Human work

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from Ken Zimmerman

Human work/employment/work relations are complex. In terms of muscular or nervous effort there is no distinction between agreeable and irksome activities, or between those undertaken for pleasure and those undertaken for pay. In many instances severe physical labor, combined with hardship and exposure are undertaken for pleasure by tourists, who even hire and pay guides, for example mountain climbing. Similarly, athletic sports, though often arduous are both professions and undertaken for recreation. A multitude of occupations ordinarily pursued for gain (compensation)–woodworking, gardening, painting, acting—are also pursued by many persons for the satisfaction involved with performing them. However, the greater part of the activity which humans pursue in attaining a living does not give pleasure. The chief reason seems to be that activity, in order to be effective toward attaining a living, must be steady, unvaried, and long-continued; and it must be, in an important sense, not free. The characteristic of most activities that are sources of pleasure in themselves is the element of freshness or novelty, and the absence of compulsion.

A portion of humans may find pleasurable the work they are obliged to perform. But research indicates that most work today is performed for the compensation it brings, and for no other reason. The economists tell us the compensation given is proportionate to the work performed. That work is dubbed irksome by most humans is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that a central problem of work, as defined since the industrial revolution is the conflict over “irksome work” and remuneration for such work.

But there is another view of work in western history. That view interprets work as a blessing and a source of cheerfulness and pride. Work is not a curse or a punishment. The ideal society is a land of Cockaigne, where all things come by nature and the need to work has vanished. A society in which there is satisfying work available for everybody. Work is the only sure route to human happiness, bringing health, contentment, and personal fulfilment. Work fulfills human life and provides inspiration.

Classical, then neoclassical, then neoliberal economists adopted the work is a curse view. That if possible, all humans who could would avoid it. Over 300 years they’ve spread this view as far as they could in the western world. Forced it on that world. This view has proven beneficial to western elites, including large capitalists and the wealthy; very detrimental for everyone else. In this view, the laboring classes worked only out of necessity. To avoid starvation, or to acquire additional goods that they coveted for their practical utility or as a means of keeping ahead of their neighbors. Without either stick or carrot, the inertial force of human indolence would surely reassert itself. In these terms, could time not working ever be a positive thing? But this view is now so ingrained, taken-for-granted in western societies that even so-called “liberals” can’t escape seeing work in its terms. For that reason (and others) proposals like those made in New York always provoke strong opposition. As the Republicans in Congresses express it, only those who work deserve social services, access to education, or citizenship. Even if those so described are disabled or caring for disabled persons or small children. Truthfulness of Republicans is always an uncertainty, for me. Whether these are honest sentiment, or simply a cover for serving the interests of their wealthy patrons and political comrades is a question we must continually ask.

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