A Civilization of Busy Work

The entire concept of “work” has been abstracted by our present culture. 

Consider this: If the money-motivator was removed from our culture tomorrow, how many people would continue going to work?  In other words, if money suddenly lost its buying power, how many businesses in your community would continue to operate solely because they are vital to every day life?  If your community/town/city is anything like mine, the moment money ceases to be a motivating factor, nearly all of the daily “business” activity would stop… instantly. 

What does this tell us about the nature of work the majority of human beings are engaged in?

We exist as part of a global monetary system.  The majority of people no longer work to directly produce the resources and services required for survival.  Instead, people work in exchange for money which can then be used to purchase both what is needed and what is desired.  Over time, money itself has become more sought after than the resources it was created to buy.  This shift toward money as the end goal of trade (rather than resources) has caused an ironic abstraction regarding the relationship between human labor (work) and the resources required for prosperity.

In truth, almost none of the “jobs” Americans engage every day of their lives are associated with producing a necessary resource or service for survival.  The vast majority of jobs within our current money-market system only exist to perpetuate the system itself.  The moment you remove money’s value from the equation, all of these jobs become pointless because they have nothing to do with reality.  Most money-market jobs exist only within the invented framework of the for profit monetary system, a system that has become unhinged from reality. 

Politicians exist to create new laws.  Judges exist to interpret the laws.  Lawyers exist to manipulate the laws.  Laws exist to protect property.  Property exists to generate wealth.  Wealth exists to generate jobs.  Jobs exist to fuel buying power.  Buying power exists to generate wealth.  Wealth exist to generate jobs.  Jobs exist…. On and on and on.

Despite all of our progress in science and technology, what kind of civilization have we created for ourselves?

We live in a civilization of busy work.

Work for the sake of work.

Read it again:

Work for the sake of work.

Pointless repetition.  Tedium year after year, decade after decade.

Why?

Because jobs create buying power.  Because buying power creates wealth.  Because wealth creates jobs.  Blah blah blah.

As a species, we need to stop for a moment.  We need to stop charging ahead like a half-blind, raging bull chasing a bit of red cloth.  The red cloth we are chasing is money, and even if we manage to catch that target with a horn, our reward will still be a steel blade pushed through our vital organs.  We are chasing a figment of our imagination for a reward that does not exist.

This is not a game being played out on Earth.  Each and every human being alive today is participating in shaping the future of our species.  The decisions we make today and the systems we contribute to are literally shaping the future of our world. 

Why, then, are most of us spending 40+ hours a week doing busy work?

Not only have human beings been reduced to lifetimes filled with unnecessary busy work, the reason we have been so trivialized is to uphold a monetary system that produces corruption, extreme inequalities, violent conflict, environmental destruction, and immeasurable human suffering.  Simply stated, human beings are being forced into a lifetime of meaningless busy work in order to fuel a system that makes a mockery of everything we claim to hold sacred.

Human labor has become irrelevant to survival. 

The full comprehension of this truth is of vital importance if we are going to progress positively as a species. 

What do I mean when I say human labor has become irrelevant to survival?  Leveraging current science and technology, all areas of resource production could be fully automated.  From agriculture to electronics to the building of homes, every aspect of the production of goods and services can be automated by computers and machines.  Yes, this infrastructure would need to be built by human minds and human hands.  Yes, it would need to be maintained and updated, etc.  Once achieved, however, a fully automated and self-sustaining system of production would render nearly all human labor irrelevant to survival.

Accomplishing this would be the greatest evolutionary step forward humanity has ever taken.

Unfortunately, because our minds have been conditioned toward the for-profit monetary system, we have been made blind to the universal benefits of such an achievement.  Human beings are actually fighting against automation rather than embracing it as progress.  Why?  Automation represents a threat to “jobs”.  This is where the ironic abstraction between human labor and resources within the monetary system becomes highly visible:  Automation is a threat to “jobs”.  As members of our money driven culture, “jobs” that pay us money (regardless of their real-world contribution) have become our top priority. 

Anything that threatens our money paying jobs, even when it represents a clear improvement at the real-world level, is viewed as the enemy. 

There are countless examples of this phenomenon.  In the healthcare industry, look at the profitability of Cancer.  Treating cancer is a multi-billion dollar market.  It creates hundreds of thousands of jobs and generates massive growth in Gross Domestic Product for our nation.  Conversely, a cure to cancer would eliminate all of those jobs and all of that lovely GDP.  Is a cure for cancer beneficial to humanity?  Does it end the suffering of countless millions?  Does it save millions of lives a year?   Yes.  Is it beneficial from the perspective of the for-profit monetary system?  No.  Curing cancer would hurt our money-market system. 

In the automotive industry, we must be aware as consumers by now that the technology being harnessed in our vehicles is hopelessly inefficient and outdated.  The combustible engine is an absurd choice given advancements in technology in the past 40 years.  In truth, highly efficient automobiles requiring almost zero maintenance could be manufactured today.  Why does the industry prefer the combustible engine?  Look at the infrastructure surrounding combustible engine automobiles.  How many auto repair shops exist?  Gas stations?  The smog check sector alone contributes huge dollars to GDP in the United States.  If the automotive industry produced highly reliable, clean and efficient vehicles, how many jobs would be lost?  Tens of millions of jobs would vanish without a trace. 

We must recognize that the for profit monetary system is causing the progress of our species to stagnate in highly destructive ways.  The motivation to protect pointless “busy work” jobs (jobs that should be made obsolete by science and technology) in order to sustain our monetary system’s need for cyclical consumption is turning the greatest advancements of our time into threats to our so-called “way of life”. 

This absurdity must end.

Do we really want to exist in a civilization of busy work?  Work for the sake of work?

Collectively as human beings, we have the ability to remove tedious busy work from our lives and replace it with work that inspires us and makes a real-world contribution.

Let us stop feeding this insatiable money-machine our valuable human hours.  It will never be enough to sustain the system because our monetary system does not adhere to reality.  It exists on its own terms and serves only its own need for infinite growth.  The for profit model views any threat to profit as a threat to humanity even when the opposite is true.  This is a distortion that, if allowed to continue, will destroy our planet and our species.

Let us stop feeding this insatiable money-machine our human hours.

We deserve more than a lifetime of busy work.

We deserve to embrace the technological advancements of our time for what they are: progress.  We should be moving toward a world in which equality and abundance are the norm rather than the exception.  Science and automation are not the enemy… if we allow them to develop free of the destructive for-profit motive, they can end our servitude to busy work and unite our species in prosperous purpose.