by 
So, we meet again. Another opportunity to decide how we want to use productivity gains on the road to After Capitalism. Last November I suggested the possibility of a great opt-out regarding work with the choices as:
- (A) keep working and buy more and better stuff or
- (B) work less, spend less, and take advantage of the extra free time.
Six months later, we have AI/ChatGPT giving us a nice little productivity boost. Will we use it to more effectively meet our existing workload and work a little bit less? Or will we simply increase our workload and add more to our plates? Or, as the graphic suggests, will we choose the McMansion or the Tiny Home? Sigh, we know the answer. More, more, more!
What’s it going to take? In a post on post-work, I suggested three roles propping up the centrality of work that are slowly changing:
- Our sense of identity is evolving beyond work: The Great Resignation is just one indicator that maybe work is not as central to who we are as it has historically been. The larger social trend is a general question of our preferred identity (she/her/hers).
- The 9-5 structure is crumbling: Gigging, along with globalized and virtual work is already making the 9-5 a quaint historical remembrance for many.
- [Re-] Distributing income: definitely the hardest of the three, but automation and AI are increasingly important factors in productivity that should increase the bounty to be distributed.
ChatGPT has just strengthened the prospects for #3 on re-distributing income. What if we used the productivity to make it freely available instead of making a small number of people incredibly wealthy?
We’re making progress to post-work, but what’s taking so long? I’d put it on the still-dominant modern values that favor competition, victory, and growth. This mindset is so ingrained, many think it’s natural or even hard-wired. It’s not. It’s a phase of historical development that in the broad sweep of history is relatively brief. But everyone alive today has grown up in it, and had it shoved down their throat as the path to glory. There are chinks in the armor, but the horrible dilemma is that the successor to modern values, postmodern values, has taken a detour that makes them worse in some ways (See mean green meme). Our work then seems to be to get the mean greens back on track. That’s going to require some thinking, so I’ll save it for a future post. – Andy Hines
Is not this consistent focus on after-capitalism not in keeping with alternative futures?
It’s a research focus of mine. It’s not to say we shouldn’t think of other ideas or other topics. I’ve identified what i think is a gap in our thinking — the lack of images for what follows capitalism — and made an effort to fill it. I think it’s important and I’m bringing attention to it. That’s all.
instead of more or less, how about “enough”?