Future Forecast Report 2 - The Changing Concept of an “Occupation”
This essay builds on the premise of the preceding essay, “The Collapse of Capitalism.”
This does not mean that capitalism will disappear entirely. Rather, let us imagine a world in which money loses its power as the absolute principle that organizes society, and the relationship between labor and income loosens. One of the first concepts to be unsettled in that world will probably be the “occupation.”
For a long time, we have described ourselves through our occupations.
The question “What do you do?” has effectively been used to mean almost the same thing as “Who are you?” One person is an architect, another a doctor, another a teacher, and another an office worker. An occupation was not merely a means of making a living, but the most basic coordinate through which we located ourselves in society.
It is often said that the difference between a professional and an amateur is whether they earn money.
This distinction has carried considerable weight in modern society. Someone who does something for the love of it is a hobbyist; someone who earns money from it is a professional. A person who paints and earns money is a painter; one who does not earn money is someone who likes painting. A person whose writing is published and paid for is an author; otherwise, they remain someone who writes.
Ultimately, an occupation has so far been an answer to the question “How do you earn money?”
But if money loses its position as the absolute measure of social value, what will become of an occupation?
If the structure that requires people to perform particular work to earn money weakens, and AI and automation replace a substantial portion of the work done for a living, the concept of an occupation will be difficult to sustain in its present form.
What matters here is not a simple prediction that occupations will disappear.
The more fundamental issue is that occupations have stood in for the identities of society's members. In a society where classes had disappeared, we defined ourselves through our occupations. As orders of status such as royalty, nobility, commoners, and serfs weakened, modern individuals explained their social positions through the occupations they held. The language of occupations took the place left by the language of class.
How, then, will we define ourselves in a society where occupations have lost their force?
This is the central question of the next era.
In industrial society, an occupation performed four functions at once.
First, it was a means of making a living.
Second, it was a substitute for social status.
Third, it was a marker of individual expertise and ability.
Fourth, it was a mechanism for organizing the timetable of life.
People earned money through their occupations, gained recognition through them, identified the worlds to which they belonged through them, and organized the rhythms of their days and lives through them.
In a society after AI, however, these four functions are likely to separate.
Livelihoods could be partly secured through basic income, public goods, automated production systems, and platform-based structures of distribution. Expertise could be demonstrated not by a particular company or job title, but by a record of projects, a portfolio, a reputation within a community, and contributions to a network. Life's timetable could be structured not by commuting and working hours, but by chosen activities, relationships, and rhythms of creation and learning.
At that point, an occupation will no longer be a single fixed noun.
Singular identities such as “I am an architect,” “I am a teacher,” or “I am a planner” may become progressively weaker. Instead, people will describe themselves through combinations of activities, interests, projects, and roles. A person may simultaneously be a researcher and a creator, a community organizer and a technological experimenter, a caregiver and a local activist.
Such people exist today, of course.
Until now, however, this has generally been an exceptional way of life. There was a main job, a second job, a hobby, and a side project. The main job provided a living, while the others were seen as supplementary activities. As the concept of an occupation centered on money weakens, this hierarchy could collapse. The criteria that distinguish a main job from a hobby become less clear.
Let us return to the initial question.
Must an activity earn money to count as an occupation?
Within social institutions, the answer may still be yes. Taxation, insurance, contracts, employment, and qualification systems define occupations as economic activities. But an occupation as “what defines me” is not necessarily connected to money. Some continue researching even when it brings no income; others write independently of their livelihoods; still others care for their communities without making a profit. These are not merely people with hobbies. They shape their lives through activities they believe matter.
Perhaps occupations in the future will, in fact, come closer to what we now call hobbies.
Here, a hobby does not mean casual leisure. It means a practice that continually shapes a person, regardless of financial reward: work one returns to even when it earns no money, work one chooses without society demanding it, work that builds one's world without external rewards. Future occupations may well move in this direction.
An occupation, then, does not disappear; it shifts from livelihood toward identity.
Until now, an occupation has combined livelihood and identity. “I earn money by doing this, and therefore this is who I am.” In the future, this sentence may split in two. Social systems take on part of the responsibility for livelihood, while individual practice and contribution take on the role of identity. An occupation becomes a way of participating in the world, rather than a way of earning money.
This change could be liberating.
People could escape the pressure to choose work they do not want to do simply to make a living. They could spend more time on what they enjoy, what they do well, and what they find socially meaningful. Once labor is freed from the compulsion of survival, people can begin to organize their activities more freely.
Yet this change is also dangerous.
The disappearance of occupations does not simply mean that people no longer have to work. It also means that many people lose the language through which they have described themselves. Until now, occupations have given people a reason to get up in the morning, a way to connect with society, and a measure through which to affirm their own worth. When that structure collapses, people may gain freedom while losing direction.
The greatest disruption will be a loss of identity.
For those who have organized their lives around “a job to earn money,” this change may arrive not merely as an institutional shift, but as an existential crisis. For someone who has spent a lifetime as a company employee, the disappearance of the company is not a matter of income, but the collapse of the way they describe themselves. When the job title, the business card, and the position within an organization disappear, what should a person call themselves?
The central conflict of future society may be a shortage of meaning, rather than a shortage of jobs.
If AI replaces labor, people will face the question “What will I do with my life?” more than “What will I do to earn a living?” The former question is philosophical; the latter is economic. Modern society is not yet prepared to answer the philosophical question.
The future concept of an occupation is therefore likely to be reorganized in three directions.
First, an occupation becomes a combination of activities rather than a fixed title.
Describing someone with a single occupational label will become increasingly inaccurate. People will be defined by a combination of the projects they undertake, the communities they participate in, the skills they accumulate, and the interests they sustain.
Second, an occupation comes closer to a form of identity than a means of making a living.
At its center is not earning money, but the way a person relates to the world. What matters here is continuity, proficiency, contribution, and meaning, rather than profit.
Third, an occupation becomes a matter of social design rather than an individual's inner life.
New forms of education, community, and recognition will be needed if people are to avoid losing themselves after being freed from labor for subsistence. Creating “a society in which people do not have to work” is not enough. We must create “a society in which people can describe who they are without having to work.”
In the age of capitalism, people proved themselves through their occupations.
After capitalism, people may prove themselves not through an occupation, but through the practices they continually choose. At that point, the important question will no longer be “What do you do for work?”
Instead, we should ask:
“What do you return to, what do you contribute to, and what kind of world are you creating?”
The occupation of the future will not be a word printed on a business card, but the pattern of a person's relationship with the world.