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New Work – New Culture
Understand Frithjof Bergmann’s New Work, explore example projects, and much more.
For Frithjof Bergmann, the point is that every person can find work in harmony with their own wishes, hopes, dreams, and talents, and that reorganizing work is the key to an alternative and a new culture.
Work can be understood as a polarity: work can exhaust and drain, but it can also be the opposite – something that gives strength, draws us into life, and gives us meaning. When it comes to work, and when we talk about sustainability in society, we should be interested in the question of power. The power that gives freedom, but also the power of better concepts of work, is the subject of this text. On the meta level it is an invitation to think about whether we want to remain servants of other masters, or whether we should take our fate more firmly into our own hands. To answer this, we first try to reach an understanding of the discussion around the “Grand Challenges” against which the world is struggling. Among these challenges, the gap between the obscenely rich and the devastatingly poor has a special position for “New Work”. We consider how the deepening trenches between the “desert people”, who have hardly any resources, and the “oasis people”, who revel in luxury, might be bridged. There seems to be no remedy for this. Unless a loud and comprehensible voice for something “new” begins to form. This new thing is often linked with hopes about digitalization. Over time, however, we have had to revise some of these romantic ideas of freedom through the digital network. Alienated, alone, and angry is what the digital revolution has really done to us. We were promised community, civics, and convenience. Instead we found ourselves confused, mistrustful, and without orientation.
D. Rushkoff warns: “The digital economy is going wrong. Everyone knows it, but nobody knows exactly why, let alone how to fix it. Workers are losing to automation, drivers are losing to Uber, investors are losing to algorithms, hotels are losing to Airbnb, and even tech developers are losing their visions to the demands of the start-up economy.”
It is not the digital itself, but rather the way we apply it. More a legacy of early corporatism and central currencies than a feature of digital technology. We are running the 21st-century digital economy on a 13th-century operating system.
The operating system for the next epoch could be New Work after Bergmann, with AI and blockchain as important tools for it.
So that this application of technology does not go wrong again, New Work New Culture considers which ethics, which concepts, and which terms this innovation requires, and negotiates the question of how the transition to a more sustainable society could succeed. Which alternatives to the world of work and to the growth economy are being attempted, and which strategies are crystallizing? We also highlight commonalities between different initiatives and schools (common-good economy, post-growth economy, basic income, Theory U, solidarity economy, Transition Towns, peer economy, New Work). In the analysis of today’s work society, we emphasize positive changes and diagnose an intensive shared movement of reflection in order to shape the important process of upheaval that is emerging in a deep transformation of the relations between economy, politics, government, and civil society.
We love capitalism, but it cannot continue like this. Starting from the traditional Marxist discussion about whether a life worthy of human beings is fundamentally compatible with the pressure to valorize within capitalist production, we comment here in a broad arc on the discussion of self-work, commons, common land, and the new social culture that could be achieved through the model of a new organization of work presented by New Work. The meaning and goal of this “New Culture” – a thoroughly attainable “Utopia” – is to become freer and more independent of economic dependencies. How? Yes, the “hedgehog-like how?” after Frithjof Bergmann is what Parts II-IV are about. It bristles, it pricks, none of this is easy. In our view, the pivot for solving many problematic developments that are commonly perceived as a temporary crisis is work. We perceive an epochal transformation rather than a crisis, and propose supplementing the now slowly expiring classical wage labor with self-work and founder models for innovative production and services, in order to give Homo sapiens more resilience as we face the coming changes and disruptions. Alongside analysis, this handbook offers a proposal for a solution. We propose the philosophy and practice of New Work-New Culture as a vision of the future, as an attitude, and as a handle for reorganizing work. More “participation”, more “sovereignty”, and more “capacity to exist” could strengthen trust when it comes to navigating uncertainty in the future.
A threefold division of working time into classical wage labor, self-work, and “what one really, really wants to do”. How can conditions be adapted to a form of work that allows one’s own will to prevail and, in harmony with producing neighborhoods, also connect to functioning business models? This could be realized in a form of work that provides for a threefold division of working time into classical wage labor, self-work, and “what one really, really wants to do”: a mixed set of organizational form and suitable tools manifests and locates itself in production sites and think factories for products and services that in some cases have not yet been invented. These would then be the modules of an economy and way of life founded on commons, which we call basic economy.
