Jobsolescence

Definition

jobsolescence (n.) is the phenomenon whereby increasing automation enables fewer and fewer workers to produce all the basic goods and services necessary for society, resulting in fewer "jobs" (i.e. less employment) through which the resulting wealth can be distributed.

In colloquial usage, it can refer to:

• the fact of having one's particular job rendered obsolete
• the fact of jobs in general, as a means of survival for individuals and as a way for society to allocate resources, becoming obsolete

Systemic View

A systemic view of the situation acknowledges the following essential facts:

• It now takes a pretty small percentage of society -- a relatively small number of people -- to produce the basic goods and services that all of us need in order to survive at a reasonable level of contentment and freedom.
• This number will continue to shrink as long as innovation and technology continue to progress. (...and we don't want to stop this process, either.)
• Many tasks that people do for "employment" are essentially make-work, or (worse) are part of the process of concentrating wealth in the hands of a few.
• There are, however, still some tasks that need doing -- we can't all just stop working.

Given these facts, the conclusion seems inevitable: We need a major restructuring of society into a post-employment economy.

Usage

These are examples of how the word might be used in writing or conversation:

• The paradox of jobsolescence is that it results in severe deprivation in the midst of plenty.
• In 2011, the capitalist system reached a crisis point, with thousands of jobsolescent workers flooding the streets of major cities around the world seeking new solutions for wealth redistribution. They were told by the establishment, with no sense of irony, to 'get a job'.
• The system I designed for VeryBigTek to help with my work there is so efficient that they were able to lay off 5 employees -- including me. I've been rendered jobsolete.

Conclusions

• Jobsolescence will continue to be a growing problem as long as we depend on the concept of employment as a means of allocating basic needs.
• Jobsolescence is a by-product of the same changes (continuing improvements in automation and telecommunications) which have made society incredibly wealthy. This incredible wealth has led to discussions of post-scarcity economics, reducing the work-week, and other attempts to spread that wealth via employment. Most of these discussions seem to be reacting to particular aspects of the situation ("Hey, we have more wealth and fewer jobs -- let's work less so we have more free time and more people can have jobs." or "A lot of people aren't getting enough to eat -- let's make more jobs for them by reducing work-hours for those who have jobs.") rather than seeing them as indicative of a basic flaw in the system: using something scarce ("jobs") as a means of allocating something plentiful (basic needs and other wealth).

Quotes

It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors.

The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

— Buckminster Fuller, source needed

Links

• Google+ post where I first suggested this word