In answering what work is, we must first consider that potentially there is no answer. The question may seem trivial, and a typical answer might simply be, "it is something I do to make money". However to formulate an answer one must be far reaching in scope as work has an impact on so much of our lives. We must also delve deep into the complexity of what makes up a human being as work penetrates us to the core of our being. It really is a complicated question and consequently not a simple task to answer.
There will never be a final simple answer, or even a final complicated answer. As time falls forward, the nature of work changes and so to then must our thoughts and ideas. We can be guided by our snapshots and glimpses of what we think work is, but we will never definitively provide the answer.
Given the complexity of the subject, its seems somewhat daunting to attach any precise definition. But we will try in this section to provide a few glimpses onto what our interpretation of work is. We will approach the task by dividing up the subject matter into several parts. We will start with an overview of work, and then introduce some of the key concepts that will help guide us through the process.
The Back Drop
So back to the question at hand. What is work. Is it a primal curse as some suggest. Is it part of human nature, assuming there is one? Is there some promised land off in the future where the current manifestation of work will be but a memory, and other forms of activity take its place. Or will it forever be about the struggle of survival for a majority of the planet’s population. So how does one define work, well to start lets take a step back, a huge step back and let’s have a look at the big picture of work.
As human beings, we have been living on this planet for some time. Well actually not that much time, if you realize that the planet has been around for about four and half billion years. The earliest forms of hominoids called the Homo habillis, the first genus of hominoid that used tools and had the ability to improve on those tools, have only been around for approximately 2 million years. Tools were simple, skill in using them were high, which through a process allowed habillis to survive and evolve through time. The hominoid form that could be deemed as a close resemblance to those of us that pick up their lunch box and head out the door every morning for work, have been around for about 30,000 years and are called homo sapiens.
The bottom line is we have only been around for but a wink of an eye in the big picture of time. During these 2 million or so years, humans have lived a majority of time within a hunting and gathering society. It has only been through the past few thousand years that humans in growing numbers lay down the bow and picked up the plough. During these few thousand years, the ploughs slowly became more advanced, and the harvests more robust and plentiful. Releasing a larger part of the tribe from the necessities of food production and into a pool of surplus labour. The surplus labour became specialists and developed expertise and knowledge to perform the culturally determined tasks for the remainder of the tribe. However the diversity in the division of labour was fairly limited, when compared to that unleashed by the industrial revolution just a short 300 or so years ago. The industrial revolution marked the birth of the modern machine, and with it came an explosion in output per worker.
The timelines and the simple facts say a lot. It truly is an amazing spectacle when you consider the timelines and compare it to some sort of typology of work and outputs. Long periods signified by a small growths in the diversity of the tools and occupations of work with a corresponding low output per worker. Then the industrial revolution hits about 300 years ago, and an explosion in the diversity of tools, an almost exponential increase in the number of occupations and the outputs from these work processes have hit levels that are quite incredible.
The facts alone, speak volumes in developing a deeper historical perspective into the development of humanity with regards to the work process. The past 300 years or so have lay witness to some of the most striking changes within the realm of humanity. There is no doubt we are still in the early phases of these changes. The industrial revolution has been the great leveler of almost everything existing. Every culture, society, political ideology has been effected profoundly. An explosion that we are still only coming to terms with in the big picture of history. To suggest that some kind of static state of culture, society, economy, and ultimately work, will be on the horizon any time soon would, with historical clarity, be ludicrous.
Change is the order of the day and has been for the recent past. In the days of the current technological revolution, a spring board from the industrial revolution, there is a sense, and awareness that change must become more engrained within the culture. Especially when one regards the nature of work. There are perspectives out there that will seem to convincingly personify periods of static, unchanging times, clinging onto the familiar, these are but mirages on the pathways to the future. There is no longer any substantial uniformity in the dimensions and velocities of change, at least within a historical context.
This is but a fairly general back drop in which we must use to attempt to develop the big picture of work. The task now is to start filling in the colour and detail of the big picture. (That will be our next update so stay tuned)
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