Man, Nature and Machine
Humans have always dreamed of a paradise where no one has to work, all essentials magically appear, and they can spend their time pursuing pleasure, enlightenment, and the companionship of their loved ones. But for most of history, only the rich and powerful could enjoy a life of leisure while the masses, free or enslaved, toiled. Now, technology promises an easy life for everyone. A future where robots, overseen by drones, cultivate and harvest land to feed us, fully automated factories produce goods of all kinds, and a network of autonomous cars, trucks, planes, and ships bring everything seamlessly to our smart houses magically kept at a perfect temperature all year long. But would all of us be able to enjoy that future equally? Would we stop working altogether? Not if history is of any guide.
Work is part of human identity. We work even if we don’t have to. It determines where we live, who we socialize with, and what we master in. And technology ― no matter how powerful — alone cannot erase inequality. In fact, in the wrong hands and without ethical and legal guardrails, technology can widen the gap between rich and poor and enable some to exploit others, for example, by controlling access to essentials, as was done under tyrannical regimes in much of the world.
To get a glimpse of the future and prepare for it, we should look at the past two hundred years and how machines have changed how we work. In 1800, at the dawn of industrialization in America, the bulk of people ― 83 percent ― were farmers and lived and worked in rural areas. Today, the vast majority of Americans ― over 79 percent according to the US Department of Labor ― are engaged in services, a nebulous category that covers many occupations, from baristas to CEOs. They live in urban and suburban areas and work in offices, malls, schools, restaurants, and remotely from home.
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In the intervening years, manufacturing gave rise to a new class of laborers: factory workers who lived and worked in factory towns. In the pre-industrial world, goods were made by individuals or in small workshops. But machines, powered by water and then coal, oil, gas, or electricity, and producing mass quantities of goods, required a large number of operators. Early in the industrial period, the factory owners built massive dormitories to accommodate the workers who came from the countryside. Eventually, workers revolted against the regimented life in the dormitories and wanted to move out. Married workers also needed a different kind of housing. Factory towns were born. Massive dormitories still house workers in many Chinese cities.
Another hardship for early factory workers was regimented schedules designed to maximize the use of machinery rather than address workers’ capabilities and needs. Long hours and monotonous and regimented scheduling were hard on laborers, many from farming families. Free farmers worked hard but were autonomous, working alone or in small groups, following only nature — except when they worked on major projects, fought a war, or were enslaved.
Nature dictated the pace of work in agriculture, and the state and church initiated and coordinated large projects. The first group of workers in the U.S. who revolted were women working and living in dorms in textile factories in Lowell, MA. While their revolt did not achieve its goals, it became a model for U.S. labor unions and women’s
