The Human Element: What Tolstoy Can Teach Us About Modern Workforce Retention
“They were mowing slowly over the uneven, low-lying parts of the meadow, where there had been an old dam. Levin recognized some of his own men. Here was old Yermil in a very long white smock, bending forward to swing a scythe; there was a young fellow, Vaska, who had been a coachman of Levin's, taking every row with a wide sweep. Here, too, was Tit, Levin's preceptor in the art of mowing, a thin little peasant. He was in front of all, and cut his wide row without bending, as though playing with the scythe.
…
Levin took his place behind Vaska and began to mow. The first row seemed very hard work to him. But when the row was finished, and Tit, wiping his scythe with a handful of grass, began to whet it, Levin looked back at the row he had cut and felt very happy. He was happy because he had got through it so well, and had not lagged behind the peasants.”
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy’s description of the peasants clearing fields transports contemporary readers to a time with a different economic system and division of labor. Although beautifully rustic, their lives were replete with great economic uncertainty and hard labor.
The Friction of "Progress"
Prior to putting himself in their shoes in the excerpt above, Levin had observed the lack of enthusiasm the peasants displayed for the newfangled mechanical agricultural equipment that had suddenly showed up on the scene.
Levin juxtaposed his personal experience working alongside the peasants with the breathless description of a farming revolution espoused by his own brother—whose attitude mirrors that of today’s tech leaders when speaking about our own futures.
Comparing the days of serfdom and peasantry to today, we can see that our lives are leisurely in comparison:
We have stable employment.
We enjoy improved nutrition.
We experience an astonishingly high standard of living.
Looking at cancer rates, urbanization, and pervasive economic disparity, however, we can see much has been both gained and lost—while other things have stayed exactly the same.
The Sinuous Path of Progress
Humanity’s trek from an agrarian to an industrial to a technological society has shown that the number and diversity of jobs has increased along with the standard of living. Yet, at each step, there was trepidation and claims that the end was nigh.
What can we take from this?
In the book, where most saw mechanization as the primary avenue through which to improve productivity, Levin and the peasants saw that humanity still had a central role in the increase of agricultural production—while simultaneously improving the land and the station in life of every man.
Why We Are Betting on Humanity
In such a time, Retention Insights has chosen to build a software for humans. Our software represents a bet on humanity. While progress will not be linear nor pain-free, we know that humanity’s best days are ahead as we stumble along the sinuous path of progress.
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