The carrying myth of the end of work

In our masochistic world where we pile up the most catastrophic theses at leisure, here is one that remains at the top of the hit parade: that of the scheduled end of work, announced by many intellectuals including the author of this book , Daniel Susskind.

Economist and researcher-teacher at Oxford and King’s College London, he is certainly not the least brilliant in this area. His conviction: the ongoing technological revolutions and the automation that inevitably eat away at most human activities will force us to radically change our lifestyles in order to adapt to a world without work.

When ? Daniel Susskind is careful not to say so as the most fanciful forecasts have circulated in this area. Let us quote, for example, this report published within the framework of the World Economic Forum of Davos in 2016 which then announced 5 million jobs destroyed in the world by 2020 because of the machines. A dark prospect which fortunately did not materialize.

The Machine Substitution Effect

Let’s not rejoice, the author tells us. While it is wrong to think that entire sections of our productive activities will disappear like whole slabs detaching themselves from a wall under the influence of robots or artificial intelligence, the process is ongoing and takes a much more insidious form: that of a gradual encroachment of automation on all of our activities, whether it is manufacturing a car (a task now 80% performed by robots) or diagnostics medical where doctors and machines will increasingly share the work.

Result, “plus the XXI^e century advances, the more the demand for human labor is likely to wither”, writes Susskind, especially as the effect of substitution by machines progresses. “It is therefore quite possible that the working age is coming to an end and we must prepare for it now”, warns the author in substance. In a way, the Covid-19 pandemic, which shut down a good part of the economies and those who work there were partially unemployed – 11 million in France at the peak of the crisis – was a form of dress rehearsal of what awaits us.

Cleverly, the researcher is careful not to fall into the excesses that the less serious futurologists utter in this field. In particular, he refutes the Malthusian thesis of a finite quantity of work, and admits that technological progress increases prosperity. But in the long term, the productivity that these advances generate is not good news for employment. In Britain, the manufacturing sector produces 150 times more than in 1948, but with 60% fewer workers.

Above all, Daniel Susskind warns us against our own naivety, which leads us to believe that there are still many non-automated tasks. “Let’s stop underestimating the machines,” he warns. We don’t need to build a robot in the image of a human being to eliminate a job. »

The advent of a leisure society

Another interesting point raised by the author and which merits reflection: the idea according to which adequate education and training will suffice to overcome the problem and save jobs is in his eyes another illusion. It is no longer enough to know how to read, write, count or even code to keep pace with the galloping sophistication of machines. Many of them, by their calculation capacities alone for example, are now impossible for the human mind to catch up with. It is just as necessary, in his eyes, to adapt training to professions that are unlikely to be automated, such as nurses or social workers.

Whatever happens, there will be damage, prophesies the author, who takes up the now accepted thesis of “polarization”. Those who will come out of it the best are the most and the least qualified, at least those whose tasks will be automated later. Doctors and delivery people will therefore be relatively spared in the short and medium term when office workers have started to disappear, and with them a whole workforce formed by a middle class who are already paying the price for the digitization of activities. formerly vested in man.

The big question is obviously to know what will become of our societies once dispossessed of what was for a long time their central value, that which gave meaning to the lives of citizens. If we accept evolution as Daniel Susskind describes it – which is in itself highly debatable – the solution he proposes to fill our future lives without paid work is truly frightening. He advocates nothing less than the advent of a leisure society organized and regulated by the State! “Just as at the working age the state intervenes to shape our professional life, so, at the age of least work, will it need comparable tools to shape our free time”, he writes. It is not known if this is a wish on his part or a real prophecy. In both cases, we can only hope that he is wrong both in the diagnosis and in the treatment protocol.