The new face of "work" is certainly an interesting idea to speculate on. With blockchain technology and the increasingly automated nature of "traditional" work, it wouldn't surprise me if we move towards a system of "microrewards," not unlike Steemit.
Except-- you give a piece of useful advice somewhere, you get a reward. You provide a snippet of code of an app-- you get a reward. You offer a suggestion to help someone's permaculture project-- you get a reward. You don't really have "a job," you just do a bunch of things. You don't have an an "employer;" you work for LOTS of people, or for "the world."
I started speculating on this some 20 years ago-- my wife and I dubbed it "patchwork economics." You don't do any one thing that earn you "a living;" you do lots of things that add up to a living.
It's starting to look a lot less speculative than it did, even 20 years ago.
Interesting read!
Wow, I love that idea. Rewarded for providing value, not having an identity wrapped up in a "job."
Exactly! And it develops the idea that we all have more "value" than just "being a doctor" and "being a developer" and so on.
(Sorry, it was late last night when I wrote this comment, and my brain was a bit fuzzy, and I didn't fully flesh it out...)
In some sense, it's the ultimate incarnation of "Anarcho-Capitalism" (I don't really like that term, though... but it'll suffice), married to a sort of functional collectivism in which we're all accountable for ourselves, but we're also intricately accountable for everyone.
"Companies" may continue to exist, but they will have no — or very few — "employees;" the employees may just be a small group of founders/admins who oversee a network of "contributors." In a way, we may see a great increase in quality and efficiency because every organization now can bid out every task to a talent pool that — in essence — is the entire world. Each one of us becomes both a "provider" and a "consumer."
And now we have blockchain technology and things like "smart contracts" to to actually run such an economy in the logistics/functional sense. Previously the idea has always been somewhat rejected because people say "That sounds very utopian and cool and all, but it would be a logistical IMPOSSIBILITY."
Maybe not anymore.
Of course, there's always the Human Factor to consider... you and I might welcome and embrace the freedom, independence and accountability... but a lot of people might not. SO the next challenge becomes how to find pathways through which the "undermotivated" can still be fairly compensated contributors.