Evolution of Job
Thousands of years back man went to work every day to fetch food for the family by hunting in the jungles. Much later man went on to do farming to produce enough food for the family. From Hunting to Farming it probably took thousands of years. There was no concept of efficiency or productivity. Also there was no wage for that matter. One hunted in the jungles, if lucky got some food for the day. if not then tried another day. Similarly, the farmer labored in the field throughout the year to produce the food he wanted. There was no connection between the produce and the time and effort put into the process. No one ever asked a farmer how much time it took to produce a bag of wheat.
Much later, when the industrial age happened, efforts, time and the output got measured and that is how the Job happened to the mankind. With due course of time various types of Industries came into being and the Job went through various stages of evolution and got classified as Blue collar, White collar etc.... However, the motive behind doing a job remained the same. People worked ... and still work for money, for realization of self-worth, self-confidence, respect etc.. besides many other reasons which could vary from person to person.
Along the evolution of job, the way wage is determined for the various jobs has also evolved. In the factories the wage is in some way proportional to the time one puts in on the assembly line. Wages for salesmen depend on the no of sales/value of sales they closed. In the service sector, the wage is dependent on not only what one delivered, but also how, when and where one delivered the same.
Today, the services industry contributes majorly to the GDPs of economies across the world and the competitors in each of the services industry have differentiated their services on the basis of who delivers the service and the corresponding wages for doing the same job by different persons vary considerably from each other If one considers the time, effort, sweat and tears that go into acquiring a particular skill set to deliver a service in a certain way that would be the differentiator in the market, one could very well imagine that one day very soon the job and the corresponding wage for most of the services would go back to the pre-industrialization era when no one asked how much time, effort, sweat, tears, seeds etc.. went into producing that one bag of wheat.....
Comments
Evolution of job can be better visualized/analyses by drawing simultaneous parallels from the economic systems - How society evolved from a pre-capitalist state to a modern capitalist system. The crucial thing in this system of evolution is - who owns the means of production (tools, factory etc). It was basically the separation of ownership of labour and the means of production which led to the birth of labour class. Thus came the economic system of capitalism as a mode of production with labour producing surplus for the owner of capital. In the capitalist system - efficiency, laws and its enforcement (property rights) and surplus plaid a crucial role in leading to evolution of both labour and capitalist as a working class. Producing surplus value is at the heart of capitalism as an efficient system to survive…no matter what one produces.
Posted by: Pravin Kumar | October 28, 2009 1:38 PM
Going back to basics is already started. I think same thing is going to happen in Transaction based pricing. The client is not interested in knowing much time, effort, sweat, tears, seeds etc.. went into producing that one bag of wheat...... What the service provideris need to do is deliver a bag of wheat at the fixed time :) :)
Posted by: Naveen Hanmantgad | November 1, 2009 1:16 PM