A Tough Trick: Giving People a Sense of Autonomy When Their Work is So Defined by Systems

Political turmoil always comes with economic progress because identity and the work we do is so intertwined.

I think that one of the tricks of the next economy that will be hardest to pull off is this: give people a sense of agency even though their productivity is defined by systems.

Right now almost no one I knows thinks that their salary has anything to do with dozens, hundreds of systems they have nothing to do with and yet what we make is 95% defined by systems rather than our own effort.

Machines automate more and more manual work every year. Algorithms are going to automate more and knowledge work every year.

Factory workers thought that their productivity was about them and not the factories they worked in. Knowledge workers think their productivity has something to do with them and not the educational and information systems they work in. It has been - and will be - tough to realize that's not the case.
We haven't evolved biologically in the last few thousands years but our productivity has gone up enormously. And continues to rise.

What are the systems that let the exact same animals be so much more productive?

Roads and highways and railroads and airports that let us send and get products and services from a broader region.

Educational institutions, unions, companies that have processes that make people more productive.

Information systems that let knowledge workers work more efficiently.

Laws and law enforcement that protect property and extend those principles to things like patents so that investors and innovators will invest in new products and technologies with the hope of returns.

The electrical grid and the appliances that work off it.

The fossil fuels and engines that require(d) thousands of innovators and inventors and that let a guy with a chain saw cut down more trees in one day than his great grandpa could in a month.

The social norms of employer and employee (Between 1800 and 2000, the percentage of workers employed by someone else rose from 20 to 90. By 2000, over half of employees worked for organizations with 500 or more employees; in 1800, none had.)

Language. Writing. Email. Software.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

The systems that most fascinate me appear at the level of economies. An agricultural economy has its own set of principles, practices, beliefs, and technologies. An industrial economy another. Those evolve and change and farmers and factory workers and knowledge workers in an information economy think that is who they are rather than just who people become in order to be productive. That identity, that definition of what it means to be productive, evolves and changes over time as the systems we live and work in evolve and change.

This is a big reason why social invention fascinates me. It means stepping outside of systems to shape them rather than let them shape us. (Okay. That's absurd. Our systems will always shape us.) 

Everything is made up and everything matters. Polygamy or monogamy? Made up. But it matters. The 10 most violent nations in the world practice polygamy which means lots of young men without partners wandering around angry. Dictatorship or democracy? Totally made up. But it matters. The 10 richest nations in the world are democracies.

One big obstacle to progress is that people defend the systems that define them even when those systems - like an agricultural economy for instance - are gradually made obsolete.

Progress comes from challenging and improving and inventing systems. That's tough work. Particularly when people define themselves by those systems. But here's the trick. Here is how you give people agency when their productivity is defined by the systems they live in and work with. You make them systems  thinkers and social inventors. You make their work the work of defining and shaping those systems.