Here is another view of the economy that is emerging. It is from a book by James Robertson called Future Work.
When people who have never met or talked arrive at the same conclusions you can trust what has been discovered.
JR describes this new way as "Ownwork" - More recently it has been given the label of the "Maker Economy".
"Ownwork means activity which is purposeful and important, and which people organise and control for themselves. It may be either paid or unpaid. (Check out my podcast with Cynthia Dennis who helps us understand this point)
It is done by people as individuals and as household members; it is done by groups of people working together; and it is done by people, who live in a particular locality, working locally to meet local needs.
For the individual and the household, ownwork may mean self-employment, essential household and family activities, productive leisure activities such as do-it-yourself or growing some of one's own food, and participation in voluntary work. For groups of people, ownwork may mean working together as partners, perhaps in a community enterprise or a cooperative, or in a multitude of other activities with social, economic, environmental, scientific or other purposes in which they have a personal interest and to which they attach personal importance.
For localities, the significance of ownwork is that it contributes to local self-reliance, an increased local capacity to meet local needs by local work, and a reduction of dependence on outside employers and suppliers. (Here is a nice example in New York)
The actual future will, of course, contain employment, leisure and ownwork — all three. There will almost certainly still be conventional jobs for many people; there will almost certainly be some increase in leisure, perhaps for most people; and ownwork will almost certainly play a larger part in many people's lives and in the life of society as a whole.
But it will be the third of these — the expansion of ownwork — that provides the key to the future of work and leisure. Only the expansion of ownwork will create conditions in which the problems of employment and leisure will be satisfactorily resolved. Only the expansion of ownwork will reflect the shift of values underlying the transition to a post-industrial future which has now begun. Only the expansion of ownwork can bring about the next stage in the liberation of work foreshadowed by the earlier historical progression from slavery to serfdom, and then from serfdom to employment.
If you check out my book You Don't Need a Job - you will see the match
