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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Is work a primordial curse? Or a spiritual calling? Or is it a tedious necessity that technology will abolish, freeing us to indulge lives of leisure? In this book David A. Spencer argues that work is only an alienating burden because of the nature of work under capitalism. He makes the case not for the abolition of work - which can remain a source of meaning and dignity - but for its lightening. Engaging with thinkers ranging from Marx and William Morris to Keynes and Graeber, he rejects the idea that high-quality work can only be open to a few while the majority are condemned to menial tasks, and sets out an agenda for shortening the working week while also making work a site of creativity, usefulness and joy for all. This erudite book sets out a compelling agenda for radical change. It's essential reading for anyone interested in the future of their work.
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Work, work, work
Notes
2 Meanings of Work
The curse of work
The virtue of work
Work and alienation
Work as art
Work beyond work
Notes
3 The (Lost) Dream of Working Less
In the long run, we will all work shorter hours
The never-ending story of work
Power matters
Demanding work
The benefits of working less
Notes
4 Realities of Work: From Bullshit Jobs to Good Work
Bullshit jobs
The ills of work
The costs of unemployment
The quality of work
Notes
5 Demanding Better Work for All
Choosing the work we want
The illusion of free choice
Adapting to adversity
Power trumps efficiency
The human costs of low-quality work
Equalizing the distribution of high-quality work
Justice in work
Notes
6 Automation and a World without Work
Machine dreams
Technology, automation and the quality of work
A lament for work
Automating drudgery
Ownership matters
Notes
7 Working for Change
The limits to growth
Crisis capitalism
Beyond full employment
Income support
Working less is more
Reimagining work
Notes
8 Conclusion
Making light work
Notes
References
Index
End User License Agreement
Table
Chapter 3
Table 1
Average usual weekly hours worked, full-time employment, 1983 and 2019 (OECD)
Table 2
Annual hours actually worked by workers, inclusive of full-time and part-time, …
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Begin Reading
References
Index
End User License Agreement
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Making Light Work
An End to Toil in the Twenty‑First Century
David A. Spencer
polity
Copyright © David A. Spencer 2022
The right of David A. Spencer to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2022 by Polity Press
Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press101 Station LandingSuite 300Medford, MA 02155, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-4864-4
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2021941123
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website:politybooks.com
Dedication
For Deborah, Polly and Florence
Acknowledgements
This book has benefitted from the inputs of a number of people. I would like to thank the following who contributed to the ideas in the book with conversations, comments and advice: Andrew Brown, John Budd, Felix Fitzroy, Robert Skidelsky and Gary Slater.
I have gained from working with Matt Cole, Chris Forde, Simon Joyce, Chris McLachlan, Mark Stuart and Xanthe Whittaker on different research projects and from participating in the ESRC Digital Futures at Work Research Centre.
I wrote this book while Head of the Economics Division at Leeds University Business School. Thanks to colleagues in the Division and School for their support.
I would also like to thank the students I have taught. Those on my third-year undergraduate module ‘The Political Economy of Work’ have proved a particular source of insight and inspiration. I am grateful to be in a position where I can teach ideas that derive from my own research and for the opportunity to engage with such great students.
George Owers at Polity provided important encouragement and constructive criticism throughout all stages of the book. The comments of three anonymous reviewers were also helpful in improving the contents of the book. Fiona Sewell provided valuable copy-editing.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Deborah, and my daughters, Polly and Florence. The book has meant long periods of self-isolation and some personal struggle. Thank you, Deborah, Polly and Florence, for always being there and for lightening my life.
1Introduction
I don’t like work – no man does – but I like what is in the work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself not for others – what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)
Work, work, work
Work is an obligation that very few of us can avoid. Work is what we do to earn wages. It provides the means for us to live. In modern society, we cannot escape work without facing some material hardship. The lack of work is associated with distress mainly because it is linked to the loss of income. Most of us work, in this respect, because we have to, not because we necessarily want to.
But work is also an activity that means something to us. We value certain aspects of the work we do and sometimes work longer than we need to. While many of us lament the time work takes and the restrictions it places on our lives, we also find reasons to keep working that are independent of the income that work brings. Work has a hold over us, even while it remains something we have to perform.
