This article is from WeChat official account:Economic Observer Network (ID: eeojjgcw) , author: Shi Henan, title picture from: Visual China
New Luddism
The concept of the fourth industrial revolution was formally put forward at Hannover Messe 2013. In the beginning, it refers to the use of the Internet of Things information system to digitize and intelligentize the supply, manufacturing, and sales information in production, and finally achieve rapid, effective and personalized product supply.
We are told that it will bring about exponential changes, far beyond the previous industrial revolutions. Optimistic people believe that robots will bring us a lot of convenience, while for others, the prospect of automation has induced an imminent Question: What should I do if my job is replaced by a robot?
This is not the first time that humans have worried that their jobs will be replaced by machines. As early as the first industrial revolution, there was a “rebellion” triggered by powerful machines in northern England. Those rebels are called “Luddites”. Later, Luddism evolved into a labor movement, which greatly changed the political life of Western Europe and other countries.
Nowadays, some people who are worried that human beings will be enslaved by new technologies have launched the “New Luddism” movement.
However, technological progress will not stop. Instead of worrying that our work will be replaced by AI, it is better to think about it first. Why should we worry that our work will be replaced? Although this question sounds a bit stupid, Suzman, the author of “The Meaning of Work: Human Transformation from Prehistory to the Future,” started from this question and led us to think about the relationship between humans and work.
scarcity hypothesis
The initial question came from the length of work.
Suzman mentioned that Keynes had predicted in 1930 that by the beginning of the 21st century,The accumulation of capital, the improvement of productivity and the advancement of technology should be able to bring us to the “economic paradise”. By then, everyone’s basic needs can be easily met, and people will not work more than 15 hours a week.
In fact, more than ten years ago, we have achieved the level of productivity and economic growth that Keynes called “economic paradise” must reach, but most people today are still working hard.
Professor Dole from the University of London pointed out in a speech in 2003 that many developed countries have been reducing working hours slowly and effectively in the past, but this trend has been reversed since the 1980s. Working hours are beginning to get longer.
To understand why this situation arises, we need to realize that the relationship between humans and work is much more complicated and interesting than what most traditional economists say.
Suzman believes that one of the reasons leading to the status quo is that economists pay too much attention to the “scarcity issue.”
The core of this view is, “We have unlimited needs, and all resources are limited. Because there are not enough resources to meet everyone’s needs, all resources are scarce.” It is how people allocate scarce resources to meet their needs and desires. From this as a starting point, scarcity is the driving force that drives our work, because only by manufacturing, producing and exchanging scarce resources can we bridge the gap between unlimited desires and limited resources.
However, for most of the history, human ancestors were not as concerned about resource scarcity as we are now. The connotation of work should not be limited to trying to solve economic problems. Abandoning the focus on scarcity, Suzman re-examines the development of human beings from the origin of life to the busy modern times, and strives to provide us with a new perspective on the evolution of the relationship between humans and work.
Four revolutions in the relationship between people and work
In “The Meaning of Work” Suzman gave the most general definition of work, namely: expend energy or effort on a task purposefully in order to achieve a certain goal or purpose .
Suzman sorted out four important points in time when the relationship between people and work changed during the evolution of humans and the development of civilization.
The first change occurred inAbout 1 million years ago, when humans mastered the technique of making fire.
People found the oldest evidence of human use of fire in the “Wonderwerk Cave” (Wonderwerk Cave) in the northern part of South Africa. Fire has brought about great changes, changing the uncertainty caused by natural selection and sexual selection, making humans the only species whose brain is more conducive to foraging and gathering than muscles.
From the perspective of helping humans obtain energy, no physical tool can match fire. Once Homo erectus has mastered how to use fire and cooking, it will be able to obtain more energy return with less physical strength, which will promote the gradual increase of brain capacity. In this way, in addition to using intelligence and energy to find, consume, and digest food, the time spent on other activities will also increase.
The second important change began approximately 12,000 years ago. The exploration of this period can reveal the extent to which the economic structure on which we rely for our work today originated in the agricultural era.
The archaeologist Childe put forward in “People Create Himself” that “the transformation of our ancestors from hunting-gathering to agricultural production was a profound change.”
The Agricultural Revolution not only promoted rapid population growth, but also fundamentally changed the way people interact with the world around them. It has changed people’s lifestyles, work styles, and perceptions of the world, and has rapidly increased the energy that people can obtain and use.
Research in related fields confirms that food shortages caused by climate change have played an important role in pushing some ethnic groups into food production. At the same time, climate change has spawned abundant plant species in several time periods, provided people with a source of food, and also played an important role in the process of people turning to agricultural production.
From a fundamental point of view, although agriculture faces various challenges, it is more productive than hunter-gatherers, and the population tends to recover within a few generations after a disaster. But this mode of production expands human beings’ anxiety about resource scarcity, and at the same time encourages people to expand into new spaces.
The results of DNA analysis show that European agriculture spread during the expansion of agricultural groups to new lands. In this expansion, agricultural groups did not assimilate the original hunter-gatherers, but drove them away and eventually replaced them.
