Let’s be Jane Austen Characters
Is work necessary to have a fulfilling life? People in Jane Austen’s time didn’t think so, living rich lives without ever working for pay.
For this post, “work” means activities that produce a paycheck, monetary income. Work is doing what someone else wants in exchange for pay.
A common criticism of universal basic income, or any income distribution method that does not involve work, is that work gives meaning to life. Hence, even if people do not need to work to survive physically, they need to work for personal well-being.
This is the Puritan work ethic that has driven America for 400 years. None of our politicians today can even imagine a world where having a “good-paying job” is not the life goal for everyone.
For example, after discussing how the rise in automation was eliminating all kinds of jobs, not just factory jobs, President Obama in his 2016 State of the Union said, “We agree that real opportunity requires every American to get the education and training they need to land a good-paying job.”
The Puritan work ethic was a creation of the new world, required in a wild, dangerous, and isolated land where starvation was likely next winter if everyone did not work hard this summer.
The first sustained American colony, Jamestown, Virginia, had to introduce severe punishment of the gentlemen who were among the settlers. The gentlemen felt laboring to grow food was beneath them. After most starved the first winter, Captain John Smith introduced flogging for those who did not work. Thus the Puritan work ethic was born.
For 400 years, the Puritan work ethic has served America well. It was the first thing taught to every generation of immigrants: work, or starve. That hard work in America typically lead not only to avoiding starvation but to middle class lives for immigrants in one or two generations only reinforced the ethic.
However, as discussed in an earlier post, America in the near future will be a place where the best work many people can do will not provide a middle class life, because robots will be able to do the same work for much less.
The problem will not be a lack of goods produced, but a lack of “good-paying jobs” for many Americans. If work for pay is required for a satisfying life, then the lack of jobs that pay enough for all people to support themselves is a very serious problem.
Hillary Clinton (at 56:15 in this Google “Fireside Chat”), is asked about this future. She wrestles with the question and has no answer, because all the solutions she knows for a lack of jobs are basically “make work”, rather than “honest work”, for middle-class wages.
However, back when America was young, there was a class of people in England who did not work, and in fact made fun of anyone who did work “in trade” — made a living from their efforts.
These people were described by the novelist and observer of this class, Jane Austen. In fact, the gentlemen in 1600s Virginia, who Captain Smith needed to flog to get to work, were ancestors of the ladies and gentlemen of English upper class society described by Austen.
How could this class afford the activities of their lives, to eat good food, live in nice houses, buy carriages, and go to shows, if none of them worked? Every family had an “independent income” derived from a personal fortune, not from the sweat of his or her brow.
For centuries, most of English society aspired to become one of these ladies or gentlemen with an independent income.
If none of these people had “good-paying jobs”, how could their lives possibly be satisfying? In books like “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma”, Austen describes their lives, which were rich in activities, friends, family, religion, education, intrigue, and love, but not in work.
The amazing thing is that English who came to America who had experienced this lifestyle actually had to be flogged in order for them to adopt a Puritan work ethic. A desire to work had to be beaten into these gentlemen, which shows a “good-paying job” is not required to have a satisfying life.
In fact, judging by Jane Austen’s peers, it is easier to have a satisfying life without work. Everyday for them was effectively a Saturday or Sunday for modern Americans — they selected activities that interested them, had time for relatives and friends, exercise, gardening, planning dinners and parties, reading, crafts, religion, and generally enjoying life.
With the rise of automation, we are at last realizing for everyone what in Jane Austen’s time was available only to the 1%: a rich, full, life, unmarred by the need to work.
It is time to plan for a world where the 99% do not have to work, and only a 1% who enjoy designing robots still do.
Let’s all be Jane Austen characters.
Copyright © 2016 by Al Lee. All rights reserved.
