John Maynard Keynes wrote “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” around 1930, discussing the economics of abundance. For many people around the world work is slavery. Some workers do enjoy their jobs but the majority struggle through “lives of quiet desperation”.
Bertrand Russell around the same time also wrote about the contemporary situation and about his hopes that increased efficiency through industrialisation would leading to more free time for workers in the future.
“The struggle for subsistence has been the main economic problem of mankind for tens of thousands of years. Now we live in an age of abundance. We have accumulated enough capital, technology and knowledge to allow food, clothing and shelter for all. So why do we not do so and why can we not simply enjoy this abundance?”
” It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society.”
Maybe what Maynard and Russell were missing was an understanding which later came with game theory that economics is a non-zero sum game and increasing exploitation leads to increasing returns beyond the needs of society. In capitalism, we play a game of competition and collaboration. Company owners can collaborate with other company owners or compete against them. As game theory would predict, they do both. Sometimes they behave rationally and sometimes irrationally, from the perspective of maximising their own gains. Capitalism is a strange game and maximising the happiness of workers is not one of the goals. So we are locked in a cycle of growth, then more growth, occasionally interrupted by bust periods before returning to chasing growth again. As if growth makes people happy …
We have more than enough food, yet some people go hungry. We have more than enough resources, yet some people are poor. Greed and aggression remain the driving forces in our game.
Moreover, recent generations have (like previous generations) desired more fulfilment and sense of meaning from work, perhaps thinking that there desire is a new thing. Their mantra appears to have been that they want freedom, no long-term commitment to a particular job nor career path; they invented the gig economy, thinking that it gave them freedom. Instead Millennials may well be remembered as the generation who gave away their own workers’ rights. Preceding generations and their predecessors fought and starved and suffered to gain these same worker’s rights. Hard-won rights have already been given away in some areas of work. Very recently gig economy workers have started to realise that they are missing paid holiday leave, maternity leave, insurance, pensions etc. They can be trapped into low-paid long-hour gigs, often working multiple jobs, basically living a hand-to-mouth existence. People are beginning to blame the companies who offer gig work driving deregulated taxis or delivering unhealthy calorie-rich food by bike to people too lazy or too fat or too busy to cook for themselves. What would Maynard or Russell have made of all this?
Good conditions for workers need the workers to fight for this. Capitalism is an inherently exploitative system. No-one will give you rights and benefits without a reason but company owners or their hired managers will certainly be willing cut your benefits and rights if you request it, which is basically what the Millennials have achieved with the gig economy. Company owners are not inherently evil; they are part of a system and may even be unhappy about doing what they do but they have no alternative if they want to succeed in a capitalist world where the are in competition with other companies.
Maybe one day we will all realise that we live in a world of abundance where there is enough accumulated capital, wealth, resources and efficiency of production for everyone to live a secure and comfortable life. Yet game theory tells us that this socialist ideal is unachievable as long as there are ‘invaders’ willing to disrupt a socialist system in order to obtain more for themselves. There will always be people who want more than their neighbours and are willing to do anything to achieve it, even if it is by burning down their neighbours house or even the whole neighbourhood. Greed and aggression is what makes us human.