Various examples confirm this fact. Lottery winners keep on working when they can afford to stop. John Doherty, from Renfrewshire, Scotland, won a £14m lottery jackpot in 2016, but decided to continue his job as a plumber. Asked why he wanted to continue working despite having the money not to, he replied that he would be bored staying at home and did not want to let down his loyal customers.1
Those nearing retirement worry about the prospect of not working. Indeed, many retired people miss their former jobs and often seek a return to paid work. In addition, many people volunteer to work in their communities – tasks that attract payment in the formal economy are undertaken for free. Finally, the unemployed strive to work for reasons beyond the need for income.
The positive features of work encompass not just the opportunity to interact socially but also the scope to develop and use valued skills and to gain self-esteem. Work matters because it offers the potential for activity that enables us to be and do things in our lives that we value. We work for pay, but we also seek other things in work that add to our well-being.
Of course, in reality, work often falls short of our expectations and needs. Work can be – and frequently is – a burden and source of pain in itself. Its costs extend not just to the lack of opportunity for progress in work but also to the exposure to mind-numbing work activities. We rightly deplore sweatshops not only because they are linked to chronic low pay but also because they are associated with harsh and life-limiting work conditions. The deprivations of work, in this case, challenge our views about what work should be like.
Money matters, again, to the extent that it can buy us freedom from bad work. The richer a person is, the less likely she is to work in a sweatshop. The benefit of a lottery win is that it buys us the freedom to quit our present jobs if we dislike or hate them. But winning the lottery also creates the potential to undertake different and more pleasurable work – it appeals to the idea of working better, not quitting work altogether.2 For some retired people, with the safety net of a pension, there is the option to choose work that is satisfying – perhaps to a greater extent than the kinds that were undertaken before retirement.
Nonetheless, beyond money, all of us have a craving and need for work that matches with our potential and meets our innermost desires. Our participation in voluntary work indicates how we desire work for intrinsic reasons. Indeed, voluntary work may offer compensation for the lack of enjoyment we derive from paid work. Unemployment, too, for all its material costs, is harmful partly because it deprives us of the opportunity to gain the direct benefits of work. Some of the fear associated with unemployment derives from a concern about the negative experience of a life without work.
Work, in short, has meaning in itself. In the present, it might be undertaken to pay the bills and service outstanding debt. But it is also an activity that shapes us – for good and for ill – and it remains an activity that we care about, even when it does not necessarily allow us to live well.
This book is concerned with the different roles that work can, does and should play in human life. In the book, I reflect on how modern work, in its myriad forms, prevents well-being. I am clear that work is a problem in contemporary society. I support the argument that work is harmful to the lives of many people. I also actively support the view that work exerts a too dominant influence in human life and that we should strive, as a society, to work less. I back, for example, the case for a shorter working week – the reduction of work time should be a key demand of a progressive society. Yet, at the same time, I argue that work should be changed. The possibility of changing work – of lightening it, in a quantitative and qualitative sense – lies at the heart of this book and inspires the critical arguments made in support of reform in society.
The book engages with ideas from past and present literatures on work. The account is not necessarily exhaustive (e.g. it largely ignores consideration of forms of unpaid work). But it is, hopefully, useful and instructive in setting out some key areas of debate and controversy in the study of work. A distinctive aspect is the attention given to the costs as well as benefits of work, not as contingent features, but as system-wide outcomes. I make the point that capitalism, as a system, creates alienating forms of work. At the same time, however, I argue for change in the system of work, not just to negate alienation linked to work, but also to create the conditions for non-alienating work in the future. The goal of creating a different future of work – one where work is human, as opposed to an alienating activity – drives the arguments in the book.
Here I seek inspiration in the writings of some prominent critical thinkers, notably Karl Marx and William Morris. Marx’s ideas on the alienation of work under capitalism are relatively well known – however, as I will argue, his broader vision of negating work alienation and of returning meaning to work in a post-capitalist future have tended to be overlooked in debate, including in some radical circles. An aim of this book is to restate and revive this vision as part of a broader critical analysis of work.
William Morris – the nineteenth-century artist and socialist – is much less well known than Marx. Yet his writings on the costs of work and on the possibilities for recreating work beyond capitalism match with those of Marx. Indeed, Morris’s own thoughts on the present and future of society were directly inspired by Marx. I will draw on Morris’s ideas to show the scope for transforming work and creating a future society where meaning as well as pleasure can be returned to work.
