Why Work?
Most of us might imagine that given the choice, we wouldn’t bother with work. Setting aside those with a true calling, some vocation or purpose that defines their very lives, for the majority work is simply an economic necessity which greases the wheels of the more meaningful parts of our existence. Or is it?
UBI
Residents in Wales will soon get the chance to find out. Jane Hutt, newly appointed Minister for Social Justice in Wales is about to launch a universal basic income (UBI) pilot. Hailed as NHS-type model for the 21st Century, UBI is the radical proposition that financial security is a right and that all individuals, regardless of circumstance, should receive a regular sum from the government to cover their basic living expenses. It is an idea which has been around for decades but has gained significant traction in recent years after the widely criticised overhaul of the benefits system. Universal Credit has been described by Guy Standing, economist and Professor of Development Studies at the University of London as ‘the most disgusting social policy I have seen in my lifetime.’ Unlike Universal Credit, UBI does not insist that individuals should have to prove that they are poor through no fault of their own.
At first glance the scheme seems to fly in the face of social conditioning which insists that basic security is something for which we must work and strive, no matter how derisory the rewards. But during the last year when our accepted realities have been turned on their heads and we have had more time to think, many of us are asking ourselves big questions about the foundations of our lives and why we live the way we do.
Winners & Losers
“Nobody goes into nursing for the money”
Even before the pandemic hit, dissatisfaction with the basic model had set in. We live in a time of winners and losers, where stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give lie to the promise that you can make it if you try. Ours is an age of extremes and Covid-19 only served to shine a light on social and economic polarisation. Former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney spoke in his Reith Lectures of ‘market societies’, a world where market value trumps human value every time.
The gig economy is a significant driver of this trend and fewer and fewer of us enjoy the traditional model of employer as parent with us, the employee as child with all their basic needs for security met. It is a shift which gives pause even to those tolerant of the wilder anomalies of capitalism.
At the furthest end of the spectrum are individuals working in financial services earning millions of pounds. In their defence, they like to point to the long hours they work and the risks they take in their work. It sounded a lot like nursing to me, so I asked Liberty Fletcher, a District Nurse from Bournemouth, how she felt about her 1% pay rise after a year of battling Covid-19. ‘Nobody goes into nursing for the money, but I honestly wish they hadn’t bothered. It was a bigger insult than nothing at all. I’d have appreciated it more if they’d waived our £120 annual nursing registration fee. That might have felt like a thank you.’
Yet despite the low economic value placed on her profession, Liberty may yet turn out to be one of the lucky ones. There is no algorithm yet for tending to the sick, but with automation taking ever greater strides, many of the jobs performed today will simply not exist in five years’ time. Along with Artificial Intelligence, automation will see the redundancy of many occupations. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, 85 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines, while 97 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms. Much of this shift will occur in what we traditionally define as “white-collar” professions. In light of this, UBI may yet prove to be less of a radical proposition than a pragmatic solution.
You Can’t Tax An Algorithm
Even the biggest cheerleaders for technology will have mixed feelings about this, not least in governments confronted with a shrinking tax base. WhiteCap Founder, Steven Hess put it succinctly when he said, ‘you can’t tax an algorithm.’ With technological advancements destabilising macro-finance, the taxation burden will necessarily have to shift to corporations. In age where the state treats even the most bloated global enterprises like sacred cows, the prospect of imposing levies is apt to make politicians nervous.
“I haven’t met too many people that don’t intend to have a fulfilling life”
So much of what we once took for granted in our life-journeys is being re-framed. The credo of getting a good education then working hard to succeed is relatively unchallenged even among those just entering the workplace with a hefty amount of student debt, facing fierce competition for jobs and little prospect of ever owning a property. A recent article in the Times, highlighted the plight of young lawyers who, having achieved their ambitions of earning a six-figure salary, find it is not the life they thought they wanted after all.
The late Clayton Christensen once said to his Harvard MBA students – of his MBA students - ‘I haven’t met too many people that don’t intend to have a fulfilling life. High-achievers, however, end up allocating their resources in a way that seriously undermines their intended strategy. This stems from the fact that so many of them are wired with a high need for achievement. The problem is, that isn’t what makes us happy in the long run. The single most important factor in our long-term happiness is the relationships we have with our close family and close friends.’
Burning The Candle
“What it comes down to is a visceral desire to hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself”
Living under the pressure to wrack up more and more billable hours, junior lawyers are routinely working 15-hour days and living with the expectation that they will be accessible and online at all hours. Legal mental-health hotline LawCare, report that the impact of Covid-19 on working practices has been ‘seismic’ with an 86% rise in young lawyers seeking support for stress. This trend is not limited to the legal profession and across many industries workers are powerless in the face of a culture where long hours are the norm and nobody ever goes offline. If trade unions hadn’t had all their teeth removed by successive governments, they might have had something to say about it.
These working conditions, while injurious to physical and mental health, are not enough to turn people away. I asked Junior Financial Analyst, Louis Ingrams how he felt about his industry’s practice of routinely working into the night and he shrugged; he simply accepts it as the cost of belonging to something that matters. ‘What it comes down to is a visceral desire to hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself.’
Purpose
Clearly then, there are bigger drivers than money, the biggest perhaps being that our occupations define us and give us our sense of belonging. As a society we no longer identify by religion, class, or politics and as a consequence have lost the power of the collective consciousness to feel we belong. It’s just us, standing alone in the world, trying to find some point to ourselves. Our occupation is central to that identity, to who we think we are and what we bring to this life.
Moreover, it gives our lives purpose and structure. Even the very wealthy who can afford not to work, usually find some endeavour beyond the merely pleasurable to devote their time to. Philanthropy is borne not just out of virtue, but the need to secure personal validation.
The claim that Universal Basic Income is an invitation to loaf misses a vital point – people need a purpose. Once the worry of having enough to cover the basics is removed people are free to consider how best to use their time and it’s unlikely to spent entirely selfishly. Not everyone will live their lives in service to others or embark on a series of grand charitable gestures, but actually what does it matter? Growing vegetables on an allotment, or making your own clothes is no less meaningful than helping the homeless. Small individual contributions stack up.
Personal fulfilment, a sense of wellbeing and time to spend in the community all contribute to a healthier society. Humans will always seek connection, feelings of esteem and self-fulfilment and quickly discover that these don’t come from lying on the sofa all day. Jobs will come and go, but people will always want to work. The critical shift in the 21st Century is that the responsibility is falling on more and more of us on us to create a portfolio of paid assignments rather than rely on that one regular monthly payment – and identity - from our employers. We are all entrepreneurs now.
Steven identifies three themes to consider:-
Why do you work? Because you have to or because you want to?
What is the horizon for your current role – where can it take you? What can you learn? Can you develop and grow your network? Are you with people you want to be with? Or does it suffer from burn-out, rapid staff turnover, technology creep and long term redundancy? What’s your plan for you?
Given the choice how long do you intend to be in it? Are you able to navigate a path towards where you want to spend your time – is your current role part of where you want to be? Remember this is personal, it relates to what you want to achieve with your life and how you put it together. And no one other than your is going to focus on that.