HOW JOBS DESTROY WORK (PART THREE) by EXTROPIA DaSILVA OVERWORK
HOW JOBS DESTROY WORK (PART THREE) by EXTROPIA DaSILVA OVERWORK
Overwork is something that does not exist in nature. When wage labour is described as a form of slavery people sometimes object by pointing out that working is simply an unavoidable fact of life. Even if nobody had a boss telling them what to do, nature herself would demand that we labour to secure the necessities of life. A glance at all the activity going on with wildlife- herbivores foraging, carnivores hunting, birds building nests, bees making honey and so on and so forth- lends weight to the argument that a living has to be earned.
But nature differs from something like capitalism or socialism in that it demands only that you do the bare minimum required to sustain your lifestyle. To illustrate what I mean, imagine that there are these bears that need to catch five salmon per day. Now, depending on how bountiful salmon are in their habitat, the bears may have to work hard to obtain their daily quota. Let’s face it, some environments are harsh and it is a challenge to make a living in such places. But let’s imagine that these lucky bears live by a river teeming with salmon, and that it takes ten or so minutes for each bear to catch its daily quota. Just ten or so minutes of work a day (perhaps less if they are really proficient at catching fish) and the bears are done. No need to ‘look busy’, nature is not concerned about about you maintaining an illusion of working once your actual work is done. The bears are free to spend the rest of their time on other pursuits.
In case this all sounds like a fairytale, I would point out a remark made by Hans Moravec:
“In a good climate and location, the hunter-gatherers’ lot can be pleasant indeed. An afternoon’s outing picking berries or catching fish- what we civilized types would recognize as a recreational weekend- provides life’s needs for several days. The rest of the time can be spent with children, socialising, or simply resting”.
Again, I am not saying that life in a state of nature is always this easy, but the point is that whether securing the bare necessities of life is easy or hard, nature requires only that you do the bare minimum needed to sustain your lifestyle. No more.
HERE COMES THE BOSS…
Now let’s return to those bears. Imagine that a couple of more bears arrive, announcing that the river and everything in it is no longer the common heritage of all bears but is instead the private property of just these two. Furthermore, no other bear will receive so much as a mouthful of food unless they each bring those- let’s call them ‘boss bears’- a thousand fish per day. Remember, that each bear previously needed to catch only five fish each per day in order to maintain their lifestyle. Now, thanks to the demands of these boss bears, they all have to do a hell of a lot more labouring just to survive and the vast bulk of the profit earned from this work goes not to them, but to the boss bears.
What I have just described is what can happen under hierarchical class-based systems, of which ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are prime examples. Under such systems, people are generally divided up into two classes: Owners on one hand and workers on the other. The owner-classes (private owners under capitalism, State bureaucrats under socialism) are so called because they own the means of mass-production: The factories, banks, shopping malls and so on. They own the means of production, get most of the rewards of production, but are under no obligation to contribute to the production itself.
This is where the working classes come in. Traditionally, they were so-named because they owned next to nothing except their own labour power. Today, thanks to the incredible advances in productivity I mentioned earlier, people who are considered poor have achieved a level of material prosperity that would count them among the well-off of previous generations. This might lead some to conclude that the working classes are much freer now than they once were, but as we shall see ‘consumerism’ can be used to entrap people, leaving them with little choice but to keep labouring, mostly for the benefit of the owner classes.
WHAT EMPLOYEES ARE REALLY ENTITLED TO
It is also commonly assumed that the working classes are free precisely because they own their labour power. But we need to understand precisely what that means under a capitalist system. It does not mean that the working classes have a right to a job; it means that they have the right to remove their labour from a job. There is no obligation on the part of any particular employer to hire any particular member of the working classes, or to keep them on the books once hired.
‘The right to remove their labour’ is what is supposed to make the world of difference between employment and slavery. Under slavery, a person can be the private property of another person, who has the power to make them work any amount of hours, and may even kill them if they feel like it. The right to own your own labour power, and to terminate your employment, surely means the working classes are now free, right?
Well, no. Not if you factor in economic coercion, which was illustrated in a comedy routine by Steve Hughes.
Hughes (roleplaying two former slave owners): “I mean, look, we’ve got to look after these fuckers. We’ve got to clothe them, we’ve got to feed them, they get sick we’ve got to fix them, got to give them somewhere to live. I’ve worked it out: We can just give them two-fifty an hour and tell them to fuck off.“That’s brilliant. Right! You lot are free to go. We’ll see you back here at 7:30 tomorrow morning!”.
What Hughes is getting at is that if most of the world’s resources are the private property of a relative few, they can deny others from accessing those resources unless they ‘agree’ to whatever terms and conditions they make up. The working classes are in a situation where they must perpetually hire their labour, and under certain conditions the competitive nature of the jobs market can result in a race to the bottom as the working classes outbid one another with longer hours and fewer rewards. That is not to say that such an outcome is inevitable but it is a very probable outcome in a world that sees the purpose of business as being concerned only with making profit for the owners, with the workers reduced to commodities from whom maximum productivity must be squeezed.
Furthermore, in America we increasingly see businesses refusing to employ the unemployed, a tactic which coerces workers into submitting to employment even if they have saved sufficient funds to pay for an extended vacation. After all, if, when the money begins to run out you are cut off from any means to replenish your funds, you are screwed. Better keep punching in that clock card!
Coming up in part four: Paternalism and Lean-and-mean models of employment.
Note, this essay was not written by me. This essay was written by a pseudo-anonymous author Extropia Dasilva who has given me permission to introduce her writings to the Steemit community on her behalf.
References
Yes, consumerism spread by mass media is a tool of manipulation. We don't really need most of the things we think we need. I am trying to lower my expenses and use the saved money to support my freedom and independence from classic job providers.
