How We Got Here

The state of work in the 21st century.

To understand what the future may entail, we first need to understand where we've been, and how we've gotten to where we are now.

By quickly rewinding, we can trace how technology has caused society to evolve overtime and the affect on the daily lives of individuals.

The change technology has enabled can be categorised into:

Hunter Gatherers:

From the beginning of time to 12,000 years ago we were hunter-gatherers. There was no such thing as work, only survival. Every day was designed around hunting for food (and staying safe). The food they had access to was whatever was that they could reach by foot and have the skill to kill. Once this task was completed they could clock-off for the day and engage in leisure activities such as storytelling, play and dance.

Farming:

The next era was brought about by the establishment of domesticating plants and animals, leading to the development of settlement, and birth of farming. This was revolutionary as it minimised the random nature that was sourcing food. Instead of each day walking the earth and seeing what was available, people could now deliberately grow the food that they required for survival.

From a health and wellness perspective, this became a backwards step for society at first. Leisure time was lost as farming technologies were inefficient and required individuals to work all hours of the day in fields to grow this food. It also led to a worse diet. Now instead of eating an assortment of foods, people were restrained to only eating what they could grow. For many, potatoes.

Townships

Overtime, these settlements evolved to become townships enabling specialisation. This was pivotal as it led to an expansion in food sources and work. The food people had access to was now whatever they could grow themselves or barter and exchange with another member of the town.

It was the first time there was now dissociation between what one could have, and what their skills enabled them to acquire. For instance, if you produced wheat, you could now exchange it for milk with someone else in the town. More crucially, it also led to the development of trades. Someone could now specialise in developing a product, such as tools, that the town required and have comfort that he could exchange those goods for food.

Invention of Coinage

Around 2,500 years later the next technological evolution occurred through the invention of coinage. This was critical for numerous reasons but crucially made trading between two people more efficient and enabled the development of wages. The combination of these things led to the expansion of markets through practicality. In a world where you have to exchange one item for another, you are mostly constrained to your immediate surroundings. It's not practical to carry your sack of potatoes to another town to trade there. However, with coinage, you could trade your potatoes in your town, and then travel to another with the coins you acquired in your pocket to purchase a good that may not be accessible in yours.

Industrial Revolution

Fast forward two thousand years and capitalism was born, which in the blink of an eye historically led to the industrial revolution in the 1700s. The key technological innovation at this time was the steam engine. This revolutionised both the nature of work itself, but also transportation. Trains were invented and the first ships that didn't rely on the wind. This was key to the expansion of markets as it created synergies between capacity, speed and reliability that previously didn't existed.

What could travel long distance was no longer constrained to what fit on a cart, or an expiry date. Travel also became safer and more reliable minimising the risk of bandits and weather conditions.

A similar size impact happened with the nature of what output of products was possible. It evolved from being restricted to what you could produce with your hands to being aided by steam-powered machines. Factories were created, expanding what was physically possible to create and the speed at which it was built.

At first working within a factory was similar to what tradesman experienced. For every item a factory worker created he was compensated. If he produced 100 bolts, he was paid for 100 bolts. However, workers, believing this was adverse for them, negotiated they be paid for total number of hours worked. Therefore, it wouldn't matter if they produced 100 bolts or 67, they would still be paid the same amount.

This was crucial because for the first time in history people were no longer paid based on their output, but for their time. Great if there was to be no further innovation that increased the output of factories. But there was, so by workers dissociating themselves from total output, factory owners accrued all the wealth creation enabled by the improvement in technology that led to more efficient output. Now workers were producing 500 bolts a day each but received no monetary benefit. This is crucial to note.

Another by-product of being paid based on time was it led to the creation of the 5-day week and weekend. Workers traded their time on 5 days a week to earn a wage that enabled them to buy sustenance to survive and the ability to choose what they did with their time for two days.

20th Century

The 1900s brought about revolutionary technologies at either end of the century. The first was the aeroplane, similar to the train and steam-powered ship, it further enabled the expansion of addressable markets by increasing speed and reliability. However, while it was now possible to travel the globe quickly, communicating to someone overseas was still a painfully long process (sending letters) for all except those who could afford a landline telephone, which was mainly reserved for governments, large corporations and the wealthiest. There was a node in the network missing.

The next two revolutionary technologies were the missing nodes: the computer followed by the internet. These two inventions led offices to replace factories as the most common place for work, and shifted the nature of work itself. Work moved away from manual labour to computer-based. This led to great improvements in safety, but also what was possible. People could now communicate with each other within minutes via email and immediately through mobile telephones. This was the final domino that shrunk the size of the earth, expanding businesses addressable market, while also creating unprecedented choice for people.

However, despite this fundamental shift in the nature of work, workers are still being paid per hour, not by their output. While corporate profit has increased 1200% since 1995 (earliest available figure) and 100% since 2009, the federal minimum wage has dropped 17% since 2009 and 31% since 1968, once accounting for inflation. It appears we reached an inflexion point without the mass changes that usually occur in tandem.

Until COVID hit.

This is part 1 to a larger series.

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