The phrase ‘The Great Resignation’ is common now, referring to the large increase in resignations from certain jobs.

Research in Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States by McKinsey & Company indicates that people quitting their jobs voluntarily was 25 percent higher compared to pre-pandemic levels, and that 65 percent did not so far return to the same industry.

As the infographic shows, reasons given include: “Lack of career development/advancement”, “inadequate compensation”, “uncaring or uninspiring leaders”, and “lack of meaningful work”.

In other words: capitalism.

What these articles rarely go into is that these characteristics are central to capitalism and flow from the basic structure of that economic system. It is rarely mentioned because that is too radical and threatening. Instead they almost always focus on what companies can do to be more attractive or what employees can do as individuals. The research asks: “To close the gap, employers should try to win back nontraditional workers. But how?”

If we want to consider a real HOW, instead of just rearranging the furniture, then what about fundamentally changing the economic system? A deep and lasting ‘how’ will involve changing how workplaces function. The Kinsey research notes some thing that companies can do to attract staff and concludes that: “This doesn’t mean that organizations have to change their mission, values, or purpose.” But isn’t that exactly what is needed?

The mission needs to change away from the creation of profit for a tiny group of elite bosses and shareholders towards the creation of value for the whole staff and community. The values need to change away from the pursuit of profits regardless of damage to workers and the environment towards genuine sustainability of a type that is directly inconsistent with the core processes of capitalism. The purpose needs to become the creation of services and things which benefit people… which is not the central purpose under capitalism.

As to the top complaints: “Lack of career development/advancement”, the main cause of this is the capitalist system, even though few focus on that. It’s a system that holds most people in jobs that do not challenge them, which are boring and monotonous. It’s a system that dangles the prize of moving up the hierarchy but does not deliver that to the vast majority and inherently can not because it has a strictly pyramid shaped hierarchy with, of course, less room at the top.

Whereas, the various non capitalist approaches are not held back like that (or BESS, Better Economic and Social System, as I normally say, for a easy catch all term). Because the key element of a BESS is the horizontal system in which there is no inflexible power differences between various staff in an organisation. Everyone in the organisation is involved in how it is run, in a democratic way. One advantage of this may be the chance to create what those who push for participatory economics call a ‘balanced job complex’, in which we get to take on various roles, at the same time, in a balanced mix of the various things that need done. Which is, in itself, a way to develop our careers and advance our knowledge and experiences. The recently formed group, REAL UTOPIA go into how we could create a better society in various interesting videos and articles.

As to “inadequate compensation”, the key problem in capitalism is the fact that our compensation is ALWAYS inadequate, by the operation of the central force of capitalism. Because in that system some percentage of what we produce is not received by us, it is taken away by the boss, the CEO, the shareholders. That is how they get so rich (and not because they work hard, even though many of them do work hard). So, it’s important that people unionise and fight for better wages, since that can make the difference between paying the rent or not. But getting a 3% pay rise is not enough to really makes things right. How about staff at companies get ALL the value that they produce? How about us not bothering with the layer of bosses, CEO’s, shareholder etc…and instead, the workers who do the work get the full benefit of that work. That’s a key aim of the various BESS plans. Anything else is ‘inadequate’, it seems to me.

As to the other key complaint, “uncaring or uninspiring leaders” — it should be clear by now what the solution to this is: lets have NO leaders. What that means is no fixed superiors who have near dictatorial power over their inferiors in a work place. No set hierarchy of power in which the lowly staff have to obey the decisions of those uncaring leaders.

Instead, we have a system in which everyone in the organisation is involved in how it is run, in a democratic way. That would mean there would be some temporary facilitators or experts or call them team leaders if you like. But they would be in positions that are fully accountable to the whole group, of which all the staff are equally powerful members. So that if those ‘leaders’ are uncaring and uninspiring or inefficient or corrupt…out they go. Booted out, that is, by the democratic decision of the whole staff collective. And leaving them the chance to do better. Though ‘better’ in this case would mean, to be more caring, more efficient, more decent, better organised, etc. Not to make more profit for the already rich bosses, as ‘better’ is measured now.

But perhaps most important of all, “lack of meaningful work”. In this survey 31% of people, which is a large slice, said they found their work lacked meaning. In many other studies the % is far higher than that. The NY Times article indicated that: “More broadly, just 30 percent of employees in America feel engaged at work, according to a 2013 report by Gallup. Around the world, across 142 countries, the proportion of employees who feel engaged at work is just 13 percent. For most of us, in short, work is a depleting, dispiriting experience, and in some obvious ways, it’s getting worse.”

So the majority of people feel their work lacks meaning, and a large slice think its pointless. Also, studies commonly find that people are willing to get less money if the work is more meaningful: “According to a 2017 survey of over 2,000 workers by BetterUp Labs, a San Francisco-based leadership development platform, 9 out of 10 career professionals told researchers that they would sacrifice 23 percent of their future earnings — an average of $21,000 a year — for “work that is always meaningful.”

And how can work be made more meaningful? By ending capitalism, naturally! Because, again, it’s the capitalist system that holds most people down in meaningless jobs that have no point other than to make profit for rich elites. Jobs that give little chance to do something interesting, to learn, to be creative, to invent new ways and to investigate ideas. Capitalism fools us into thinking it provides all that, but for the vast majority of us, it simply does not. And it also take control of their working lives away from at least 80% of us; or even more, depending on how we define various terms.

But a BESS has as a key aspect the fact that staff control their own workplaces, and that control is the crux of how we create a sense of meaningful work. We decide for ourself what we work on, and why and how and when. That is how we make work meaningful. Even difficult and dirty and annoying work can become meaningful if we feel the reason for doing it is important and valued…and that we ourselves are doing it the way we think it needs done. The non profit group DEMOCRACY AT WORK is a great place to learn more about the vision of: “…democratizing workplaces as part of a systemic solution.”

So, let’s make the Great Resignation into the Great Transformation, and get to work on something worth doing.

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