On the occasion of 1is May, labor day inherited from the international day of struggle for workers’ rights and the struggles of the labor movement of the 19th and 20th century, Romeo Malcurt shares his thoughts on the meaning and place of work in the 21th century with a view to ecological transformation.
“I have a job! Not chosen… ”
Does “Work” occupy the right place in our current society? Productivism and its industrial logic push us to extract always more, to transform always more, to sell always more, to create always more. The financialized logic imposes a value chain with multiple links, outside the territories, with downstream contractors and too often upstream executors, locking the inter-company relationship into a relationship of domination and competition.
And us, citizens, what is our place in this role play? We are working, but to what end? Is it just for our hunger? A modern Earthman produces almost nothing of what they consume, and consumes almost nothing of what they produce, apart from leisure activities such as DIY, gardening, culinary activities … which have the wind in their sails and become new spaces of fulfillment allowing each and everyone to “do” and transform their reality.
Are we doomed to occupy a position that has no meaning for us, to create “value” in contradiction with our core values? Should salary and money be our only benchmarks? Isn’t suffering at work first of all linked to a loss of meaning? Has the pandemic not profoundly changed our representations of what is useful work for others and for society as a whole?
Redefining work and its place
Since ancient times, work has occupied a central place in the daily life of Homo sapiens, above all for its character of social recognition, essential for us human beings. The recognition of being useful for their loved ones, for society, brings us energy, vitality and self-construction. It is also a source of links, exchanges, socialization, allows you to take an interest in others. The gaze of one’s peers, commitment, mutual aid, recognition of the people to whom our work is useful, the feeling of having rendered a useful service at the end of the day. It should be a source ofpersonal emancipation, very different from the connotation carried by current neoliberalism.
Towards a new economic model:
A monetary size does not reflect the social and environmental impact, nor the well-being, nor the nature of the activity. This redefinition can therefore only go through a change of business model. How does what we produce serve the new ecological regulations, the territories, the present and future population? Recognition no longer in volume, turnover and other financial indicators, but real added value, positive externalities identified, of the service provided. Include indicators of social benefits, environmental, resilience for tomorrow, creativity, responses to the scarcity of resources, creation of well-being, response to the challenges of a territory.
This new recognition of work must be able to be fostered in a new economy, with the help of all the actors involved: communities, businesses, citizens, associations, while being attentive from now on to present and future needs. “Work is life“, Yes and no… Is it work or rather“useful activity to meet their real needs” ?
“What if we emancipated ourselves?” »Some orientations for the future of work and its recognition:
- Build and breathe new life into a new economic model, centered on the challenges of the territories (citizens, communities, companies, associations, living things, etc.), creating territorial cooperative ecosystems;
- Change our conception of value, which would no longer be money but the service rendered;
- Accelerate the creation of sustainable, non-relocatable and meaningful professions, ensure their governance and networking to be within everyone’s reach;
- Support training, educational pathways, help with reconversion, the creation of sectors and businesses with green activities and jobs;
- Refocus our activities on the fundamental needs of our society, respecting planetary limits and allowing a liveable future;
- Leave this culture of competition, of the lowest price, to reappropriate a logic of loyalty through acceptable spending, and recognizing proximity work;
- Promote human labor and its ingenuity, low-technologies, practical, economical, popular, restoring the primacy of human intelligence over the machine;
- Take into account and promote non-market values (volunteering, etc.) and useful work for society linked to these activities: work that we could otherwise qualify as emancipatory “activities” for all, a source of creativity and valuable creation.
At a time when the notions of well-being and health at work are more and more central, where the laws of markets and international competition called into question by the health crisis, dependence and resilience, it is time, not to go even faster as recommended by our government with a plan of raise, but reinventing the place and meaning of work at 21th century, to regain a sense of its usefulness, to build a new world for more added value and less precariousness, more positive externalities and less destruction, more cooperation and less competition.
Thoughts to extend, wishing you a Happy Labor Day!
Romeo Malcurt, member of Génération Écologie
To contribute to the construction of the political project of integral democratic ecology on this subject, you can join the working group “Do and work together”. To register: https://generationecologie.fr/inscription-atelier-travail/
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