I literally have a note in my Zettelkasten that says, “‘What is my purpose’ is only asked due to capitalism.” You’re spot on that sense of purpose comes from much more than work, but our social structures have narrowed our view for well over a century. We’re going to have to widen it if AI is going to do everything for us (a prediction I’m not sold on yet).
I’ll add that much of my work with new entrepreneurs is to rebuild the structure of everyday life that is imposed by a job. They totally lack boundaries around their time — and any idea of when they can or cannot work — without a job. We’re just not taught to think for ourselves in this way, an externalization of agency not often noticed… yet.
"Every right we've won was won because the powerful needed something from the powerless."
Exactly this.
Everyone's arguing about meaning and purpose when the actual question is leverage. And the women's work point is devastating. The post-work world isn't hypothetical. It already exists. We just spent centuries refusing to value it. Your insights are really great and deserve to be in front of more eyeballs. Really appreciate this read, Elsa.
The line that stopped me: "UBI without political power is hush money for the harmless." That's the real argument. Most post-work discourse treats meaning as the problem to solve, but Donnat correctly identifies it as the decoy. The harder question — what preserves bargaining power when labour becomes economically irrelevant — is one our governance architecture is not remotely ready for.
I left a decades long career in software to become a caregiver for an aging parent (deceased now) and focus on my teenage children. As I contemplate becoming an empty nester at home, and with AI upending my industry and a waning interest in going back to any type of job that looks like something I've already done, I find that this essay connects and puts a name on a few of the thoughts and feelings that have been drifting in my head but hard to focus or grasp onto. It's like I stumbled on a map or at least the start of one. Just a note of thanks.
This is a common misconception. Genesis says that Adam and Eve worked the garden even before the fall, and the fall corrupted work into painful toil. But work itself existed before the fall.
Thanks. It is interesting to think about. For me, the question is not whether people will still have things to care about. We will still love, make stuff, play, study, raise children, worship, garden, write, and grieve. I don’t think any of that gets taken away.
The danger is a society that tolerates private meaning the way a warehouse tolerates employee prayer. Neither hostile nor watching.
Not emptiness. Unseriousness.
The real question is whether meaning remains legible enough to be consequential.
You are right to attack the conflation of wages with worth.
But I think your essay still treats meaning as if it will simply reappear once the labor spell is broken.
For many people, work did not only provide income or status. It provided rhythm, external structure, social legibility, and a borrowed form of inner organization. So the crisis is not just that capitalism taught people to confuse labor with purpose. It is also that many were formed in such a way that imposed structure had to carry what was never internally stabilized.
That means the post-work panic is not merely false consciousness. It is also exposure.
The problem is not that people cannot find meaning without jobs.
The problem is that for many, the job was already doing hidden psychological labor.
So yes, power is the political question.
But the “meaning crisis” is not a distraction in the weak sense.
It is the subjective surface of a much deeper historical formation.
I quite agree actually, and I expect we would initially see people struggle as their lose their job. But as soon as a critical mass of people have reached that stage, we, culturally, won't be able to use jobs as a tool for social legibility, and will inevitably resort to other means. As people continue to compete for status and attention, they will pick up activities that also happen to fulfill many of the psychological functions you mention, and where certain activities today are not structuring / do not provide an inherent schedule (e.g., making Art) I expect we will individually and collectively either select for those that do (for example, content creation as it requires one to be consistent to be successful) or re-invent new structures around those activities (such as artistic local communities with programs and events...). What do you think?
I think that is partly true, but it still assumes a level of plasticity that many people simply do not have.
Yes, cultures will produce substitute structures. Status competition, attention, consistency, artistic communities, local programs, all of that will emerge.
But that is still downstream.
My point is that for many people, work was not just one structure among others. It was the thing silently carrying forms of fragility, dependency, and inner disorganization that were never really resolved.
So the issue is not just whether society can reinvent schedules, rituals, and communities.
It is whether people who were psychologically scaffolded by labor can actually survive the loss of that scaffold without fragmentation.
In that sense, the crisis is deeper than adaptation.
It is not just about finding new structures.
It is about what gets exposed when the old structure was doing more inner work than anyone admitted.
I stopped reading at "work is a curse." Work is a GOOD thing. God gave us work to do. It is not work that is the curse, the curse is sin. Work became hard and frustrating, but it is still a good thing. In fact we should do all our work as if we are serving the Lord not men. It will be a MAJOR problem if AI eliminates the need for work, because of the curse of sin.
