The History of Work
An interview with journalist, author, and work historian Richard Donkin.
“Our working life is woven, warp across weft, into the texture of our domestic existence.” – Richard Donkin, The History of Work
It's impossible to miss the proliferation of 'future of work' epithets. Social media, Medium, and corporate blogs are peppered with thought pieces on what's next and how to survive. VICE, Netflix, and others have contributed to the milieu with their documentaries on the The Future of Work. According to Google, searches for 'the future of work' have increased by fourfold over the last five years. We’re obsessed with the future. As Scott Smith says, “tomorrow is so hot right now.” He’s not talking about the weather forecast, he’s commenting on the proliferation of futures oriented conversation and an exponential interest in the art and science of foresight. Perhaps a collective angst has rendered us discontent and fed up with the now, leaving us with no choice but to find footholds of hope outside of the world of today. Perhaps the rate of change has accelerated to the point where now seems so ephemeral, and the utility of remaining in the now has disintegrated.
Regardless, I personally believe there are many good reasons to think about the future of work – specifically for purposes of creating it. This is an important point as predicting the future is almost impossible. The truth is, as Noah Raford has frankly pointed out, “most foresight doesn’t work in a traditional sense.” And he’s right – what he means by ‘traditional sense’ is that futuring (what some would call ‘foresight’ and practiced by a ‘futurist’) doesn’t work as a practice of prediction. Studies over the last forty years have shown this repeatedly. Good futuring is about imagining, exploring, and encountering possibilities previously unknown. Good futuring is abductive, not deductive. And without the innate consideration of the future, we are cursed to a derivative world that continually collapses further and further into homogeneity. So we need futures thinking. We need emotional and intellectual space not shackled by evidence and empiricism – metrics of the feasible. In a work-centric society, it is imperative we are able to ask of work “what could be?” Does it have to be like this?
"There are other possibilities for design: one is to use design as a means of speculating how things could be. This form of design thrives on imagination and aims to open up new perspectives on what are sometimes called wicked problems, to create spaces for discussion and debate about alternative ways of being, and to inspire and encourage people's imaginations to flow freely. Design speculation can act as a catalyst for collectively redefining our relationship to reality. We are interested in the idea of possible futures and using them as tools to better understand the present and to discuss the kind of future people want, and of course, ones people do not want. [These conversations] are intended to open up spaces of debate and discussion; therefore, they are by necessity provocative, intentionally simplified, and fictional." – Raby & Dunn, Speculative Everything
So there is good futuring…
And there are also good futurists. I’ve noticed something about good futurists – they are good historians. They understand how patterns of culture and society emerge over time, the nuance of interpretation, the intersectional variables of complexity, and the confluence of forces that lead to emergent possibilities. They are expertly trained ‘noticers’ – attuned to the signals that are individually dismissed, but in aggregate lead to tectonic transformation.
Richard Donkin is one such historian. As a journalist and author, Richard has spent decades as a student of work, management, and organizations. His column on work ran in the financial times from 1994 to 2008, and he wrote a comprehensive book aptly titled The History of Work in 2001. In my mind, his book remains the most comprehensive telling of the history of work to be published.
The history of work is critical to understanding the future of work, and as foresight practitioners we must be familiar with the long arc of work theory, labor movements, and the systems that undergird it all. Four day work weeks? That idea is now over 100 years old. Meaningful and purposeful work? This idea goes back to the Greek philosophers, and finds its modern roots in the Hawthorne Study of the 1920s. Self management and autonomy? Peter Drucker and others played with this idea in the 1950s. I could go on – so much of what we hawk as the future of work today is actually rooted in a rich and dynamic history. From Karl Marx in the 1870s to Andre Gorz in the 1970s, the construct of work has been critiqued and interrogated for centuries. To suppose oneself as an expert on the future of work without understanding the raw material with which you are working is to be a painter with no understanding of pigment.
I recently had the privilege of talking with Richard Donkin about the history of work (video recording below). We focused on the last 150 years and covered a lot of ground yet barely scratched the surface – it made for a fascinating conversation. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did. To go deeper, I implore you to read Richard’s book. I promise – diving into the history of work will expand your aperture for viewing the future, and with that view will come a renewed sense of optimism and hope for what is truly possible for the world of work.
Learn more about Richard Donkin and his work at richarddonkin.com.
Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts – don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, comments, etc – joel@joelfariss.com. You can also follow me on instagram and twitter.
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