Welcome to The Livelihood
A couple of years ago, I started writing an essay on how to avoid outliving your money. Being the sort of weirdo who enjoys researching pensions, I rated my chances of making some sensible suggestions. But the more I dug, the murkier it became. I quickly concluded that for most of us in the West, a comfortable retirement is a relic of the twentieth century: an unprecedented and unrepeatable blip.
Increasing life expectancy (for some), unstable employment, and the high cost of living all conspire to make it impossible to save enough cash to stop working altogether. Of course, a few will be sheltered from these problems, but for the rest, it's a game we can't win. We're gradually realising that we need to earn a living for much longer than we'd anticipated. No cruises and conservatories for us.
Even if we're not replaced by robots, can we physically keep working into our seventies and eighties? While workaholics relish the idea of more decades in the office, some of us are managing chronic health conditions or caring responsibilities. Or maybe we're just tired. We could do the "right thing" by saving into a pension scheme, but discover that it's not enough to sustain a shrew in old age. By the time we realise the shortfall, it's too late. In the meantime, that shifty financial advisor who sold us the scheme has spent our commission on another holiday home.
It's a game we probably can't win, but it's one we're obliged to play. Or are we? Rather than working long hours, earning as much as we can, and investing the proceeds in opaque schemes, can we do things differently? Can we achieve a better work/life balance now? Yes, we'll need to work longer, but maybe we can pursue more meaningful employment and work fewer hours. Working at a sustainable pace means we're less likely to get burned out or worsen existing health problems. We can take proper breaks, rather than pursuing pointless productivity targets and occassionally "recharging our batteries," like we're an iPhone rather than a human being.
If we're not trying to maximise our earnings, we can make different choices around where we live and what we do with our time. This involves compromises, certainly. Not least in living more frugally. But living more modestly now means we're less likely to run out of cash when we're least able to replenish it. And, thanks to the climate crisis, living more modestly will soon be an imperative rather than a choice. This way, we get to adjust to it more gradually. We pursue a sustainable livelihood, rather than one that benefits others and then implodes.
We can also help each other by supporting business run by real tax-paying people, not hedge funds. The most effective way of exercising political power is through how we spend our money. Sadly, finance is the only language governments understand. Every pound we give to a small business is an investment in our community - a community that'll support us long after that multi-national has moved to more profitable uplands. And we're building relationships with people who might actually notice if we haven't been around for a while, or if we're wandering the streets in our nightie. Our livelihood depends on putting trust in the right places. Of course, shopping small or local can be a luxury if it's more expensive. It's about deciding what's feasible within our individual circumstances, but thinking collectively where possible. We can make a desperate scramble to stay on the hedonic treadmill, or we can create a Livelihood where we thrive together.
Nobody wants a pension. What we want is a way of providing for ourselves in later life, a means of obtaining the goods and services that aren’t available for free. Rather than just hoarding financial wealth, we need more of the “social capital” that develops in seemingly messy but thriving communities.1 Pensions perpetuate a scarcity mindset, encouraging us to hoard wealth for future consumption, rather than build sustainable support systems now. But what if we could improve our future security by consuming less now, rather than buying complicated financial products, funded by jobs we dislike?
In The Livelihood, I'll be exploring ways of living and working differently. I can't promise any answers, but I'll be researching and experimenting to see what's possible and encouraging you to share your thoughts.
- Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (Bodley Head, 2020), p. 138.
