A Deeper Look - Issue #3 | Jan 24 2021
Populism in Canada, The Future of Work, and Zachary Carter's The Price of Peace
Hello Friends,
I hope this finds you safe and healthy. I write to you in a slightly more optimistic frame of mind. Some highlights this week: British Columbia released its vaccination plan, we saw an inspiring inauguration ceremony in the United States, the days are getting longer, and spring is around the corner… (One can hope!)
This week we take a deeper look at:
Populist Discontent in Canada
The Future of Work
We end with a new book recommendation for the week.
Northern Populism: Causes and Consequences of the New Ordered Outlook
A report by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute investigates the extent to which the roots populism have entrenched themselves in Canada:
Declining Middle Class Progress: The report notes a hollowing out of Canada’s middle class. The report cites a declining rate of self-identified members of the middle class (from 70%-50%). Only 1 in 8 think they are better of than one year ago, while 13% think the next generation will enjoy a better life. The view of the future looks increasingly dim and prospects for the next generations are bleak.
“Around a decade ago, we began to notice that some of the typical outlook on the economy and one’s place in it was fundamentally different…the basic ideas of progress, shared prosperity and subscription to the middle- class dream all appeared to be unravelling.”
Value and Demographic Shifts: The report highlights a shift in values and demographics, highlighting the decline in importance of two values in particular; 1) a respect for authority; and 2) traditional family values. Canada has also seen a demographic shift.
“These threatening value declines may have left the segment of society which continued to place high emphasis on them feeling angry and fearful about their loss (hence the appeal of making things “great” again or taking back control).”
The Role of Threat: The report also cites an increasing and pervasive feeling of threat, both external threat and a “normative threat (a sense that the country is moving in fundamentally the wrong direction).
Declining Trust and Ideological Polarisation: The report cites declining trust in institutions, government, and science as a growing trend. This mirrors observations made south of the border, perhaps most notably by Tom Nichols in his book, The Death of Expertise and article the Loss of Faith in Expertise. In her review of the book Lydialyle Gibson observes:
The indictments the book [The Death of Expertise] levels are numerous: misguided egalitarianism run amok; the “protective, swaddling environment” of higher education, whose institutions increasingly treat students as customers to be kept satisfied; the 24-hour news cycle and the pressure on journalists to entertain rather than inform; the chaotic fusion of news and punditry and citizen participation. Meanwhile, the Internet’s openness offers a “Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden” mirage of knowledge, Nichols argues, and an inexhaustible supply of “facts” to feed any confirmation bias.
The report goes on to observe:
“We now have two irreconcilable Canadas where there is virtually no common ground on the most important issue of the day. Yet there is one area of emerging consensus that may merit more serious public policy attention. While we adamantly disagree about equality issues, climate change and immigration, there is a new consensus that the chief cause of the deep problems we are experiencing is the product of income stagnation and hyper-concentration of wealth at the top of the system.”
The Future of Work
The Future of Work is a topic that I find immensely confusing. On the surface it refers to a set of vague and ambiguous future trends and technologies that both promise great new opportunities but also warn of dire threats that will alter life as we know it.
This is evident in descriptions by both the World Economic Forum, and the United Nations:
The World Economic Forum:
The global shift to a future of work is defined by an ever-expanding cohort of new technologies, by new sectors and markets, by global economic systems that are more interconnected than in any other point in history, and by information that travels fast and spreads wide. Yet the past decade of technological advancement has also brought about the looming possibility of mass job displacement, untenable skills shortages and a competing claim to the unique nature of human intelligence now challenged by artificial intelligence. - The Future of Jobs Report 2020, World Economic Forum
The United Nations:
The onset of new technological advances – artificial intelligence, automation and robotics – are already creating vast opportunities for new jobs. Yet, those who lose their jobs as result of new technologies may be less equipped to seize new opportunities and may be added to the ranks of the long-term unemployed. Global dependence on technology means that the skills in demand today will not match the jobs of tomorrow. Skills acquisition and lifelong learning will be required for workers to remain agile and employable.
Lost in this conversation however, is how we have understood the concept of “work," how “work” has changed, and what this means for the dignity of humanity. Conversations around the future of work position “work” as a task, as a means to an end that is distanced from notions of family, livelihood, and purpose. Of course work is a means of survival and economic well being - but it is also much more. Lost in the conversations of “re-skilling” “opportunity” and “agility” is the impact the future of work will have on one's family life, ones home life, ones leisure time, and ones sense of purpose.