Oh man, I feel the upside of this message strumming my heartstrings. I had all the ingredients of the good old "American Dream," complete with a master's degree, and yet I could not find work that satisfied my soul for the longest time. Eventually, by divine intervention, my wife and I followed our hearts into an independent film project that saved our lives. Literally! Finally, we found success in the world. My modernization of the white picket fence of the old American Dream is now the complete absence of a fence: an open field where imagination and passion allow us to freely live.
Excellent points! I feel like I am running around all day on a hampster wheel all day......
Why does the 1% control 99% of all wealth...... :( maybe Steemit will change that for me.
It's more like 7% control 83% of the wealth. But I get the point...
You are right but that is still really high.
@dana-edwards Ok so it's not torrid stories of addiction and drug abuse, but does @stellabelle know you've stolen secret-writer? :D
In all seriousness though, you should invite this person to steemit, they seem fascinating and extremely thought provoking.
Oh as an aside, I'm creating a human version of one of your blog posts with my latest blog. You should check it out when you get a minute.
Keep up the great work, quality content as always, here's another upvote from me!
Are you saying that you suspect @dana-edwards of taking this article off somebody's blog without permission?
@florentina No! I'm sending a wink and a nudge to someone I consider a kindred spirit.
I'm also saying @dana-edwards evidently has a social network of very compelling authors and I'd very much like to hear more from them. Ergo please invite them to steemit.
The part about her stealing secret writer was a joke. @dana-edwards and @stellabelle are good friends, and both highly accomplished writers on this platform with their own niche's.
While secret writer is anonymous stories of of the "confessional" type. What dana is doing here is secret writers of the the "insightful and thought provoking" type.
I like @dana-edwards to me, she's a genius of the highest order.
You touched on a very interesting topic! I'm generally against physical labor! operate only brains!
Maybe this boss bear is really smart and teaches the other bears to build tools to catch the needed five salmons in only half the time. Then he should be rewarded with extra salmon for himself. That's what capitalism is actually.
Your psuedo-anonymous author associate sounds quite anarchist. I very much enjoyed this piece, so thanks to her. I would posit that hierarchical structures are directly responsible for the problems of the world, throughout history.
there's a fourth part? with your personal thoughts @dana-edwards ? 8]
There are ten parts in total.
Hmm I would like to see how that would work out. Thinking that everyone would be happy with just 5 fish a day and laying in the sun for the rest of the time.
You do realize that you can already do this, if that is all you want out of life. get a fishing pole and go live on a beach somewhere and be happy.
Most people actually want a little more than that out of life, so yes you need to figure out a way to earn the rest of what you want.
There is always the option of being your own boss. Maybe people should quit blaming everyone else for their unhappiness and look up the definition of personal responsibility.
Make the life you want for yourself.
The point isn't that everyone would be happy but rather that animals (including humans in hunter-gatherer societies) have work but they do not have jobs. The difference being this: Work is when the productive activity is performed primarily for your own benefit. True, the work may be hard, it may be dreary, but to the worker goes all the reward. A job is when your productive activity almost entirely benefits somebody else. Capitalism's insatiable desire for more profit can lead to situations in which the individual is coerced into doing more labour than is strictly necessary (for yourself that is. The business you are employed for might say it is necessary that they squeeze as much value out of their employees as the law or the limits of human endurance permit.) This tends not to happen in a state of nature: No animal has to do more work than necessary to sustain itself (although maybe those infected with parasites do?).
Living on a beach is fine until some multinational company buys it up, puts a factory up on the site and kicks you off.
While I agree that too many employers exist that only care about profit, I truly believe there are many small business owners who take pride in providing a good paying job to their employees. They do this in part because they truly care for their employees (they are not all evil). They also do it because they know that their products and services will be better quality if their employees are happy.
Interesting example with the bears that only have to catch five fish per day until the boss bears come along. However, I think that in a truly capitalist society the bears would fight for their right to continue to fish as they always have. If that doesn't work they can probably find a different river to fish with equal or greater success.
So it is with jobs. If you are working for a business that doesn't value you and your contributions with fair pay, figure out how to perform better or get your ass up and walk out the door. Find a company that will reward you for your hard work, skills and dedication.
Hi. I am the person who wrote this essay. You are correct in saying not all businesses treat their employees badly. The point of these series of essays is not to condemn capitalism but to explain how in some cases people come to have negative feelings about their job. You say people should figure out how to perform better but in later instalments I talk about executive practices that punish employees no matter how well they perform. For example: Corporate raiders busting up companies and 'downsizing' the staff even though said company was perfectly viable. And walking out of the door is not really an option for those who are one pay check away from being in serious financial trouble.
But like you said not all employers are evil. I am thinking of doing an essay or maybe series of essays on the subject of 'The Good Guys' who built up businesses that are great places to work.
@extie-dasilva Excellent work! Glad to meet you!
Thanks for your response. Again, I agree that there are issues, especially in the large corporations. I will be interested in reading about the corporate raiders, that sounds like a serious issue. I do wonder how common of an issue that is. I suppose you will shed some light on that.
Please forgive me if my comment came across as insensitive. I too have been in positions where walking out the door without a solid plan would have been disastrous. Too many people are in that situation for a variety of reasons, including these employment issues we are discussing and the high levels of debt in our society. I personally have had to work very hard for a long time and exercise a lot of self discipline to improve my financial situation.
I would not advocate just walking out the door without a plan. I am always working behind the scenes to improve myself. I think the solutions to most of my problems are found inside me. I don't see a lot of value in the finger pointing. Not saying that's what you're doing but that is just my philosophy.
I would also love to read about the good guys.
Thanks again for your thoughtful work!