Intersubjectivity of Work
Before when a craftsman created a sculpture for example, it has a signature of his workmanship. During industrialization and capitalism, creating a product doesn't have the imprint of workmanship, the idea is just out of context. Mass production indeed catered to the needs of modern man benefiting the poor with affordable products that addresses his needs. Fastforward and today's circumstances posits robot workers with human beings having only universal basic income, eradicating work as a basic part of a human being's dignity. And just like what is happening today, many workers around the world cannot even sustain a decent life not to mention finding housing for future family of his own almost impossible. Yes even if some magnate out there are supporting family life, population is going down, and robots will work especially for the monotonous part of producing a product or service which they say don't need wages, not complaining, no aching bodies, works efficiently at deadlines even without sleep, etc. Yes, and human labor might become more dignified of a human being who will not be assigned to such repetitive tasks but on supervisory or quality control only in the future. That is the more positive imagining of the future not the no more jobs for any human beings. Yes, there will be lots of displacement of workers and shift in skills demand. If an AI can explain and teach a concept more efficiently than a human teacher, then such stable job is also in danger of instability in the future. Or perhaps AI will do the repetitive tasks and give teachers more time for the most important questions only a human being can meaningfully asks. Many people are finding themselves who have honed their skills through decades of perseverance unwanted. Is the population going down since human beings are an unwanted species already? Or even worse, human beings as an invasive species will be pointed at as the cause of so many modern ills today.
I think that's not part of my pheno reflection initially and would like to question my career questions here as not reflective of majority of worker's experiences out there. My main objective is to use pheno to reflect on my question what am I going to do with my career or working life, not to reflect on the overall or macro level of work in the world today. The problem is that pheno if removed from the situation it is assigned becomes ineptly subjective alone. So a need for the intersubjectivity of work maybe is at hand. And we go back to the first fruit of our discussion of it pointing towards if life of a human being is still worth living if he is not working.
Am I advanced in my imagining or is it happening in reality more and more. So I asked ChatGPT-4o, 15 May 2025 the state of real affairs.
🧭 Summary of the Workers’ Plight Today
📉 1. Wage Stagnation vs. Cost of Living
Wages in many countries have stagnated for decades, while the cost of housing, education, and healthcare has skyrocketed.
Even “middle-class” workers feel like they are barely getting by, often needing multiple jobs to survive.
🤖 2. Automation and AI Replacing Jobs
Millions of low-skill and even mid-skill jobs are being replaced by AI, robots, and software.
This affects truck drivers, call center agents, retail workers, factory hands — and even writers, designers, and coders are feeling pressure.
New jobs are created, yes, but usually require high specialization or constant re-skilling.
📱 3. Gig Economy: Flexibility or Exploitation?
Platforms like Uber, Grab, and Fiverr promise “freedom” — but they:
Lack benefits (health insurance, retirement, job security)
Pay poorly after platform fees and taxes
Leave workers vulnerable to algorithmic control (e.g., “deactivated” with no appeal)
🌎 4. Global Inequality and Migration
Many workers from poorer countries are:
Migrating for work (often underpaid and overworked)
Facing exploitative contracts abroad or under harsh employers
Losing touch with family and home while chasing survival
🧠 5. Mental Health and Burnout
“Hustle culture” pushes people to overwork, glorifying burnout.
A growing number of workers are reporting depression, anxiety, and alienation.
The dignity of work is fading; it’s just survival now for many.
🏭 6. Union Suppression and Worker Disempowerment
Union membership is declining worldwide.
Laws in many countries make it harder to organize, and workers are often blacklisted or punished for speaking up.
☀️ Is It All Dim?
Not entirely. Here are signs of resistance, reform, and hope:
🧷 1. Worker Resurgence
In the U.S., UK, and elsewhere, union activity is rising again (Amazon, Starbucks, etc.).
“Strike waves” have shown workers won’t stay quiet forever.
🌐 2. Universal Basic Income (UBI) Pilots
Some countries and cities are experimenting with UBI, testing ways to soften the blow of automation and insecurity.
📚 3. Re-skilling Movements
Free learning platforms (like Coursera, edX, even YouTube) are helping some workers re-skill for new jobs, though not all can access them easily.
🤝 4. Faith, Philosophy, and Reflection
Many thinkers — especially from the Church and religious communities — are rediscovering the primacy of human dignity over productivity.
Catholic Social Teaching still provides moral compass points for future reform.
And so with the rise of Pope Leo XIV is the lively discussions about the encyclical Rerum Novarum. What has become of workers since it was published? ChatGPT answered with a mix of my own personal reflections.
What Has Become of the Worker Since Rerum Novarum?
by [Your Name]
In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, a groundbreaking encyclical that addressed the condition of the working classes during the rise of industrial capitalism. It was a prophetic response to a world torn between ruthless capitalism and revolutionary socialism. At its heart was a simple but profound idea: the dignity of the worker must never be reduced to a tool for profit.
