Rewatching the excellent (if rather euro-centric) series Connections with my father the other weekend, it became really obvious that our standard of living is a lot better than it used to be. As technology has advanced, a greater number of humans — both in terms of total number and percentage of the population — are living in conditions that far outstrip those of only a few generations ago.
Watching the series also made it clear that all work can be simplified to this pseudo-algebraic equation:
effort needed to make a thing multiplied by the time needed to make a thing = output (and/or profit)
A case example: In the late 18th century, firearms were produced individually, by hand. The United States’ firearm production was well below that of the European powers at the time. Then Jefferson met a Frenchman named LeBlanc, who introduced the idea of standardization.
The concept of standardized parts in firearms suddenly greatly increased the efficiency of gunsmithing and weapon repair. That efficiency directly led to the Gilbreths and their optimizing of the production line. (You can watch the episode here; it is currently not available for streaming anywhere.)
In this case, the efficiency was needed to increase the total volume of output for US military forces. So the reduction in effort required, with the time spent kept the same, increased the total output. Makes sense, right?
Here’s the thing we kind of overlook: any of those variables can change.
Output and profit do not have to increase.
As the efficiency goes up, then the price to produce something can go down while keeping the profit margin exactly the same for everyone.
As the efficiency goes up, then the amount worked can go down, while keeping the efficiency and profit margin exactly the same for everyone.
As the efficiency goes up, then you can keep the amount worked the same and profit margin the same while increasing the profit for everyone.
Or we can do it like we typically have been: Increase efficiency, cut workers, pocket the profit.
The assumption that increasing profit is the only way to solve that simple equation {1} is the same assumptions that got us in this place, with forced obsolescence, needing to spend more and more resources to just store and throw away stuff we don’t need, a planet tipping into the next mass extinction, and a steadily increasing divide between the wealthy and … well, everyone else.
Even the way we measure this stuff carries the default assumption that the only good metric is maximizing output. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics {2}, when talking about the Great Recession in the late aughts (emphasis mine):
One particularly interesting thing to note about this period during 2009 is that although productivity growth was tremendous during this time, the economy was still in the doldrums. Unemployment was nearing 10 percent, and the United States had lost hundreds of billions of dollars in potential national output, still languishing in an economy that was underutilized.
But the BLS is incorrect. Hundreds of billions of dollars were not lost: they never existed.
The headline should be "Americans Lose Billions Of Dollars Of Potential Output By Sleeping, Being With Friends And Family."
But even with the problems I have with that articles’ introductory paragraphs {2}, the assumption is there from the beginning. The national output increased by 42% between 1998 and 2013. The number of hours worked stayed about the same.
We can quibble over whether or not you and yours got 42% richer during that time period, or if tech advances "count" there, and so on. But I have to wonder if we wouldn’t all be better off if we’d somehow tried to keep the output steady while increasing efficiency, so that all of us could be working two days less a week right now with about the same standard of living.
In the past, the only times that equation has shifted was through the organized efforts of the labor movement.
It’s only two years after we collectively discovered that many could be just as — if not more — efficient in many jobs without commuting and parking and wasting hours of our lives in traffic, return-to-office mandates, even from Zoom, persist. And as the AI/ML hype machine continues to over-promise what it can deliver, we’re already seeing how many businesses are choosing to solve that equation… and it’s not for the benefit of either the workers or society as a whole.
But make no mistake. The decision these companies — and specifically, the executives running them — are making are not some inevitable physical property of the universe. That decision they are making is a choice. A choice that is actively being made. A choice that does not have to be made.
A choice that, with enough persuasion, could be changed. (cough cough)
{1} Yes, of course it’s more complicated than that — market forces affect each other, I haven’t figured demand into it at all, etc — but that does not change the basic assumptions being made.
{2} I have some serious questions about the introductory paragraphs of that BLS article; most strongly by smearing the line between an increase in population and assuming that was reflected proportionately in the increase of the workforce, as well as lumping all "hours worked" into one bucket, whether those were part-time jobs without benefits or full-time jobs (etc).
Featured Photo by Daniel Tuttle on Unsplash