Another focus of this handbook on work is a look at the possibilities of integrating New Work into labor-market policies. NWNC most recently had the opportunity to do so at the closing conference of the valuable transnational project “Waage” carried out by “Horizont”. Our concern was to discuss possibilities of self-work in social enterprises. In addition to discussing development trends and potentials of labor administration in Brandenburg, the kind invitation of Prof. Berg from Sozialwerk Horizont made it possible to consider the extent to which attitudes toward work are undergoing change and which pragmatic implementation strategies accompany this transformation. We were able to address future projects in the labor-market field, and especially in the task area of social enterprises, which are rare in Brandenburg, discuss how employment in a mixed work system of wage labor, subsistence, and entrepreneurship could be realized in a social enterprise with long-term unemployed people.
It is characteristic of the region around Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, and Frankfurt that large factories have closed. Many people were laid off and a new beginning in the region seems difficult. The longest-term benefit recipients are credited with little intellectual potential. Attempts to provide “enabling spaces” made clear that, in addition to free space, concrete small starting points are needed, as well as the establishment of stable networking offers and support formats. The potential in the area is there. There are young people who want to build an alternative life with food, electric vehicles, and other products. There are women baking cakes on their own initiative who are not connected with the possible promoters of their craft. There are artists who have settled on one floor of an abandoned weaving mill and are now thinking about how to connect life and work in that place. There are pupils who, on their own initiative, built a better outboard motor for paddle boats than what is available commercially, and now the question is: what to do with so much talent?
In the classical wage-labor society, optimizing a company means optimizing human capital, that is, employees. New Work counters this efficiency mania with a sustainable strengthening of the individual’s free will and a collaborative way of working, vigorously aided by empowering technology. The core statement is: “Work on what you really, really want!” This important nucleus of freedom joins craft in “Community Production” and links work on high-tech DIY machines with a proper dose of entrepreneurial spirit. Finding out what one wants, finding one’s “calling”, can help defuse problems in the labor market. Allowing a little more flamboyance for what is uniquely one’s own to make, and a cleverly linked network of collaboration in connection with entrepreneurship, can offer protection against job loss, decline, and poverty. After studying a “Practice” catalogue at the end of these pages, you will know more about how the transformation of work that exploits into something one enjoys doing, something that does one good, can succeed, and what step you yourself might take toward it.
Where are we going? How do we want to live?
In the part-time revue we call life, we are slowly coming to recognize that as a society we are somehow stuck. We can go neither forward nor back. The most beautiful side effect of this “dystopia” is that we can now recreate life itself, recode it. Out there is a new world, and in this new world you can redefine at every moment who you damn well want to be.
Navigating uncertainty
We could once again stand before the blank canvas and wait, wait, wait … endure ourselves … mirror the world within us, turn it around, and then, when we are certain, paint the next picture: the next picture of our society. Let us try to await the moment in which the new arises within us and then have the courage to bring the new into the picture in broad gestures.
New Work New Culture – tools for the next economy
What we need for this is the will and a few tools. We want to develop these further with `share your factory`. Our tools revolve around co-design, human-machine interfaces, and circular-economy solutions. They are intelligent applications insofar as they make networking, excitement, and also evaluation possible. Beyond that, we are for the first time connecting blockchain with micro-production.
„Es geht uns um die Schaffung einer Gesellschaft und Kultur, in der wirklich jeder, Mann oder Frau, die Chance bekommt, einen beträchtlichen Teil seiner Zeit mit einer Arbeit zu verbringen, die er oder sie erfüllend und faszinierend findet und die die Menschen aufbaut und ihnen mehr Kraft und mehr Vitalität gibt“, Frithjof Bergmann: Neue Arbeit, Neue Kultur. Freiamt 2004, S. 19.
Calling
The period around the coronavirus, with its unspeakable, hysterically excessive measures, did have one good side. Many people understood that change in work is possible and very present, and that control must not only come from outside, but also happens bottom up – and that this transformation begins, not least, with each individual. This pause was an impulse for NWNC to push once more in the attempt to bring about a model of work that makes it easier for all people on this planet to do what they really, really want. When asking what one is especially good at, where one senses meaning, happiness, and talent, it helps to negotiate wishes, longings, and abilities face to face. Nevertheless, for most people it is very difficult even to find out what they really, really want.
