How can we change the world of work?  By not agreeing to stupid old fashioned contracts and routines, by not being at work just for the sake of it, to clock in and out day in and out, to commute every day  – to refuse be a cog in a machine we do not believe in ourselves anymore and work for a basic-income for everyone.

As Susan Scrupski writes:

Setting out to “change the world of work” is an ambitious goal. It takes a raw courage to challenge the status quo, to tear down the psychological walls that have built our understanding of “work” as we know it in the 21st century.

As I walk the halls of too many businesses, I see zombies. They were once new employees, alive, full of excitement and vitality; they were one part optimism, one part tenacity with at least a sprinkle of ingeniousness. Now those characteristics have all but vanished. Reluctantly, they have become cogs in the machine. – Kevin Jones

Thanks Romi for the very interesting blogpost Changing the world of work about the important ebook with the title: Changing the world of work one human at a time.

I am even more radical when I think about the future of work, workplaces and pay. Why have a workplace at all? Just for the sake of it?  To control if people really work and how they work?  Is gathering in one physical place important for doing the job well?  To enjoy each other’s company?

These are the kind of questions we also need to ask ourselves and take into consideration the amazingly many efforts and projects which are carried out on a  pro bono basis. Artists who work long hours without pay,  people working for social causes, adults spending time leading children’s freetime activities, people visiting lonely and sick old people, parents who work at home without a salary who bring up the coming generations or children who take care of old parents. In a new world of work these kind of pro bono jobs have to be concidered as important pillars of our society too.

As the swiss initiative this fall.  As New York Times put it in an article Switzerland’s proposal to pay people for being alive! Yes – why not? The proposal is the brainchild of a the artist Enno Schmidt, a leader in the basic-income movement. He knows it sounds a bit crazy. He thought the same when someone first described the policy to him, too. I tell people not to think about it for others, but think about it for themselves,” Schmidt told Annie Lowrey at the NYT.

“What would you do if you had that income? What if you were taking care of a child or an elderly person?” Schmidt said that the basic income would provide some dignity and security to the poor, especially Europe’s underemployed and unemployed. It would also, he said, help unleash creativity and entrepreneurialism: Switzerland’s workers would feel empowered to work the way they wanted to, rather than the way they had to just to get by. He even went so far as to compare it to a civil rights movement, like women’s suffrage or ending slavery.

So I do believe the question about a basic-income for everyone would be appropriate to talk about in the discussion about a changing world of work!