Part 1 of this two-part article offered an analysis of the origins of the longstanding worker-owner contract and weighed the opinions of thought leaders as to where the human endeavor of work may go. 

To get a better sense of the shifting sands inherent in this issue, it helps to consider an acronym that the U.S. Army coined more than 30 years ago: VUCA, which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Strategic instructors at the U.S. Army War College began using the term to describe the unpredictable New World Order emerging at that time from the ashes of the Cold War.

VUCA is a handy concept for any period of immense change, when established rules no longer apply. At its heart, VUCA is a risk-management, or more appropriately, a risk-mitigation theory that focuses on awareness and preparedness, even though events will almost always bypass preparation. Stated in a better way (by doubling-down on a military analogy) VUCA can be embodied in Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous precept, “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” And so it is with the unknowable unknowns found in pondering the future of work.

This problem is deeper than UBI, wider than training, and broader, even, than automation itself. At its core, it concerns the reason why any of us get out of bed in the morning, why we go through our day, why we raise our children, and why we, quite simply, continue to live. Work, meaningful work, is one of the most psychologically anchoring activities in which we regularly engage. For many of is, it is the automatic answer to the question, “What do you do?” It is the thing that gives us security, financial as well as emotional. Without it, the soul and sometime the body withers and dies.

Purposeful living

Want proof? I recommend to you a fascinating bit of research, “Deaths of Despair and Support for Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election,” written by Shannon Monnat, assistant professor of rural sociology, demography, and sociology and a research associate in the Population Research Institute at Penn State University. My purpose in citing this paper is not to take sides in any political debate, but merely to demonstrate that the lack of purpose found in those who are un- or underemployed metastasizes into a host of adverse behaviors and conditions. In this work, Monnat demonstrates a clear link between depression, opioid addiction, and suicide and the absence of high-quality blue collar jobs, especially in Appalachia, New England, and the Midwest.

That the struggling voters in these areas supported now-President Trump is less of a surprise than the fact that they were motivated enough to vote at all. It shows that candidates who directly appeal to “forgotten men and women” with promises of change can win hearts and minds, not to mention elections. The moral of this piece of the puzzle is that those in distress will seek to be soothed, and that candidates who make strong, populist claims to be able to fix things will be able to cut through VUCA and capture people’s love and devotion. Humans naturally seek meaning and connection. Work is one place they find it; family is another; faith resonates for many, too. But if none of those positive outlets exist for the individual, he or she may turn to the negative options represented by conspiracy theories, or demagogues, or extremism. There are deep, dark alleys that humanity is always capable of traversing.

Lighting the way

But I don’t want to end in darkness. Answers and options exist to the quandary surrounding the future of work in the coming age of automation, and they can light our path going forward.

One part of the solution, I believe, is a substantial (think on the order of a trillion dollars or more over the course of the next decade) additional investment in K-12 education in this country. Everyone supports a heavy focus on coursework revolving around science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) because those help prepare kids for great jobs today, which many parents assume will be great jobs tomorrow, too. But the focus cannot and should not just be on STEM. We also need motivated, well-paid teachers to better educate our youth in entrepreneurship, critical/creative thinking, economics, sociology, psychology, politics, culture, and more. This is a complete toolkit that will enable people not just to manage machines, but also to bring their humanity to the deepest issues confronting our society. Solving problems like scarcity of resources, environmental upheaval, overpopulation, fairer access to goods and services, and better health and education will require a flexible mindset and a multiplicity of perspectives. This cannot just be the responsibility of leaders. EVERYONE needs to be fully engaged in finding answers, so that “work” becomes not just about making money for the man, but about making positive change for the human species. Perhaps this will be our collective job.

It’s also possible we’ll realize that the things we’re really good at and most enjoy are those for which we don’t want or need machines: teaching and learning, cooking and eating, creating and sharing ideas, caring and being cared for. These are occupations in the realm of the human connection and although they can all theoretically be automated, why would we choose to do so? Efficiency on an assembly line is one thing; efficiency in reading to a four-year-old is quite another. We may find that automation enables us to pick the tasks we most wish to pursue, and take our time doing them, because that work, those acts, reward the giver as much as the one who receives.

Or maybe, just perhaps, a huge human workforce of machine minders will be even more necessary than ever because robots will never (or not soon) be able to build, program, maintain, and repair themselves. It’s also quite possible that we won’t permit them to do so. It seems that such protections would exist for logical reasons (we’ve all seen The Terminator movies) but bear in mind that history contains few examples of potential innovations that people didn’t aggressively explore and exploit.

I believe that automation is inescapable, and that it will permanently alter peoples’ relationship with the planet and with each other. Hearkening back to Fromm’s quote at the top of this article, we need to decide if the men and slaves of the past will become the robots or Golems of the future. Our relationship with work will be determined by a new contract, one not between people, but between people and machines, setting the boundaries for each and thereby allowing the human spirit to flourish. It will be measured by our ability to manage and make peace with automation, which will in turn determine the ultimate potential of our species.

The future is coming, one infinite moment at a time. Are we ready for it?

A version of this article appeared on the Quality Digest website on April 2, 2019.

BIO:

Mike Richman is the principal of Richman Business Media Consulting, a marketing and public relations company working with clients in the worlds of manufacturing, consumer products, politics, and education. Richman also hosts the web television program NorCal News Now, which focuses on social, economic, and political issues in California. He is a contributor to (and former publisher of) Quality Digest.