Sometimes it is a film, sometimes a conversation. Everyone probably has their own experiences. In any case, it already helps to have guidance and assistance.
How does it work, how does one find out what one really, really wants? As Frithjof Bergmann says, one does not find it like a tennis ball under a green tree. It takes time, guidance, tools, and a lot of communication to find this out, and there are also traditional structures and weighty interests that stand in the way of democratizing work and production. But with the Covid virus holding us in its breath, we are also experiencing the greatest experiment in the history of humanity concerning work. New Work New Culture wants to reshape this transformation on three levels:
1. Personal perspective: Do what you really, really want! Realize opportunities on the path to fulfilling activity.
2. Organizational perspective: testing new solutions based on the principles of decentralization and co-creation.
3. Technological perspective: Fair Pay re-evaluates work by means of AI and DLT and thereby also supports relocalization and climate protection.
Community Production
Community Production, or “Distributed Microproduction”, is a universe of personal and social making. We connect concrete places, actors, and tools. Innovation approaches around code and production receive a stage and a showcase. In the learning world of the New Factory, design is developed that advances forms of collaborative production into future practice. With this set of cultural techniques, a universally modelable, decentralized system of work and production exists, stretching its tentacles deep into the city and out into the world.
Socio-techniques such as “Share your Factory”
Share Your Factory wants to update the operating system of production and uses the real experimental environment for this. In this context, the project opens up diverse spaces of possibility for novel value-creation concepts. Forms of collaboration and decentralization will continue to gain relevance, and with 1hWork innovation efforts and technological trends can be constantly implemented in production and fairly accounted for through work input.
The economic and social designs derived from this (visions and scenarios) in turn provide the necessary knowledge base for further steps around products and technology sets of decentralized microproduction.
With the New Factory we develop reference architecture and technology. Know-how transfer takes place through pop-up factories, home delivery, and communication and learning offers for schools, universities, and vocational support institutions. A DIY stream and the Your Own Fabric Box, which comes to the population, describe current engineering competencies in a playful way in connection with a competition format. The longer-term goal is the designer as factory. The construction of entire micro-machine parks and mini production lines.
„Jedem der an den verschiedenen Projekten Beteiligten war klar, dass die ökonomische Freiheit, welche die High Tech Eigenproduktion (Community Production) uns ermöglicht, auf lange Sicht eine unerlässliche Voraussetzung dafür ist, tatsächlich das tun zu können, was man wirklich, wirklich will. Das ist ohne den durch die HTEP erreichbaren Grad an materieller Unabhängigkeit nämlich nicht möglich. Wo diese nicht gegeben ist, wird der Druck der ‘Realität – oder dessen, was Bertolt Brecht ’die Verhältnisse’ nannte – uns zu beschämenden Kompromissen zwingen. … Wo sind die Werkzeuge, die Maschinen und Apparate, die Herstellungsmethoden, die uns in die Lage versetzen, das zu tun?“, Frithjof Bergmann: Neue Arbeit, Neue Kultur. Freiamt 2004, S. 22-23
Socio-techniques such as Share Your Factory
Share Your Factory wants to update the operating system of production and uses the real experimental environment for this. In this context, the project opens up diverse spaces of possibility for novel value-creation concepts. Forms of collaboration and decentralization will continue to gain relevance, and with 1hWork innovation efforts and technological trends can be constantly implemented in production and fairly accounted for through work input. The economic and social designs that can be derived from this (visions and scenarios) in turn provide the necessary knowledge base for further steps around products and technology sets of decentralized microproduction. With the New Factory we develop reference architecture and technology. Know-how transfer takes place through pop-up factories, home delivery, and communication and learning offers for schools, universities, and vocational support institutions. A DIY stream and the Your Own Fabric Box, which comes to the population, describe current engineering competencies in a playful way in connection with a competition format. The longer-term goal is the designer as factory. The construction of entire micro-machine parks and mini production lines.
Concrete Projects
New Work New Culture has a philosophical and theoretical background. The people who over the years connected themselves with Frithjof Bergmann’s ideas, however, have kept a very precise eye on practice because they are deeply convinced of his vision. Many projects are looking for ways to make the groundbreaking ideas about work simple and practically applicable in everyday life.
More about implementation
