The 40-Year-Old Theory That Predicted Our Work Crisis

While business leaders debate hybrid work policies and four-day workweeks, a German professor of philosophy, Frithjof Bergmann's 40-year-old warnings are coming true: 

Our entire concept of "jobs" is breaking down.

In 1984, as GM prepared to automate its Flint factory, Bergmann didn't just see a local crisis. He saw the future of work unraveling. His response was a radical reimagining of the work itself: 

Let workers split their time—six months in the factory, six months pursuing work they truly cared about.

This wasn't just another workplace reform idea. It was the beginning of "New Work," a philosophy that predicted the challenges we're facing today.

The 200-Year Experiment That Failed

Bergmann's core insight is startling. What we call "jobs" (trading time for wages to buy what we need) is a relatively recent invention that is only about 200 years old. Before the Industrial Revolution, people worked in radically different ways. Most were farmers, craftspeople, or artisans who controlled their own time and methods of production.

The shift to industrial wage labor wasn't a natural evolution but a specific system created under particular historical conditions. Now, this system is breaking down exactly as Bergmann predicted 40 years ago:

• AI and automation threaten to eliminate millions of traditional jobs.

• Global remote work has created worldwide competition for every position.

• The gig economy has replaced stable employment for many workers.

These aren't temporary trends but fundamental shifts permanently reducing the availability of traditional jobs. As Bergmann predicted, the result is growing inequality and widespread dissatisfaction, even among the supposedly successful.

The Hidden Crisis of Success

Perhaps Bergmann's most insightful observation comes from his work with successful professionals and executives. Behind their masks of achievement, he finds people trapped in what we might call "the greased slide."

Unlike a rat race or hamster wheel (where you can choose to stop running), successful people describe feeling like they're on a slippery slope above an abyss. They can't stop or even slow down without risking everything they've built. There's no stability, no rest, only constant forward motion to avoid falling.

This creates a peculiar form of trapped prosperity. Many leaders privately admit to living with a sense of desperation that contrasts sharply with the optimism they're professionally required to project. They're technically free to quit, but the economic and psychological costs feel prohibitive.

The Poverty of Desire

This points to what Bergmann called our "poverty of desire." While modern life offers endless consumer choices, we lack genuine freedom in how we spend our time and energy. Most people can't even imagine what truly meaningful work would look like for them because the job system has constrained their thinking for so long.

This isn't just about job satisfaction. It's about the fundamental relationship between human beings and their work. Different types of work have profoundly different effects on people:

Traditional Jobs:

• Drain energy and create exhaustion

• Feel meaningless and disconnected

• Make people feel half-alive

• Create stress and burnout

• Require constant recovery time

Meaningful Work:

• Generates energy and vitality

• Provides deep purpose

• Makes people feel fully alive

• Creates sustainable engagement

• Energizes other areas of life

Technology: Problem or Solution?

While most discussions focus on how many jobs AI will eliminate, Bergmann saw a different possibility. Technology could be redirected to liberate human potential rather than replace it.

He argued the true purpose of technology should be to:

• Handle boring, repetitive, spirit-breaking work

• Free up humans for creative, imaginative activities

• Enable new forms of work organization beyond traditional jobs

This represents a fundamental shift in how we think about technological progress. Instead of asking, "How many jobs will AI eliminate?" we should ask, "How can technology help humans do more meaningful work?"

Beyond Surface-Level Solutions

What sets Bergmann's ideas apart is their depth compared to mainstream future of work discussions:

Conventional focus:

• Remote vs. office arrangements

• Four-day workweeks

• Digital transformation

• Upskilling programs

• Wellness initiatives

New Work's deeper focus:

• Fundamental questioning of the job system

• Reimagining the relationship between work and human energy

• Redirecting technology to liberate rather than replace humans

• Creating new ways to organize meaningful work

• Building alternatives to wage dependency

From Philosophy to Practice

But Bergmann wasn't content with purely academic ideas. Starting in the 1980s, he began establishing "Centers for New Work" in various locations, engaging with communities from Detroit to South Africa to develop practical alternatives to traditional employment. His work spanned multiple continents and contexts, from helping laid-off auto workers reinvent their lives to advising Silicon Valley executives trapped in golden handcuffs.

His vision of "New Work" has several key elements:

1. Time Liberation: People spend less time in traditional jobs and more time doing work they find deeply meaningful

2. Purpose Integration: Work becomes aligned with what people genuinely care about

3. Energy Generation: Instead of depleting people, work becomes a source of vitality

4. Technological Enhancement: Machines take over spirit-breaking tasks while enhancing human creativity

Why This Matters Now

Forty years after Bergmann began his work, we're living in the future he predicted:

• AI and automation are eliminating jobs faster than ever.

• The Great Resignation revealed widespread work dissatisfaction.

• Traditional employment no longer provides security.

• The pandemic exposed the fragility of our work systems.

The New Work philosophy offers a compelling alternative by using technology:

• Not to eliminate human labor but to free people to do more meaningful and creative work

• Not to make us all entrepreneurs but to help us discover what we truly care about

In this week's paid edition, we'll explore how organizations can practically apply Bergmann's revolutionary insights about energy and work. You'll receive a concrete framework for auditing and improving your organization's energy patterns based on both Bergmann's research and modern organizational science.

Subscribe now to discover your organization's hidden energy drains and how to fix them.