I literally have a note in my Zettelkasten that says, “‘What is my purpose’ is only asked due to capitalism.” You’re spot on that sense of purpose comes from much more than work, but our social structures have narrowed our view for well over a century. We’re going to have to widen it if AI is going to do everything for us (a prediction I’m not sold on yet).
I’ll add that much of my work with new entrepreneurs is to rebuild the structure of everyday life that is imposed by a job. They totally lack boundaries around their time — and any idea of when they can or cannot work — without a job. We’re just not taught to think for ourselves in this way, an externalization of agency not often noticed… yet.
"Every right we've won was won because the powerful needed something from the powerless."
Exactly this.
Everyone's arguing about meaning and purpose when the actual question is leverage. And the women's work point is devastating. The post-work world isn't hypothetical. It already exists. We just spent centuries refusing to value it. Your insights are really great and deserve to be in front of more eyeballs. Really appreciate this read, Elsa.
The line that stopped me: "UBI without political power is hush money for the harmless." That's the real argument. Most post-work discourse treats meaning as the problem to solve, but Donnat correctly identifies it as the decoy. The harder question — what preserves bargaining power when labour becomes economically irrelevant — is one our governance architecture is not remotely ready for.
I left a decades long career in software to become a caregiver for an aging parent (deceased now) and focus on my teenage children. As I contemplate becoming an empty nester at home, and with AI upending my industry and a waning interest in going back to any type of job that looks like something I've already done, I find that this essay connects and puts a name on a few of the thoughts and feelings that have been drifting in my head but hard to focus or grasp onto. It's like I stumbled on a map or at least the start of one. Just a note of thanks.
Cool piece.
"Genesis frames work as divine punishment."
This is a common misconception. Genesis says that Adam and Eve worked the garden even before the fall, and the fall corrupted work into painful toil. But work itself existed before the fall.
Thanks. It is interesting to think about. For me, the question is not whether people will still have things to care about. We will still love, make stuff, play, study, raise children, worship, garden, write, and grieve. I don’t think any of that gets taken away.
The danger is a society that tolerates private meaning the way a warehouse tolerates employee prayer. Neither hostile nor watching.
Not emptiness. Unseriousness.
The real question is whether meaning remains legible enough to be consequential.
“What will we do without work?” … starve, steal, and revolt.
You are right to attack the conflation of wages with worth.
But I think your essay still treats meaning as if it will simply reappear once the labor spell is broken.
For many people, work did not only provide income or status. It provided rhythm, external structure, social legibility, and a borrowed form of inner organization. So the crisis is not just that capitalism taught people to confuse labor with purpose. It is also that many were formed in such a way that imposed structure had to carry what was never internally stabilized.
That means the post-work panic is not merely false consciousness. It is also exposure.
The problem is not that people cannot find meaning without jobs.
The problem is that for many, the job was already doing hidden psychological labor.
So yes, power is the political question.
But the “meaning crisis” is not a distraction in the weak sense.
It is the subjective surface of a much deeper historical formation.
I quite agree actually, and I expect we would initially see people struggle as their lose their job. But as soon as a critical mass of people have reached that stage, we, culturally, won't be able to use jobs as a tool for social legibility, and will inevitably resort to other means. As people continue to compete for status and attention, they will pick up activities that also happen to fulfill many of the psychological functions you mention, and where certain activities today are not structuring / do not provide an inherent schedule (e.g., making Art) I expect we will individually and collectively either select for those that do (for example, content creation as it requires one to be consistent to be successful) or re-invent new structures around those activities (such as artistic local communities with programs and events...). What do you think?
I think that is partly true, but it still assumes a level of plasticity that many people simply do not have.
Yes, cultures will produce substitute structures. Status competition, attention, consistency, artistic communities, local programs, all of that will emerge.
But that is still downstream.
My point is that for many people, work was not just one structure among others. It was the thing silently carrying forms of fragility, dependency, and inner disorganization that were never really resolved.
So the issue is not just whether society can reinvent schedules, rituals, and communities.
It is whether people who were psychologically scaffolded by labor can actually survive the loss of that scaffold without fragmentation.
In that sense, the crisis is deeper than adaptation.
It is not just about finding new structures.
It is about what gets exposed when the old structure was doing more inner work than anyone admitted.
I stopped reading at "work is a curse." Work is a GOOD thing. God gave us work to do. It is not work that is the curse, the curse is sin. Work became hard and frustrating, but it is still a good thing. In fact we should do all our work as if we are serving the Lord not men. It will be a MAJOR problem if AI eliminates the need for work, because of the curse of sin.