Politically, the book sides with arguments that seek radical change. I argue against the view that capitalism is the end of history or the best of all possible systems. Instead, I put forward the argument for a world beyond capitalism. Following Marx and Morris, I see capitalism as a barrier, not just to more time away from work, but also to more rewarding and meaningful work. The agenda for change which the book supports aims to secure a society that enables everyone not only to work fewer hours, but also to work better. I argue that such a society cannot be realized while capitalism remains in place, and that a new system will be required to bring forth the forms of work and life that are compatible with wider goals of economic sustainability and human flourishing.
In writing this book, I am conscious of a number of recent books on the subject of work. These range from general histories of work (the idea and activity) through to direct critiques of work.3 Prominent in critical discourse are perspectives promoting a ‘post-work’ politics. These perspectives side with the view that work should be rejected and ultimately eliminated. They also feed broader narratives about the need to secure a post-capitalist future – one where we work as little as possible and enjoy our lives with a minimal exposure to work.4
Interest in work has also been fuelled by new debate on the progress of technology and the possibilities for automation. Several books now predict that work for wages will decline in the future.5 This decline is linked to rapid and seemingly unstoppable advances in new digital technologies. For some, there is the prospect of a ‘world without work’. This prospect is met with both fear and hope and is used to support alternative policy proposals. For example, it has led to calls for a ‘universal basic income’ (UBI) and a four-day work week.
I address critically contributions to the post-work literature as well as to the modern debate on automation and the future of work. I take an opposing position. In terms of post-work ideas, I argue for the transformation of work, as opposed to its negation. The idea of negating work betrays a lack of imagination about how work can be recreated in the future. On the topic of automation, I debate whether society would be better or worse off by using technology to replace human labour. Here I suggest that a progressive case for reform must embrace the goal of putting technology to use in reducing work hours while enhancing the quality of work. In this case, moves can and should be made to achieve both less and better work.
There are other notable aspects of the book. One aspect relates to the coverage of ideas. Given my background as an economist, there will be references to the economics literature. This reflects partly on how economics has influenced the wider understanding of work – in particular, economics has helped to promote an understanding of work as an instrumental activity that is performed mainly for money. Economics has also presented work as a cost and sought to elevate the benefits of higher consumption – in this respect, it has embedded an ideology in support of higher economic growth. I will take issue with this way of thinking about work and will point to the need to look beyond economics in understanding the meaning and role of work. Given my wider concern for interdisciplinary research, there will also be an integration of ideas from different disciplines and subject areas. Broadly, the book can be seen as a contribution to the development of a political economy approach to the study of work.
In a previous book, I developed ideas towards a political economy of work – in particular, I examined how ideas about work had evolved and changed in economics, both past and present.6 The present book pushes the debate a stage further, by examining how work might be studied differently and reimagined in the future.
This book is written at a time of crisis, not only of work, but of society in general. This crisis has been created by COVID-19. To be sure, work was not working for the majority before the onset of the pandemic. In the UK as well as the US, for example, problems of in-work poverty have coincided with issues of unequal pay and long work hours. But COVID-19 has magnified and deepened the problems of work, in part by adding to unemployment, but also by increasing workloads and creating new dangers for those in work. So-called ‘key workers’ (e.g. in health services) have felt particular pressure, being required to work excessive hours and under conditions that present direct harms to their health.
I recognize that COVID-19 has hit some groups more than others – minorities, for example, have faced a higher death toll, partly because of their exposure to jobs in which risks of harm have been higher. Women, too, have faced higher burdens of work (both unpaid and paid). The pandemic has revealed starkly the inequities in society and the unfitness of the present capitalist system as a means to meet our collective and individual needs.7
But I will suggest through the pages of this book that a different future can and must be created. Contemporary debates focus on ‘building back better’ – creating a better, more robust future.8 These debates can have a hollow ring, in the sense that they can cloak a call for the restoration of the same system that existed before COVID-19 struck – one that left society exposed to the pandemic once it hit. Rather, my argument is that the crisis must be a moment for critical reflection on the present and future of society – that is, it should lead us to question the current order of things and to build a different system where we can all live and work in ways that not only protect our health, but also enable us to carry out activities (including in work) that bring meaning and pleasure to our lives.
