The crisis of Work From Home is not the "Home" but the "Work".
Maya Suresh Kannan
A GeoEconomic Futurist, Investment Adviser, a Think Tank, a Venture Architect, and a Fund Manager.
This article is in response to the following publication that appeared in Fortune on 20th July 2022.
Instead of Surface Dwelling on the Issue and Keep writing the same things everyone knows or understands in general, I decided to use the Tamil Wisdom from the book written 2100 years ago.
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Meaning - "Disease, its cause, what may abate the ill; Let leech examine these, then use his skill"
For this, I need to take you to a story of 10,000 years when there was a Nomad Group in a Jungle where everyone was doing everything randomly or on a coaster basis. Hunting, Collecting, securing, distributing food, finding shelters, etc, back then food never came directly to a family. The Group itself should create all these workers.
Let's apply division of labor to them based on three families – “Producing family”(hunting), “Distributing Family”, and “Consuming Family”. Though the other two also consume, the primary purpose of consuming family is only to consume.
What would happen now?
Of course, most members of the nomad group joined the consuming family.
Over some time, the other two families realize that the consuming family is too lazy, weak, and greedy. And why would we feed them easily and refuses to produce more? The distributing family got upset. They decided to intervene and convince the producing family to keep producing stating, that they can compensate them with other things (metals, better lifestyle, shelter by making the consuming family work for it. In this way, the distributing family took control of the flow of work and food.
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Now the consuming family was forced to renegotiate the deal. They said to the producing and distribution families, we will do some work whatever you want us to do, but don't ask us to hunt (take risks). We want stable food incoming with very less risky work. They started working for them in multiple divisions of labor.
When the demand for work was reduced, the Producing Family decided to work hard anymore. They decide to produce less. Seeing this, the consuming family ran to the distrusting family asking for a Guaranteed food supply. The distributing family has an opportunity to control the whole thing. So, they created a stability certificate system. You work for me, and I will give you a stability certificate in exchange for work (mining metal, shelter, etc), which you can come and use in exchange for food. We will guarantee the delivery.
Now, they have a problem, they must convince the producing family to produce more. Seeing this as a great opportunity, a group from the distributing family decided to take over the certificate operation guaranteeing the flow of food and value (work output). The Producing family knows that end of the day, they control Production, and the distributing families also are happy as nothing shall pass around them.
The newly created Certificate family initially did the metal and other value-based certificates (direct fruit of labor). But at some point, in time, more enterprising family members from both distributing and consuming families saw it as an opportunity to create more direct fruit of Labor. Threatened by this, the Certificate family cut deal with the new entrepreneur family to keep creating work output, but we will exchange it through the certificate.
Now the certificate family met with a problem. The enterprising family is creating more work outputs than the number of certificates that we have. If we don’t act now, they may start exchanging the output directly with the producers and distributors. So, they convinced/colluded with the majority –the consumer family hatching a scheme of working for “I owe you” certificates instead of the actual certificate. The more they get the certificate the more they can buy the food. But they have a problem, they need to help the Entrepreneur family to produce “Work Output” which is more hard work, less rewarding, and too risky for them. So, they asked the Certificate Family for more Guaranteed “I Owe You’ certificates for less work.
The certificate family saw the risk of losing control, so they created another family called “Enterprise Family” from the top entrepreneur family members and top distribution family members. They asked the Enterprise family to take over the control of Work and in return, the "I Owe You" Certificate will be provided unlimited to them, cutting the Entrepreneur family out of Direct Supply.
Now, most consumer Families is to pretend to work more, continue to collect more IOUs, and keep using the IOU to buy everything the enterprise family sells. It’s a Vicious cycle – created not just by Control Hungry family members, but mostly as the direct result of the Greedy Consumer Family members. The cycle can only be broken when the Consumer Family decided to go back to Produce actual work output that can flow through the Entrepreneur family who will dictate the terms of IOU or Certificates and restore the Work Output to Food Ratio.
So, the root cause of Work from Home is not the home. It's the "Work" itself. When a man/woman decides to take it easy, then he/she becomes enslaved by the Certificate Creators - Governments, Big Businesses, and Bankers.
SVP Commercial Strategy - Health Sciences | Direct-to-Patient Solutions | Digital Therapeutics | PEaS
2 年People pretend to work at the office too.. lol