The hunting-gathering activity is instant return type, hunter-gatherers regard interpersonal relationship as an extension of the relationship between man and nature. Nature shares food with them, and they share food with others. However, agricultural activities are a delayed return economic form. Farmers regard interpersonal relationships as an extension of the relationship between people and land. Land requires their labor, and they will not share food with others for free. Ask others to pay a certain cost.
In the long agricultural society, people have developed a tendency to view food shortages from a sacred perspective, and this tendency, as well as a series of economic systems and norms that originated in agricultural society, still supports the organization of our current economic life .
When people began to gather in towns, the third change occurred. This is about 8000 years ago. The agricultural society began to produce surplus food to feed a large urban population, which opened an important new chapter in the history of human work.
In this case, work means not only working in the fields to obtain energy, but also means finding ways to consume the surplus energy.
The birth of the first batch of cities gave birth to brand-new skills, occupations, jobs, and trade. The emergence of large villages and towns also played an important role in reshaping the dynamic relationship between the economy and scarcity of resources. Since the material needs of most urban residents depend on farmers who produce food in the countryside, urban residents can concentrate on pursuing status, wealth, happiness, leisure, and power. The problem of inequality soon emerged. Urban residents are increasingly linking social status with the work they are engaged in, and building communities with people in the same industry.
According to Childe, the “urban revolution” is the second phase of the agricultural revolution. For an urban revolution to occur, agricultural productivity must first cross a critical threshold and be able to continue to produce enough food surplus to feed bureaucrats, artists, politicians, and others. The two-eight law works here in a strange way. Before the industrial revolution, 80% of people still lived in the countryside, and the remaining 20% became the first people who didn’t need to spend time and energy for food. .
The survival of a city depends on two aspects, one is a common code of conduct, and the other is whether its residents have the ability to unite together with common experiences, beliefs and values, and then gradually expand these connections To the countryside where they were raised.
In cities, material security is not based on the production of food, energy or other raw materials, but on the control of these resources.Distribution and use. Businessmen quickly realized that trade was a potential way to gain wealth and power. In an agricultural society, people only focus on satisfying their basic needs, while in towns and cities, people have different needs and desires, which shape different ambitions, and correspondingly shape different ways of working and reasons for work. .
The fourth change occurred in the early 18th century. The smoke from the huge chimneys of the factories marked that human society had learned how to release ancient energy reserves from fossil fuels and convert them into matter. prosperity.
From then on, the number and scale of cities increased rapidly, and the population and the number of animals and plants domesticated by our ancestors increased dramatically. The world has become more crowded. Mankind began to pay attention to scarcity and the importance of work, and became more busy. But the paradox is that there are actually more supplies than ever before.
Keynes believes that economic problems have two completely different ways. The first one he called “absolute demand”, which he defined as the need for food, water, warmth, comfort, friendship, and safety ; And the other is called “relative demand”. He believes that we are keen to meet these “relative needs.” Relative demand reflects people’s ambitions: to compare with neighbors, get a promotion at work, buy a more stylish house, drive a better car, eat more delicious food, and gain more power. He believes that “relative demand” will motivate people to work harder.
The huge new wealth created by industrialization initially flowed mainly to people at the top and middle levels of the economy, further exacerbating social inequality restricted by different classes. But in the 1850s, part of this wealth began to benefit factory workers in the form of higher wages and improved housing. Starting from this period, most workers began to notice that their material quality of life had improved. This also marks that many people are beginning to see work as a means to buy more goods.
In this way, the production and consumption cycle is closed. A large part of the economy is supported by this cycle.
In fact, for the next 200 years, the labor movement and subsequent unions focused almost all resources on getting higher wages and more free time for their members, rather than trying to make their work fun or Substantial.
Hunter-gatherer mode and the future of mankind
Is it possible to study the oldest economic model of mankind to help mankind move towards a better future? In Suzman’s view, the answer is yes.
We now know that the hunter-gatherer tribes in the Kalahari Desert are descendants of the same population. This population has been living in southern Africa since modern Homo sapiens first appeared, and the time span may be as long as 300,000 years.
The research on these hunter-gatherer societies provides us with some clues to understand what a society is no longer subject to economic problems. The relationship between humans and work is more fundamental than economists think. The relationship between energy, life and work is the common bond between humans and other living things.
Through combing history, Suzman’s ultimate goal is to alleviate the “scarcity economics” restraint on human work and life, weaken our excessive attention to economic growth, and let us realize that many support the current economic system The core assumptions are actually the products of the agricultural revolution, and these systems have been magnified in the process of people migrating to cities. To achieve a better life, the key is to solve the problem of unequal distribution of wealth.
History reminds us that everything is constantly changing. Although automation and artificial intelligence make it possible for us to move towards a completely different future, when humans are forced to change, they tend to be Quickly adapt to new and different ways of doing things and thinking within time.
Human beings follow the law of entropy and constantly find some work for their idle hands and restless mind, and get satisfaction from it, and when we expand the definition of work, it is not just limited to “How to make a living” is to include all kinds of purposeful activities into the category of work. Then we must be able to obtain a major change in attitudes and values, which will help us successfully navigate the future of mankind brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
This article is from WeChat official account:Economic Observer Network (ID: eeojjgcw) , by Shi Henan