In promoting alternatives beyond the crisis, this book supports the idea and goal of lightening work. I argue that the crisis linked to COVID-19 has shown how work must be shared out in society and how lighter work for all is a laudable and potentially achievable goal. But I also argue that the crisis reminds us of how work should be improved upon in qualitative terms. We need to discuss what essential work is and how it is to be directed and organized in our workplaces. In essence, if a better future of work and life is to be achieved, then we must make strides to lighten work, in terms of both the hours it occupies in the day and the quality of experience it offers in our lives. This book, then, seeks to promote the lightening of work as a specific political demand.
The ideas in the book are outlined across several chapters. Chapter 2 examines different meanings of work. Here I highlight the error of seeing work as perpetually bad or good and instead argue for a more nuanced approach that links the costs and benefits of work activities to the actual system of work. In advancing this argument, I invoke the ideas of Marx and Morris, including those on the scope for reclaiming work as a creative and pleasurable activity. Their vision of transforming work into something positive in human life is one I endorse. Indeed, this vision inspires ideas in the rest of the book.
Chapter 3 asks why work hours have stayed long under capitalism and why the quantitative lightening of work has remained elusive. Focusing on J. M. Keynes’s famous 1930 essay, ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’, I examine the barriers to, and benefits of, working less. I defend the argument that work hours should be reduced in society and promote the vision of a future where shorter work hours add to the quality of work and life.
Chapter 4 discusses some realities of modern work. I assess critically David Graeber’s ‘bullshit jobs’ thesis and evaluate other approaches that defend and criticize work in society. This discussion culminates in support for an objective definition of the quality of work. I focus on how the nature and system of work can limit workers’ ability to meet their needs, and I emphasize the importance of structural reform in delivering higher-quality work.
Chapter 5 asks whether high-quality work can be made available to all. I show how some economic and ethical arguments endorse the restriction of high-quality work to a minority in society – in effect, contending that society should accept the inevitability of a world where some people (perhaps even the majority) do low-quality work. I refute these arguments. Instead, I build a case for extending to all workers the opportunity for high-quality work.
Chapter 6 examines modern debate on the possibilities for automation and labour-saving technology. This debate is increasingly influential in shaping opinions about the future of work – indeed, it has led to predictions of the demise of work. I strike a sceptical note, pointing out limits to automation in the present. I also highlight how notions of automation have been linked to understandings of the meaning of work and how these notions have driven alternative agendas for change (some more radical than others). I argue that the modern debate on automation needs to tackle issues of ownership if it is to see the full potential for changing work in the future.
Chapter 7 examines issues of policy and politics. I raise questions in relation to current growth-based policies, the objective of full employment and the implementation of a UBI. Instead, I set out an alternative reform agenda. The latter encompasses support for a four-day work week, but also returns to ideas found in Marx and Morris on the requirement to change the nature of work. Change here includes shifts in the goals of work as well as in the ownership of workplaces. The vision of work transformation drives the reform agenda I propose.
Chapter 8 sets out the key conclusions and contributions of the book. In particular, it reiterates how less and better work can be realized jointly in a society beyond capitalism. I also reflect on how, given the occurrence of repeated crises, change has become a much more urgent and necessary task – one that we should seek to promote and help to bring into being. Visions of ‘building back better’, I conclude, are only credible if they include a direct commitment to reduce work hours while securing work tasks that are meaningful and pleasurable in themselves.
Notes
1.
J. Chapelard, ‘Plumber Who Won £14 Million Lottery Jackpot Back at Work Fixing Toilets Two Days Later’,
Mirror
, 21 July 2016 (available at:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/plumber-who-won-14million-lottery-8462478
).
2.
Many lottery winners choose not to quit working, but rather to work fewer hours. The sense of work being something good in life and worth pursuing for its own sake seems to drive the decision to keep working. See, for example, the research findings reported in Picchio et al. (2018).
3.
