What if the future of work in SA was not framed as job creation? Sociologists have long argued that work as a concept is distinct from waged labour. While work is, simply put, the ability and opportunity for people to put in specific efforts over a certain time for a reward, waged labour or a job necessitates a formal, routine and contracted selling of one’s efforts for a price determined by markets rather than by people.
The idea of a job conjures up ideas of needing to work outside the home, wear certain types of clothing, have narrow titles and report to a person society deems to be more important than you. It is attached to status, stability and full compliance with the economic status quo, most often capitalistic, that has become the normalised albeit imperfect site of accepted productive activities.
The post-1994 politics of SA has correctly placed a focus on economic freedom, but what would it look like for us to conceive of economic freedom not as access to a job as the sole means to give people the dignity of meeting their basic needs and freed people up to do work that is delinked from normative and monolithic modes of production, freeing our society to re-imagine what we value and how we reward people for the best efforts they choose to make to society?
This was a question that became the focus of a policy workshop hosted last week by the Rivonia Circle at a place in Bloemfontein aptly called 56 Tambo, where a group of young activists and students debated a wide range of issues, including the purpose of an economy and the form it should take.
56 Tambo, in the heart of a quiet and economically hollowing out Bloemfontein, is a street address that is home to a dimly lit and loud and vibrant drinking spot and the meeting place and name of an activist movement of young people who are passionate about human rights, environmental justice and food security.
One of the young organisers, Tshiamo Malatji, describes the vision for the space that they respectfully share with the bar and also campaigned in the 2021 local government elections as an independent candidate, mobilising young people to claim space in politics.
This politically significant, albeit alternative, space for engagement of youth political participation thus unsurprisingly raised questions about the future of work and the economy in alternative ways that challenge many normative views on what is needed to turn the tide on youth unemployment. The discussion ebbed and flowed.
The central arguments were that people’s dignity should not be limited by whether they are able to access a job or not but more importantly that economic freedom should be about enhancing a person’s quality of life and wellbeing rather than simply being access to money for survival.
Much like the Marxist argument that exploitative modes of production alienate people from themselves, their creativity and their agency, these young people fiercely debated how we as African societies came to believe that our value as people was best demonstrated by our willingness to work hard at a job, regardless if that job was poorly paid, unfulfilling and how that robs us of time to connect with people or contribute positively to our mental health.
We have learnt how to celebrate the ability to endure gruelling work environments rather than ask for and create healthy work environments. Parents chastise their children who consider entrepreneurship that follows their passions in favour of jobs that mean working to fulfil the passions of others. It is entirely reasonable for most people to want jobs in a world where jobs are the status quo.
In a country where the state routinely fails to provide public goods that meet our basic human rights status and respectability is linked to the desire and ability to get a job. In such a context the idea that young people could imagine a world beyond jobs seems idealistic.
It is important to note that the idea was not that no-one works but that how we package and value work is not limited to jobs.
This does not confine us to a future of entrepreneurship in a normative sense either but asks us to rise to the challenge of creating and promoting ways for people to have livelihoods that are not only sustainable but agile, purposive and meaningful ways for people to contribute toward building a SA we all deserve.
There are so many examples of what such an economy may look like in SA. It would encourage new and localised forms of food production in a country of vast land and good weather. It would value and prioritise care work in a context of communities needing childcare, facing violence and a growing mental health crisis.
It would support the arts in communities filled with boundless talents and cultural diversity. It would encourage scientific innovation through trial and error on the back of a history of being the first country in the world to perform heart surgery.
When we talk about economic growth we can no longer afford to narrowly focus on measurements like GDP and investments. Economic growth must equally reference growing people’s potential to contribute to society by growing our ability and agency and by growing our talents and ultimately growing our menus of opportunities to thrive beyond the pool of jobs available at any given time.
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