This is a year where many of us in the Creative Class, who thought of ourselves as Talent, found they were just Labor.
That’s what the sudden move to AI in tech has meant. Programmers without specific AI skills became fungible. Get your ass in the office. Get your ass out the door. While this was hapening, people in what had been an academic backwater watch the Brinks truck roll up.
For many, it was a shocking comedown. The reverberations have yet to be fully felt.
The difference between being considered Labor and Talent is subjective. There are millions of capable restaurant managers, and even restaurant chain managers out there, anonymous and salaried. But Brian Niccol, who saw success at Chipotle, putting it on its feet, is considered talent by Starbucks.
CEOs all consider themselves to be Talent. They all consider the people working under them, except perhaps for a few lieutenants, to be Labor. Talent gets all the money and all the perks. Labor can be turned in and out when the winds change.
There have been times in my career where I was considered Talent. I earned big money, got a travel allowance, and was treated as special when I showed up at the office. But for most of my 46 year career I have been Labor and knew it. It’s a specialized form of Labor, being able to discern trends from news and tell stories. It’s what I do.
My Talent is my Labor.
We’re All Labor
What I’ve finally realized is that we’re all Labor.
Talent is a label. We put it on Labor that is attractive to Capital.
But Labor that works on Capital isn’t necessarily Talent, even when it pretends to be.
Everything depends on how much Capital your Labor can bring back.
Take away the money thrown in for tickets and music and gewgaws, and Taylor Swift is just a woman with a guitar, much like my niece Bridgette. The “Talent” is an economic concept, nothing more.
Capital will always pay as little for Labor as it can get away with. Capital feels no responsibility toward Labor, or the laborer. This includes that Labor that’s 
considered Talent. This includes the Labor handling the Capital. A week ago, Laxman Narasimhan was Talent. Now he’s Labor. You may complain about his big severance package but it’s ‘go away’ money to a former laborer. It’s a bribe for him not to sue them for wrongful termination in violation of his contract.
Once we realize we’re all Labor, no matter whether the market perceives us as Talent, a lot of blinders fall from our eyes. We stop being competitors and become allies, we drop the class warfare and become citizens. Ask not what wealth can do for you, but what it can do for your country.
It’s a realization that’s been around for 250 years. Adam Smith himself believed wealth would incline the wealthy toward the common good. It didn’t. It still doesn’t. It’s up to democracy to change that. Nothing else will work.
