The Future of Work

Societies have always imagined their futures and an important element of that has been the question of work. Imagining a future of work almost always tells us more about the past and present relationship to labour; it reveals hidden hopes, fears, desires and concerns. This concern for the future is amplified by modernity itself. Industrialisation created moral, economic, ethical, political and social questions about both an individual’s and society’s relationship to economic life. These fears often stimulated a backward-looking nostalgia for an idealised labouring past, or at other moments allowed progressives to imagine a more humane and dignified account of what could be. One of signature themes of discussions of the relationship between work and the future has been technology. In one register, technology liberates humans from drudge labour, allowing them to fulfil themselves through what they do. In another register, technology is itself oppressive, devaluing the intrinsic rewards of craft and creativity, reducing activity to animalistic repetition. This chapter gives an overview of this rich history of the future, allowing the reader to make links to older ways of understanding work in the context of contemporary debates.