this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
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Work Reform

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Looking for input/feedback on what work would look like in solarpunk settings (slrpnk.net)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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Hi, I'm working on a collection of resources to make writing solarpunk and other aspirational fiction easier. The idea is to put together premade chunks of writer-level research and collections of solarpunk ideas and links on different topics that might come up in worldbuilding.

If you want to see the other pages (which tend to be more link-heavy) you can find them here:

https://wiki.slrpnk.net/writing:start

Someone on Mastodon asked if we had a page on how work would change in solarpunk settings and it's a topic I have some thoughts on so I put a draft together.

The current draft of the page on work is here:

https://wiki.slrpnk.net/writing:solarpunk_work

Basically what I'd like to know is what does your ideal outcome look like? If we were able to start fixing things today and never stop, what does work in this future look like to you? I've written up my version but if I've missed something or gotten something wrong I'd very much like to know.

If there is anything you'd recommend I read or include, I'd love to check it out.

At the very least I can promise I'll try to show your ideas well in my own fiction, but hopefully this resource will spread them a little further into stories that inspire others.

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[–] rowinxavier@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Think about what people who don't have to work now do and apply it, or alternatively think about what people do in their down time.

My partner paints and does various other types of art. They are disabled and we live in Australia so they have a support payment, meaning they don't have to work for money. They have made some awesome art that I really love and they do it because they want to. There is no time pressure, not external motivation, it is purely intrinsic motivation that drives their behaviour.

I on the other hand have done a bunch of different jobs in which I have made things like in IT where I put together servers and replaced aging infrastructure. The stress of the external time pressures and so on took away a good fraction of the joy of it. In my home lab I have some cool things I have played around with and I genuinely enjoy them, but that is my own stuff with my own money and time, so the joy is there in full.

If I were considering how things would happen in a solar punk future it would not be jobs, it would not be something you are incentivised to do, it would be something you do because you want to, so hours would likely be less and you would likely have multiple fairly different things. I personally would probably cook, garden, care for kids and disabled people, do cool stuff with computers, and learn about genetic engineering and associated cool science stuff. None of those would be 40+ hours a week, but I would have periods of getting stuck into a project and spending a lot of time for a couple of weeks on one thing while reducing the time for the rest.

This all rides on automation taking care of most of the labour requiring tasks. I would still cook because I enjoy it, even though a machine could do it just as well with no effort from me. I would learn about things out of interest, not utility.

[–] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

In some solarpunk shortstories, that I read with a bookclub recently, there are still kinda jobs. Probably there will always be some undesired things to be done by humans (too complicated or too resource intensive to automate). Basically the stories (I think it was in "Halfway to better" by Susan Kaye Quinn) outlined two kinds of jobs:

  • your main profession: Chosen based on your likings and what you are good in. Heavy focus on learning, teaching and services for the community
  • chores: Often basic communal chores, those jobs not automated and not fitting for a specific profession. Done round robin by every member of the communal space

These stories have a heavy focus on achieving things for the community as a whole. Work both as self expression and service to others. That sounds quite appealing to me. It shows a way for a highly technologised society, without going the monopolised power route of Cyberpunk.

Adjacent to that: In "Always coming home" by Le Guin the outlined society (which is more of the low tech variant of Solarpunk) has a nice quirk. The people choose their profession and the results that you produce are yours. But being rich has a totally different meaning for them. Only the one, who gives much of his or her overproduction to the community (through communal resource fund for example) is considered rich (connotated positively from both the individual and communal side). The one who, who hoards is considered poor. So there are still jobs, and the society absolutely expects you to work. Though because everyone is contributing according to their abilities to communal life and funds, nobody suffers due to inability to work.

[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The community chores category is really interesting! Do you remember what kinds of work would fall into that? Or have any in mind?

[–] lucullus@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago

In that story it the shown example was about tending to the communities vegetable and fruit plants on the buildings top. Though I can also see cleaning up or transporting stuff. Maybe even a system, where citizens would be socially required (as part of the notmal upbringing, not enforced with force) to learn basic tasks from each of the most important areas of expertise, to then do these basic tasks as chores, keeping the experts free for more complex work (and simultaneously spreading wide knowledge)

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I would expect it looks a lot like what good teachers and librarians and other genuinely useful and intelligent people of culture do, right now, every day. They teach and educate, yes, even when the curriculum is crappy, and they care, and they help and support and defend and they do their best with what they have, they do a huge amount of largely thankless and currently unappreciated and minimized and relentlessly attacked work, not for the money or the recognition, but because it's the right thing to do and it benefits society and our future.

That's real work and real progress. That's not about benefiting private equity and the stock market and making numbers go up. That's about improving the world we live in and improving the lives of the people in it for their entire lives, sustainably, on and on to the next generation and the next. That's pretty solarpunk if you ask me.

[–] JacobCoffinWrites@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 days ago

I completely agree! I have much the same sentiment in the section "The work people take on despite the conditions and poor pay"

[–] Juniperus@infosec.pub 1 points 2 days ago

Hello Jacob,

Great post, I think it's important for us to have discussions about actual solutions that we can begin implementing now for the future we want to see, which is why I'm working on a management structure for a new type of worker's co-op. I think it fits right into the solar punk ideal, or at least I hope it does. More importantly it answers your question.

In your wiki article you mention that hierarchies in the workplace are often abusive, and I wholeheartedly agree. The problem, as I see it, isn't the hierarchy itself, it's that the hierarchy was never elected to their positions, so they have no reason to act in the best interest of the workers. Normally a CEO or other officer gets their position through generational wealth or nepotism, or some other corrupt reason. I would like to correct that.

Most co-ops remove the hierarchy entirely, and while that does remove the abuse, it comes at the cost of lowered overall productivity and strategic direction. So instead of removing it, in my co-op the hierarchy component of management is still there, led by a CEO, but that person has to present a business plan to all the worker/owners and be elected in a popular election. I call this Hierarchy by Consent. They are then empowered by the group to enact their business plan.

I posted earlier today on this sub if you want a more detailed explanation, but if you like you can instead head straight for the draft Articles of Association. I also plan to create open-source management software to go with it, so that will be a big project.

Happy to talk more here but you're also welcome to PM if you want to see more of my project.

Cheers!