a reality will continue to increase.
If wealth were distributed more equally, the percentage would increase even faster.
But what would happen if everyone stopped working?
The economy wouldn’t be able to function without human labor, right?
Maybe not in its current state, but it’s possible to imagine a future where humans don’t “work” anymore.
The economic problem is already solved for some
In a 1930 essay, John Maynard Keynes made a prediction:
“The economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years.”
Our “economic problem,” according to Keynes, is “the struggle for subsistence.”
In other words, it’s the problem of getting what we need to survive.
Keynes knew that solving our economic problem would be a gradual process:
“It will all happen gradually, not as a catastrophe. Indeed, it has already begun. The course of affairs will simply be that there will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed.”
If you have enough money to stop earning and still survive for the rest of your life, your economic problem is solved. This is already the case for a percentage of the global population.
According to these calculations, you can probably survive in the U.S. on as little as $7,222.94 per year. Disclaimer: This is not advice. Please consult a professional. Full disclaimer below.
Let’s assume you’re 30 years old and you expect to live for 70 more years.
70 years x $7,222.94 per year = $505,605.80
That’s the amount of money you would need to stop earning and still have enough to survive for the rest of your life (in this hypothetical scenario). Disclaimer: This is not advice. Please consult a professional. Full disclaimer below.
If you invest your nest egg for a return, you would need even less to start out.
The exact figure is not important for what I’m trying to explain here. The point is that there is a certain amount of money that would allow you to stop earning and still survive for the rest of your life.
Some people already have this amount of money. Their economic problem is solved.
The economic problem will be solved for an increasing percentage of the population
As global wealth continues to increase, the percentage of people for whom the economic problem is solved will also increase (assuming that the entirety of the increase in wealth does not flow to those who are already rich).
This is what Keynes means when he says, “There will be ever larger and larger classes and groups of people from whom problems of economic necessity have been practically removed.”
If we redistributed wealth, the economic problem would already be solved for an even greater percentage (maybe everyone)
The richest 1% of the world population receive 19.5% of income.
If the world GDP were divided equally among the world population, then each person would get roughly $13,933 per year, according to these calculations.
Notice that this amount is more than $7,222.94 (the minimum annual amount that someone needs to survive in the U.S., according to these calculations). Disclaimer: This is not advice. Please consult a professional. Full disclaimer below.
But everyone can’t just quit all at once, right?
The world GDP doesn’t produce itself.
In other words, the global economy isn’t yet capable of running on auto-pilot.
If we redistribute wealth so that everyone has enough to survive and then everyone stops working, the global economy wouldn’t be able to continue functioning, right?
If everyone all at once stopped working right now, yes, that would probably cause some problems with the way things currently operate.
However, it’s possible to imagine a not-too-distant future where much less human labor is required to run the economy.
Here are some events that would decrease the economy’s reliance on human labor:
More jobs are automated.
“Bullshit jobs” are eliminated.
We identify the industries that produce what humans need to survive and scale back production in other industries.
Human labor productivity continues to increase.
A completely robot-run economy might still seem a little far-fetched. A certain amount of human labor will probably still be required for the foreseeable future. And some people will want to continue working because they enjoy it (myself included).
Could we reduce the human labor force to half of its current size? Maybe even less?
If we could, would we want to?
Conclusion
I’m not advocating for any sudden moves.
In a lot of ways, the current system works.
On the other hand, it’s starting to show some cracks.
If certain of these cracks widen, the issue may be forced.
So it’s good to have the dialogue and make a plan in advance.
I don’t believe the economic aspect is the most difficult piece of the puzzle.
If we all agreed that we want to drastically reduce the amount of human labor inputted into the economy, I think we could, in a relatively short amount of time, work out the economic conditions to make this happen.
It’s the moral and political issues that, to me, seem more dangerous.
Work is regarded as a virtue, a duty, a right. People get esteem from their work.
The rich depend on the working class to stay rich.
How will we distribute wealth if not by wages and profits?
The list goes on.
The point is that it’s possible.
Whereas it wasn’t possible at any other point in human history, until very recently.
Not only is it possible, I think it’s very doable. If we all agreed that this is what we want to do, we could do it.
But the question is: do we want to do it? Will it result in a better world than what we have now? Or could it be potentially disastrous?
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Amen! I wrote about this here:
I worry about what this means for our work and worth in light of how “What do you do?” tends to follow fast behind “What's your name?” or “Nice to meet you” in most introductory conversations. We would do well to prepare accordingly.
Author Sidney Sheldon once wrote, “A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
If blank pieces of paper go the way of the dodo in a world of continuous, artificial intelligence, industry, progress, how will human beings make their mark?
https://www.whitenoise.email/p/remembrance-of-tasks-past