Future of Work

Sascha Lobo and Holm Friebe

There is an alternative to the rigid concept of full-time employment, which after all has resulted not only in mass unemployment, but also in mass dissatisfaction.

Claiming confidently "We'll find something better than a permanent position, no problem!", a class of "digital bohemians" is emerging, and not only in the big cities, as the new avant-garde of the working society. Recently, we were sent the business card of a Berlin dentist which listed only an e-mail address and a mobile phone number. The young dentist, it turns out, doesn't have her own practice, renting space instead on a temporary basis in dentist surgeries which happen to have a vacancy. Her regular patients follow her loyally, and new ones come by word of mouth. Now, dentistry would hardly count as one of the classic bohemian professions, yet this example shows that certain ways of working and organizing one's work – long practised only by artists – are now becoming more widespread in other areas, too.

Analogue vs. digital bohemians

Even since the early phase of industrialization, the working society has comprised not only the two largely rival factions, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, but also another group in-between, which formed in the early 19th century, first in Paris and later in other major cities of Europe. These were people working freelance in cultural and artistic fields who had turned their backs on the rigid working hours enforced by the industrial society, preferring instead to meet and exchange ideas and thoughts with other likeminded people on an informal basis in pubs and coffee houses, and working irregular hours. As they tended to be writers, artists and actors – professions in which there is proverbially little money to be made – bohemians were generally poor. This has changed since the dawn of the Internet era. By embracing the new technology and thereby expanding their scope of activity, digital bohemians are becoming an economic force to be reckoned with. They are no longer producing merely home-grown cultural products – the democratization of technology these days means that films fit for cinema can be produced on virtually no budget at all – but are increasingly controlling the digital distribution channels. A Spiegel magazine article from 10 April 2006 entitled "Fair of the New Founders" describes this shift of power as follows: "In the globalized world of culture, independent filmmakers, musicians, artists and writers are achieving surprising outsider success. The creativity of these small fry is running rampant on the Internet, in club galleries and in horror films – often making the big corporations look old and inflexible."

Saying goodbye to precarity

We call it Work

Digital bohemians, in other words, could be said to be spearheading a new movement in society. By taking control of their own economic destiny and joining forces, they are not only severing ties with permanent employment, which is in increasingly short supply, but are also abandoning a lonely life on the bread line, which has recently come to be known by the buzzword "precarity". It is often a question only of bridging lean periods, and there is not much money in it either – the average annual earnings of artists insured by the Künstlersozialkasse, a social welfare fund for artists, was just above 10,000 euros in 2005. Nonetheless, a number of studies and surveys have revealed that "freelance workers in cultural professions" are more than satisfied with their employment situation, despite their modest earnings, while there is growing annoyance and fear of redundancy among those in permanent employment. A survey conducted by the Gallup Institute in late 2004 showed that 70 percent of salaried employees in Germany work more or less to rule, while one in two have already "mentally resigned". In contrast, digital bohemians are happy to work in projects they have chosen themselves – they may earn less money from them, but gain greater satisfaction.

The future of work

Technical advances are working in their favour, allowing one-time hobbies to be turned into gainful employment. And most can be done from the comfort of their own computers. For instance, digital bohemians generate income by posting advertising banners on their websites, dealing in virtual real estate, getting their projects sponsored, or selling ideas to large companies. Laptops, labels and blogs are their work tools; eBay, YouTube and MySpace their sales platforms. These days it is possible to earn a real living with virtual business schemes, as demonstrated by a teacher in the German state of Hesse who develops plots of land for resale in an online game called Second Life. In doing so, she has already generated over 200,000 dollars in real money for herself. This is just one example which shows has imagination and a passion for a particular pastime can be turned into a secure economic livelihood which makes the idea of a permanent job seem less and less appealing. The lifestyle of digital bohemians is by no means a model which would suit everyone, and it will not solve the crisis faced by the labour market and working society – yet its successes do show that the map of how we will work in the future is a great deal less charted than many people – especially trade unionists and politicians – might imagine today.