Civilizations were built thanks to the idle classes, those who were exempt from hard work. Scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, playwrights, and other poets have made civilization germinate because they belonged to a privileged and therefore idle class. What if tomorrow’s world gave us more of an opportunity to live like a fifth century BC Athenian citizen (members of the privileged class)?
The New Societal Paradigms
Employment will become increasingly scarce in the years to come. Creative destruction will no longer create. New market needs will require much more training and willingness to transition. A larger part of humanity will live on organized alms: the productivity surpluses will be shared among the members of these new kind of proletarians, because they are not quite proletarians. Employment will be scarce but (unpaid) work will always exist and there will always be a need for it to create social links between generations and within families. How then can we think of a world without jobs, what kind of man should we aspire to become?
Work Had Become Our Opium
In his book, “A World Without Work”, Daniel Susskind explains that when Max spoke of religion as the opiate of the people, he did not mean that it had been created by the elites to oppress the people, but rather that it had become popular because it occupied people’s lives like a drug. If we look at what work has become today, it actually plays the role of this new opium: much more than a livelihood, it is what keeps us busy and gives meaning to our lives.
Today The Difficulty Is To Find A New Opium
As employment gradually disappears, man loses his daily opium, his temporary distraction. Are we going to see a return of religion for all that? The future will tell us.
Be An Actor Of Your Civilization
Since civilization has been built up thanks to the idle members of societies, you can in turn occupy this role of contributor to civilization since laziness will be accessible to more people. You will probably be a drop in the bucket of civilization. What will be your contribution to the tech giants? It will be difficult to estimate because civilization will be more technological and it will not be obvious to see any contribution from the little hands that we are.
