Hard work doesn’t build character.
From day one of our childhoods, we are taught that hard work, frugality, and obedience to authority will bring us prosperity and build up character. This is often based on the desire to achieve the good old American dream. It is a pretty image. One in which we contribute to society and get rewarded in the process. This, however, doesn’t feel the case anymore. People are increasingly feeling like their jobs are getting them nowhere, and when we are told to work harder, it can feel like we are treated more as work horses rather than human beings. Your worth is almost what your last paycheck is.
What you feel is a very valid feeling. Real wages have been stagnant for decades, and we are told to just work harder, and it will build the character necessary to earn that American Dream we were promised as children. Work has gotten increasingly alienating and now, a lot of us are working two jobs with practically no feeling of reward. Let us talk about why you may feel this way.
The Cult of Productivity
Joan Westenberg notes in her popular essay “fuck the cult of productivity”:
“We live in a world that worships at the altar of productivity. From the moment we wake up to the sound of our alarm clocks, to the final emails we send before collapsing into bed, we are caught in an endless cycle of tasks, deadlines, and expectations.” [2]
She is saying that our lives are becoming increasingly dominated by work. We are constantly under pressure to produce, produce, produce. This is rammed into us as children as we are constantly doing homework, being made to do certain activities during and after school that may not feel enriching like state tests, and constantly seeing overworked, underpaid teachers sometimes forgetting something important. As adults, we tend to lose ourselves in the process of work because we feel like we don’t get anything out of it. In essence, we become our jobs rather than individual human beings.
This takes a lot of things away from us. We start forgetting who we are as people. We yell at our spouses saying something like, “I slave all day at work, and I got to come home to this?!” or even be so tired that we just pass out in bed once we get home, and then get back up to work again. This gets to the point where our own ideas of second nature just become us. We internalize this, but also, we feel like we are being told by some force that produces misery. Some force that feels like a dictator, rather than a supportive person. There is a theory which might explain why you feel like your work doesn’t matter which was developed almost two centuries ago. It comes from a very polarizing intellectual.
Alienation from your labor
In his 1844 economic and philosophical manuscripts, Karl Marx described work as a fundamental part of the human experience. We work to get wages, contribute to society, and even feel good about ourselves in the process. Work can develop who we are as human beings. So why do we feel like our jobs will sometimes not really produce who we want to be? Why are we working so many hours when we either make more than enough to make ends meet but must keep producing, or maybe even work long hours just to pay the bills to live?
In our capitalist economy, there are two different people in an economic interaction. There is the owner of a factory (the capitalist or employer) who controls the means of production, and the worker (the employee) who is without their own means of production and must sell their labor to a capitalist. The capitalists will get as much out of their workers as possible for as low of a wage they can get away with. Even as few work conditions as possible. The worker wants the opposite of these things. The workers and capitalists are diametrically opposing forces. The latter unfortunately has the upper hand in many ways.
Because the means of production are owned by a single individual, they not only have access to a large pool of workers to replace you, but also through wealth accumulation, can build up enough material advantage to not be beaten. Workers subject themselves to higher costs because they must, otherwise, they starve, which isn’t a voluntary process. The coercion makes you want to endure anything such as a being pressured to work harder, having a boss harass you if you’re a female employee, or perhaps even just be fired for no apparent reason.
Why do people tolerate this sort of thing?
The usual excuses given by workers
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires” -John Steinbeck
When we were kids, we were told our whole lives that if you worked hard, did as you are told, if you’re religious you would exalt the lord (the old protestant work ethic), then success will come your way. If you hate someone yelling over your back, why don’t you just become a capitalist yourself? It is always a sort of two-way dynamic. Either you suck it up or work or become the dominator or in this case a capitalist.
First let us respond to the idea that you should do as you’re told at work. It is often based on the idea that if you just show up and say, “can I have a job please?” and you get the job. Kind of like what our grandparents used to do at the cheese factory or maybe even Kodak. Unfortunately, no one does this anymore. You must have an advanced degree with very specific credentials. Almost none of them have ever worked on the floor where they manage the employees. New hires are usually subject to grueling application processes like those interview tests and background checks. Our grandparents were subject to this kind of stuff and boomers need to stop suggesting the walk-in. You can say that maybe you should switch jobs but that doesn’t really help the situation now does it?
Now let’s respond to the dominator idea. The cost of starting a business can be astronomical if you don’t have the adequate resources to get into the market. Enterprises need land, labor, money, and resources to operate, and many businesses fail within the first few years because of financial hurdles that they cannot overcome. If one saves up enough money, they can overcome any small competition that comes at them. Imagine if we are playing a series of monopoly games where the winner gets to keep 25% of their earnings for the next game. Within the first few games, it could be anyone’s game. If there is a really good player (in this case a businessperson), they would be able to use their monetary resources to the point where the winner is almost guaranteed to win, and the loser will almost always lose. Don’t give me that whole ma and pa story thing either because I don’t want to hear about it. They’re all gone anyway. I have done a paper against meritocracy which you can read here:
-insert meritocracy is another form of autocracy-
These sorts of conversations always end up either with survivor bias of some sort, or maybe that you just deserve your fate. Really? So, if someone ended up a slave, did that person deserve to be a slave? There is a reason why we tend to call the employer/employee relationship wage slavery. If someone were to just become a capitalist, then shouldn’t a slave just enslave their master? A good book I would recommend reading is The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi, but self-sustaining markets are just a utopian fantasy that ignores human nature and an individual’s connection to society. The reason this society even exists is because we give adherence to it. We can do better as a species.
How can we do better as a species?
Empowering work builds character
As I have said earlier, work can make us better people. We are contributing to society and learning how to become individuals. We do, however, need empowering work. Work that can give us management over our own lives. I encourage what is called empowering work.
When we revolted from the divine right of the kings, we decided we didn’t want to be under an autocratic ruler. We wanted to be our own rulers. We don’t tolerate the kings in our political lives, why should we tolerate them in our economic enterprises?
What we propose is to make the division of labor from a corporatocratic division of labor to a democratic division. Why do we partake in political democracy today? Because we feel included in the decision-making process. We all get a hand in making the rules and are empowered to bring about change (yes representative democracy is flawed). In our current set-up, it is the owner of enterprises which make all the decisions. It can feel very degrading, can’t it? So, what do we propose instead?
The workers will have self-management and job balancing to promote empowering work. When we all have as equal a hand in possible in our work, it will wish to empower us even more to do good work. As time goes on, and we acquire more skills, we can be rewarded with even more work and thus, can be paid better. We should all be paid for the intensity of our work. A Democratic division of labor can help us decide what power any supervisor which may come about potentially have. We also have a lot more power over our own end. What the duties and work conditions can be like. What our pay should be also, which again, should be attached to the intensity of our work but it is also negotiated. Also finally, what to do with the surplus (known to capitalists as profit) attained from work.
Available data already suggests that worker cooperatives are more robust, efficient with resources (which will be important in an era of dwindling resources), resilient to price shock, and workers tend to be happier. Workplace democracy is very much doable. You can also join and form unions which provide a counterbalance to the capitalist domination. Being able to improve your conditions is always possible.
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to clap, follow, and share so that everyone can read my message. My email is derekhudley@gmail.com if you wish to contact me!
Sources:
[2] https://medium.com/@joanwestenberg/fuck-the-cult-of-productivity-49617d18ffaf