Pope John Paul’s Encyclical on Work published in 1981 observes:
It [technology] leads to an increase in the quantity of things produced by work, and in many cases improves their quality. However, it is also a fact that, in some instances, technology can cease to be man's ally and become almost his enemy, as when the mechanisation of work "supplants" him, taking away all personal satisfaction and the incentive to creativity and responsibility, when it deprives many workers of their previous employment, or when, through exalting the machine, it reduces man to the status of its slave.
Similarly, in his Keynote Address made at the University of Cambridge in 1994 on the topic of “Intellectual Traditions in Islam” the historian and philosopher Dr. Aziz Esmail has remarked:
"When education is denied altogether, or having been acquired appears irrelevant or fruitless, when one is denied what competence one has and has the sense of belonging that comes when competence is exercised, then there is an enormous sense of anomie and moral vacuum among young people affected by this trend.
FK’s Take:
I would like to suggest some important issues that we should think about with regard to the future of work:
Equity: Like any of the forces we have encountered as a result of globalisation, the future of work presents both opportunities and risks. There are those, likely already well positioned, that will benefit and those that will likely suffer. How can we shape the future of work so that it brings increased opportunities for everyone, not more inequalities?
Essential and Non-Essential: We have, over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, seen a shift in the way we think about careers, and work. There has been distinction drawn between careers that are deemed “essential services” (nursing, healthcare, education, public and municipal services, grocery store workers, transit workers) and those that by implication are “not essential” what does this distinction say about the competing notions of “value” in society today? How might this change with the future of work?
Home Life and Leisure: We have spoken about the future work, but work life and home life are two sides of the same coin. What might the future of work mean for our life at home, for our leisure time, for what we do outside of work? What does this mean for how we define “work” and what it means to us in the future?
The Burden of the Future of Work: Words matter, and I do think we need to be careful in how we articulate what the Future of Work will bring. Dialogue around the future of work has placed a burden on those who are the most vulnerable. Those who must re-skill, upgrade, or re-orient are often those most vulnerable in society, the aged, the unemployed, or essential workers who who are already in precarious situations of employment. We risk placing the burden of this great transition on those who are most at risk.
Read of the Week:
This week’s read is Zachary Carter’s The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy and the life of John Maynard Keynes. I recommend it not only for the remarkable portrait it provides of one of the worlds most influential economists, but for the way in which it presents his life.
Enclosed is a a short quote that resonated with me. Carter cites Keynes’ reflections in 1925, shortly after the influenza pandemic of 1918 and the Paris Peace Conference. It is a reflection that made almost 100 years ago echoes the circumstances of our present day with profound resonance:
Great Britain, he [Keynes] was now sure, was not just ensuring the material suffering of mass unemployment; there was a sickness in his country’s soul… The British filled the void with a godless, capitalist, “love of money” that cultivated no sense of shared responsibility or community, and provided no lasting satisfaction. Only a “continuing crescendo” of extravagance on extravagance could distract his countrymen from the emotional emptiness that surrounded them. “We used to believe that modern capitalism was capable, not merely, of maintaining the existing standards of life, but of leading us gradually into an economic paradise where we should be comparatively free from economic cares. Now we doubt whether the business man is leading us to a destination far better than our present place. Regarded as a means he is tolerable; regarded as an end he is not so satisfactory.”
And on that sobering thought, thank you for reading, until next week.
FK
Enjoyed this, Farhan. On populism, I cannot help but feel that much of the Canadian perspective, whether opined or empirically evidenced, is exaggerated. We saw the pendulum swing back to Liberal in 2015 after ten years of Conservative power, at a time when immigration and asylum were at the forefront of international and domestic politics. We saw a Canada that was not willing to compromise on its humanitarian roots at a time when the notion of sovereignty was placing domestic priorities first, almost everywhere else. Populism is not new; it generally takes hold when the conditions are ripe. But I do believe Canada’s soul is very much made up of the stuff that keeps populism and affective polarization at bay - diversity, cosmopolitanism, and a commitment to a minimum standard of living. We shall see! Al-Rahim