Contribution Matters More Than Employment

A human being's value is greater than their economic productivity.

For generations, paid work has been one of the central organizing principles of society.

Employment provides income, but often much more: structure, identity, social contact, recognition, purpose and a place within society.

We should not underestimate its importance.

But having paid employment and contributing something valuable to human society are not the same thing.

People contribute in countless ways that markets do not necessarily reward.

Caring for someone. Raising children. Helping neighbours. Creating art. Restoring nature. Sharing knowledge. Mentoring another person. Building a community. Learning. Creating ideas. Bringing people together.

These contributions may have enormous human value even when no salary is attached to them.

As AI and robotics become capable of performing more of the work currently done by people, we may have an opportunity - and perhaps a necessity - to reconsider the relationship between employment, income, contribution and human worth.

Contribution is an opportunity, not an obligation

There is an important distinction.

Humanity Forward does not want to replace a society in which people are judged by their employment with a society in which they are judged by their contribution.

Human dignity is unconditional.

A person's fundamental value does not depend on economic productivity, employment or whether someone else considers their contribution useful.

Greater freedom should therefore not replace one obligation with another.

It should create the circumstances in which people have the freedom and security to discover what they want to do with their lives and how - if they choose - they want to contribute.

Rethinking income and security

If technology eventually enables society to create increasing prosperity with significantly less necessary human labour, income may no longer be able to depend primarily on having a traditional job.

We will then have to rethink economic security.

Universal basic income is one possible response.

There may be other solutions that we have not yet imagined.

Humanity Forward does not need to prescribe the economic model in advance.

Instead, we should bring different ideas together, examine evidence, question assumptions, experiment and learn.

The central question is larger than any particular economic proposal: How can we build a society in which people have the security and freedom to discover what gives their lives meaning and how they choose to contribute?

The goal is not necessarily a world without work.

It is a world in which employment is no longer the measure of a person's value - or the only path to security, purpose and participation.