In futurology,

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

, and

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

, a post-work society is a

society A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...

in which the nature of work has been radically transformed. Some post-work theorists imagine the complete

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

of all jobs, or at least the

takeover In business, a takeover is the purchase of one company (the ''target'') by another (the ''acquirer'' or ''bidder''). In the UK, the term refers to the acquisition of a public company whose shares are listed on a stock exchange, in contrast to t ...

of all monotonous, repetitive tasks (thus unworthy of humans) by cheaper, faster, more efficient, more reliable and more accurate machines. Additionally, these machines, unlike humans, do not complain about working conditions, and can work for long periods of time without stopping. Other theories of a post-work society focus more on challenging the priority of the

work ethic Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination o ...

, and on the celebration of nonwork activities. Near-term practical proposals closely associated with post-work theory include the implementation of a

universal basic income Universal basic income (UBI) is a social welfare proposal in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive an unconditional transfer payment, that is, without a means test or need to work. It would be received independently of a ...

, as well as the reduction of the length of a

working day The weekdays and weekend are the complementary parts of the week devoted to labour and rest, respectively. The legal weekdays (British English), or workweek (American English), is the part of the seven-day week devoted to working. In most of th ...

and the number of days of a working week. Increased focus on what post-work society would look like has been driven by reports such as one that states 47% of jobs in the United States could be automated. Because of increasing automation and the low price of maintaining an automated workforce compared to one dependent on human labor, it has also been suggested that post-work societies would also be ones of

post-scarcity Post-scarcity is a theoretical economic situation in which most goods can be produced in great abundance with minimal human labor needed, so that they become available to all very cheaply or even freely. Post-scarcity does not mean that scarc ...

Literature

* Daniel Susskind: ''WORLD WITHOUT WORK: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond'', 2020,

References

Impact of Automation Futures studies {{Critique of work

Literature

See also

References