Today, more than a century later, that vision is under new strain — not from coal-powered machines, but from artificial intelligence, robotics, and an economic system that often values automation over human labor. The question now looms large: What has become of the worker since Rerum Novarum?
I. From Factories to Freelance: The Disappearing Stability of Work
Gone are the days when one could expect a stable, lifelong career with fair wages and benefits. In their place are gig jobs, zero-hour contracts, and algorithm-managed labor. While the language has changed — we now speak of “flexibility” and “side hustles” — the experience is eerily familiar to what Rerum Novarum described: workers without protections, easily replaced, and left to bargain as individuals against the massive power of capital.
Even educated workers, once shielded by specialization, now find themselves under threat. Writers, artists, teachers, and even software engineers are discovering that AI can replicate much of what they do — cheaply and instantly. The worker is no longer just competing with other workers, but with machines that never sleep or complain.
II. Automation and the Illusion of Progress
Technological progress is often celebrated, and rightly so, for its benefits in health, communication, and efficiency. But when innovation is driven primarily by profit, its human cost is overlooked. Rerum Novarum warned against reducing people to "mere instruments for gain"; today, that warning echoes louder than ever.
Who benefits when robots and AI replace workers? Corporations do. But who buys the products those robots produce if people no longer have jobs or wages? The system begins to fold in on itself. Hence, discussions have emerged around Universal Basic Income (UBI) — not necessarily as a moral gesture, but as a way to keep capitalism alive when consumers disappear.
III. The Gig Economy: Freedom or Fragmentation?
Digital platforms promise autonomy, yet offer none of the protection that Rerum Novarum demanded: no job security, no benefits, no right to rest. Workers are rated, tracked, and deactivated by algorithms. They own nothing — not the tools they use, not the schedules they follow, not even the reputations they build. It is, in many ways, a regression to a pre-industrial condition, where labor is individualized and power is unchecked.
And yet, workers endure. From union drives at Amazon to global strikes by delivery riders, the spirit of solidarity refuses to die. The very voices that Rerum Novarum sought to raise — the poor, the overworked, the exploited — still cry out, now not in factories, but through screens and in digital picket lines.
IV. The Worker Today: A Crisis of Dignity
Perhaps the most alarming loss is not economic, but spiritual. Work has always been more than a means to survive; it is part of how we contribute, create, and participate in society. When work is stripped of dignity — when it becomes isolated, insecure, or meaningless — the human soul suffers.
This is not imagination. Rates of depression, burnout, and anxiety are rising among workers, not only from overwork, but from disconnection and powerlessness. Even self-employed individuals, like myself, find ourselves adrift — educated, skilled, but unable to secure even the basics like a home, family, or sustainable income.
V. A New Rerum Novarum for the Age of AI?
We may be awaiting a new papal encyclical — a Rerum Novarum II — to speak to this era of robots, gig labor, and displaced human dignity. But we must not wait passively. Each of us can become, in our own way, a voice of conscience.
The Church, thinkers, and concerned citizens must come together once again to ask:
What does it mean to work with dignity today?
What responsibilities do employers have in a world of automation?
How do we ensure that progress serves the human person, not the reverse?
VI. Conclusion: Not Lost, But Searching
I write not from a place of success, but from a place of reflection. I am still struggling — self-employed, unmarried, without a home of my own. I regret some choices; I question my path. But I also see clearly that this crisis is not just personal — it is historical.
The worker has not disappeared. The worker is evolving — suffering, adapting, resisting. What has become of the worker? We are still here. But we must be heard again, as we were in 1891, when Pope Leo XIII declared that the worker is not a commodity, but a person — body and soul — worthy of justice, rest, and hope.
If this piece resonates with you, I invite you to share it — or better yet, respond to it. The conversation must go on, before the machines speak louder than we do.
Well, so much of the nuances of ChatGPT's answer.😅 But I wonder if AI and robots will stop running in large factories all over the world, since human beings cannot buy its products anymore. I imagine human beings going back to farming and fishing for themselves, going back to the wild and making their own hut. I imagine governments all over the world stop printing money since nobody is using it anymore. And everybody going back to barter system. I wonder what communism will do as its final act of bravery for humanity's sake, and embracing at last empathy for his own kind. Will it finally realize that all it wants is really a welfare state and not communism or socialism, just like other nations earlier realized and have gone ahead?
Are we a being destined to just consume the product of robots? Perhaps. Or is it flexed as the best means of human extinction slowly but surely. Wall-E was a leftover of eradicated robots that survived after mass extinction. Well if Wall-E was reprogrammed or upgraded by a biased nonhuman system, it would not have acted on its old program and thus helped human beings need to come back to earth already, human beings being too fat and has no walking ability anymore when it finally came back to an already detoxified earth. For now I think God's plan is not to eradicate humanity on this universe unless it's parousia already. But for now humanity has to think about each step he has to take, adjust if needed, and avoid the things we are imagining here happening and too late to be corrected anymore.
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