Thanks for this article, and looking forward to read the book. I have just published an article with question I've been researching for the few last months which is very much aligned: How can we pre-distribute future abundance?
I like this article and maybe this will work in terms of its stated goal of providing a guiding vision and goal that unites pro-technology Abundance people with small-c conservative regular types but I'll be honest: I don't see it.
The argument, to me, seems to tie together too many disparate things (the backlash against scrolling video, the YIMBY movement, the value of work) in order to stitch together an imagined workless (worklite?) utopia as a goal that will increase the salience of the Abundance campaigns. But it seems to me to require several steps that don't compute.
For instance, while it's true that Peter Thiel is famous for saying "we wanted flying cars and we got Facebook" (some version of this), his point was about feckless government and he was talking about futuristic technologies (space travel and what not). Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, on the other hand, are mostly concerned with the kind of construction that already happens in China and Europe (housing, transit) but doesn't seem to happen at the same scale in the US. I can see the two sides being fellow travelers on narrow issues but I really can't see them sharing this utopia. I simply can't see Thiel agreeing to a utopia in which most people have *hobbies*, instead of jobs, for long parts of their lives.
On a different note, the work-lite utopia is also a theme of Marxist thought. In fact, Peter Frase wrote a great piece in Jacobin about "Four Futures" (https://jacobin.com/2011/12/four-futures) and one of his futures is Communism (Egalitarianism and Abundance) which seems to be roughly congruent with the one sketched out here. But Frase is explicit that these are *post-capitalist* futures. I wasn't sure about the role of the market economy in Brink's but I assume that the difference will be important.
Does the Abundance movement really need an all-encompassing vision like this? As the late Richard Rorty once put it, maybe it's easier if the Abundance remains wedded to specific campaigns rather than trying to become a movement to transform humanity (https://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/campaigns-and-movements/).
Good post overall, but I don’t think the ending addresses the actual reasons why people don’t work less hours. For instance, it seems possible to retire early if you’re willing to accept a lower standard of living. People expect and want a higher standard of living, however, so they work harder (albeit with some exceptions, like the longer stretch between high school graduation and workforce entry in the modern era). Also, what happens to national competitiveness if a substantial fraction of the economy decides to be less productive?
I worked for years in soul-sucking drudgery and even struggled with suicidal ideation, but fortunately I was able to save and invest aggressively enough that I can now "CoastFIRE" in a low-paying but enjoyable job. All my previous mental health problems are now completely gone. I'd say the popularity of the FIRE movement underscores how much people want to escape most work.
Even though I like my job, I'd like to have more free time. I'll certainly enjoy retirement, but another consideration is that when I retire, I'll be old. To me, proper abundance and techno-optimism includes increased healthy lifespan beyond what a person gets from reasonably healthy diet and exercise. Medical research targeting the biology of aging to give more healthy life is part of my personal view of abundance. Oddly, people often react negatively to the idea of living longer healthier, though it probably relates to fear of scarcity, such as having to work longer if one lives longer. The abundance Brink describes offers an alternative where people could easily afford life's needs; imagine staying healthy and youthful too without gradually succumbing to age-related health decline.
Thanks for this article, and looking forward to read the book. I have just published an article with question I've been researching for the few last months which is very much aligned: How can we pre-distribute future abundance?
https://open.substack.com/pub/javicreus/p/how-do-we-pre-distribute-future-abundance?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
I like this article and maybe this will work in terms of its stated goal of providing a guiding vision and goal that unites pro-technology Abundance people with small-c conservative regular types but I'll be honest: I don't see it.
The argument, to me, seems to tie together too many disparate things (the backlash against scrolling video, the YIMBY movement, the value of work) in order to stitch together an imagined workless (worklite?) utopia as a goal that will increase the salience of the Abundance campaigns. But it seems to me to require several steps that don't compute.
For instance, while it's true that Peter Thiel is famous for saying "we wanted flying cars and we got Facebook" (some version of this), his point was about feckless government and he was talking about futuristic technologies (space travel and what not). Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, on the other hand, are mostly concerned with the kind of construction that already happens in China and Europe (housing, transit) but doesn't seem to happen at the same scale in the US. I can see the two sides being fellow travelers on narrow issues but I really can't see them sharing this utopia. I simply can't see Thiel agreeing to a utopia in which most people have *hobbies*, instead of jobs, for long parts of their lives.
On a different note, the work-lite utopia is also a theme of Marxist thought. In fact, Peter Frase wrote a great piece in Jacobin about "Four Futures" (https://jacobin.com/2011/12/four-futures) and one of his futures is Communism (Egalitarianism and Abundance) which seems to be roughly congruent with the one sketched out here. But Frase is explicit that these are *post-capitalist* futures. I wasn't sure about the role of the market economy in Brink's but I assume that the difference will be important.
Does the Abundance movement really need an all-encompassing vision like this? As the late Richard Rorty once put it, maybe it's easier if the Abundance remains wedded to specific campaigns rather than trying to become a movement to transform humanity (https://dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/campaigns-and-movements/).
Good post overall, but I don’t think the ending addresses the actual reasons why people don’t work less hours. For instance, it seems possible to retire early if you’re willing to accept a lower standard of living. People expect and want a higher standard of living, however, so they work harder (albeit with some exceptions, like the longer stretch between high school graduation and workforce entry in the modern era). Also, what happens to national competitiveness if a substantial fraction of the economy decides to be less productive?
I worked for years in soul-sucking drudgery and even struggled with suicidal ideation, but fortunately I was able to save and invest aggressively enough that I can now "CoastFIRE" in a low-paying but enjoyable job. All my previous mental health problems are now completely gone. I'd say the popularity of the FIRE movement underscores how much people want to escape most work.
Even though I like my job, I'd like to have more free time. I'll certainly enjoy retirement, but another consideration is that when I retire, I'll be old. To me, proper abundance and techno-optimism includes increased healthy lifespan beyond what a person gets from reasonably healthy diet and exercise. Medical research targeting the biology of aging to give more healthy life is part of my personal view of abundance. Oddly, people often react negatively to the idea of living longer healthier, though it probably relates to fear of scarcity, such as having to work longer if one lives longer. The abundance Brink describes offers an alternative where people could easily afford life's needs; imagine staying healthy and youthful too without gradually succumbing to age-related health decline.
What we really need is UBI and the rest of Rodger Malcolm Mitchell's Ten Steps to Prosperity.