PBS looks ahead to ‘Future of Work’

Work we must. Must we? PBS launches the thoughtful four-part series “Future of Work” (10 p.m., TV-PG, check local listings), examining current technological trends that disrupted long-held ideas about jobs, income, independence and the ability of individuals to provide for themselves and their loved ones.

COVID and the rise of remote office work has received a great deal of attention, but these trends have been long in coming. “Work” visits with an oil field worker who found a hard job with good wages and felt confident enough to buy his first home before the market went south and he was let go. How can a society function when this man’s experience is multiplied a millionfold?

Another oil worker sees wind turbines as the field of the future. Sleek and high-tech from a distance, these towers are dangerous to maintain, requiring climbs of hundreds of feet.

In addition to the perils, the fast-changing technology demands that workers educate themselves continually. The notion, long ingrained, that you could go to school, get a job and keep it for decades with the same level of education has essentially vanished. As the most recent jobs crunch has shown, jobs are available, but go unfilled for lack of skilled workers. How does society address this knowledge gap?

Anyone who has ever driven on an interstate knows that trucks and truckers are a vital part of the economy. What happens when that sector of the economy is replaced with self-driving vehicles? How do those displaced drivers earn a living? What of the restaurants that fed them and the roadside motels and hotels that put them up at night? It’s been said that the interstate system has a population and an economy equal and surpassing many states. Are we ready to see it depopulated and reduced to a robot thoroughfare?

And what about the psychic and spiritual impact of so many people without work? Elon Musk, an evangelist of robotics, has been encouraging a guaranteed basic income. How will this sit with people who attach a sense of virtue to their work and their role as breadwinners?

Can society adapt? It has before. For hundreds of years, Americans saw thrift as a near-religious virtue and debt as a destructive force. A half-century of credit card culture changed that. Public lotteries and casinos changed attitudes toward gambling. Divorce was similarly taboo, a moral failing associated with decadent movie stars. In the early 1960s, Elizabeth Taylor was condemned by the pope for making a mockery of marriage. Twenty years later, former movie star Ronald Reagan became the first divorced man to win the White House and he did so with the support of the most conservative religious elements.

Times change and technology advances. Just how will the future of work impact the evolution of American society? Something to ponder as we approach Labor Day.

› A veteran of the rodeo uses social media to teach folks about his way of life in the new series “How to Be A Cowboy,” streaming on Netflix.