Letter of the day: does work still make sense?

Geneva, October 29

Who am I? Where am I going? Everyone is trying to find their own answers or not; however we all search for meaning. What about professionally, does work in the postmodern world still make sense?

In the past, speed was not a primary factor; the primary sector depended on the seasons, the craftsman carefully produced the ordered object, the merchant knew his clientele, meaning was hardly a notion that one cared about.

With the scientific organization of work, time becomes money. To earn more, we must accelerate the pace by introducing uninterrupted assembly line work. Transport and services are developing to sell mass-produced products as quickly as possible, paid leave is being put in place to preserve the human apparatus, and the tourism sector is appearing as a valve for entertainment. Chaplin’s Modern Times, the meaning fades.

However, this is not enough; we must optimize by “financializing” every moment of activity and compressing costs: permanent reporting, incessant reorganizations of companies and spatial dispersion of production tools via subcontracting. Quantified objectives and disembodiment of management, meaning at work is dying, and with AI which will remove the human factor from the production cycle, it will soon be ancient history, just like the gods.

Should we leave the system to find meaning, in some way abandon it, or should we make it evolve, try to keep the human in control of the game? It’s up to everyone to respond!

Olivier Ballissat, retired employer secretary

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