Rusikoff is arguing for a return to the peasant economy - the problem, of course, is that 85% of North Americans, 80% of South Americans, 90% of Europeans and 88% of Asians live in cities. Ahh! But Jeron Lanier already solved this problem! They'll make "digital stuff!" The same "digital stuff" that everyone is grabbing for free? Well, yes. Except if you read Lanier, he's firmly of the opinion that people will pay an extra $30 for MP3s if it comes with a bitchin' limited edition necklace (no shit). The whole problem with this bongsmoke utopia is that in order for people to benefit from "producing" things, someone has to WANT those things. Considering the article is all about how nobody needs "things" any more, all the rest of it is just smoke and mirrors to make you not notice that the drive of the article is "everybody hang out in your loft and make funny hats for Second Life." What we lack is employment - meaningful, challenging work that rewards a person for engaging in it. We no longer pluck chickens and pick nits for a living because 200 years of education has made that an unacceptable avocation for most of humanity. People need to do things in order to not hate life. Do they need their livelihood directly tied to their labor? No. But they still need "jobs."
Most of humanity still does this sort of mindless labor. But instead of picking nits, then plucking chickens, they do one or the other all day, for someone else. -Solder these two connections, then put it back on the convyor belt. I don't think he is arguing that we should return to a peasant economy, but that our economy might resemble one in the sense that we spend more time doing things for ourselves.
I've had any number of friends on electronics assembly lines. Yeah, I could do their job - but it would involve some training. No, they don't do the same mindless thing all day long - that went out at the end of WWII. As far as "the rest of humanity" here's $200 a month in a Mumbai sweatshop: http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/201104/mughal.maal.htm Tell me that isn't "skilled labor." Rusikoff is making the same tired argument that Abbie Hoffman made back in the '60s: "The government should exist only to provide basic needs for its citizens so we can sit back and drop acid." The problem is that HUMANS DON'T WORK THIS WAY. We seek mastery, we relish competition and we strive to make an indelible mark upon the world. For nearly all of us, that means "a job" - a job we get good at, a job we can teach others, a job we are respected for doing. The "peasant economy" worked because the sphere of influence of the average human even 100 years ago was pretty much "everyone around me that I can comfortably travel to in an afternoon" which wasn't a whole lot of people. Yet according to Ian Jukes, a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than was available to the average citizen in the 18th century in their lifetime. Could we all go back to pastoral living on the commons? Yes. Just as soon as all cities with a population over 1000 are eradicated. Until then it's a childish, ignorant pipe dream.
I'd spend my time working my hobbies, which I can hardly find enough time for. But you're probably right about many people needing direction that they cannot find. Jobs may be inextricably linked to high density living.
People like to work. Don't believe me? What the hell is Farmville, then? The disconnect our society faces is this: That which we do for money is seldom that which we do for fun. This is a trap society has placed for us and only the clever evade it. The trick, however, is not to erase "that which we do for money" but to empower "that which we do for fun." I think in a round-about sort of way, I agree with the author in this... but his approach to dealing with the problem is sophomoric at best.
What interests me is: If production keeps increasing, will we end up doing work that we enjoy more, or work simply bear the same relative burdens to constantly improve production?
However, he starts out his argument with "and we're totally fucked if we don't" and buttresses it with "and our lifestyles are going to be significantly less complicated and filled with stuff in the meantime." Things like "you're going to get to eat meat maybe once a week" and "foreign travel is going to be the luxury of the extraordinarily wealthy."