For historical studies of the concept and activity of work, see John Budd’s
The Thought of Work
(Budd, 2011) and Andrea Komlosy’s
Work
(Komlosy, 2018). For different critical accounts of work, see Edward Granter’s
Critical Social Theory and the End of Work
(Granter, 2009), Kathi Weeks’s
The Problem with Work
(Weeks, 2011), Peter Fleming’s
The Mythology of Work
(Fleming, 2015), David Frayne’s
The Refusal of Work
(Frayne, 2015), David Graeber’s
Bullshit Jobs
(Graeber, 2018) and Josh Cohen’s
Not Working
(Cohen, 2018).
4.
See, for example, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams,
Inventing the Future
(Srnicek and Williams, 2015), Paul Mason,
Postcapitalism
(Mason, 2015) and Rutger Bregman,
Utopia for Realists
(Bregman, 2018).
5.
See, for example, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee,
The Second Machine Age
(Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014), Martin Ford,
The Rise of the Robots
(Ford, 2015) and Daniel Susskind,
A World Without Work
(Susskind, 2020).
6.
The Political Economy of Work
(Spencer, 2009).
7.
Marmot et al. (2020) discuss the uneven economic and social impacts of COVID-19 in the UK and propose a set of new reforms to ‘build back better’.
8.
On the ‘build back better’ agenda, see ‘OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19)’, OECD, 5 June 2020 (available at:
http://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/building-back-better-a-sustainable-resilient-recovery-after-covid-19-52b869f5
).
2Meanings of Work
All true Work is sacred.
Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (1843)
All of us do work, whether we like it or not. Work fills our time, our heads and our discussions about life. It defines who we are and who we are able to become. It affects our standing in society and our ability to live comfortably. It also creates pleasure for some and outright hostility for others.
But while we might take for granted the forms that work takes and bemoan or celebrate its character, the meaning of work has evolved through time. Work for wages, for example, only exists because of the presence of capitalism. The definition of ourselves through work also relies on certain ideas about what work means in society. These ideas have been subject to change and have drawn strength from wider beliefs about the role of work in economic reproduction and in the formation of human character.
Importantly, too, there has been controversy and dispute about the meanings attached to work. For some writers, work has appeared as just ‘work’ – an activity done for its material ends. Yet for others, work has been an activity with wider meaning and importance. Several critical writers, indeed, have seen in work the basis for a better life and the recreation of society. Political agendas for change have included a direct focus on work and have linked goals of freedom and justice to progress in the content and experience of work.
In this chapter, I focus on some influential ideas that have addressed the meanings of work. These ideas push in different directions, contesting work as well as praising it. They are also linked to specific ideologies about what form work should take. I highlight, in particular, views that see work as a curse and as a virtue. These views are associated with disparate thought, from economics to religion. I argue that they remain deficient in seeing work as all bad or all good – what they miss is the link between the system of work and the character of work itself and how change in the meaning of work is possible (and indeed necessary). In developing this argument, I draw on the idea of alienation (linked to the writings of Marx) and show how this idea can be used to develop a different understanding of work, both as it exists under capitalism and as it might exist in a future society. I also draw insight from the writings of William Morris.
The curse of work
The conception of work as something irksome and loathsome in itself has a long history. The ancient Greeks and Romans, for example, saw little value and benefit in work.1 They preached the virtues of a life where work was absent. ‘Free’ people led good lives by avoiding work, not embracing it. Work was imposed by necessity and was to be allocated to slaves. The indignity of work was reflected in the lack of freedom suffered by slaves, and happiness was equated with a life free from manual labour. Plato and Aristotle were able to fulfil their creative potential, precisely because they had time on their hands to do as they pleased. In the realm of politics, the ability to write about and participate in democracy derived from the freedom not to work. Here high principles of democratic freedom clashed with the realities of a strict social hierarchy that condemned large numbers of people to slavery and enforced manual labour.
Early Christian thought repeated the same negative depiction of work. Because of Adam’s indiscretion in the Garden of Eden, humans were condemned to live out their years on Earth labouring for a living. The fate of mankind was to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow.2 Those who read the Bible were not given much hope of ever enjoying the work they did. Rather, they were instructed to see it as a mere means of survival. Work itself remained a pain that all humans had to endure.
It is worth noting that the origins of the costs of work were seen as universal. To the ancient Greeks, work had no redeeming quality, but rather remained a task that was, in its nature, painful. In early Christian thought, the costs of work were God-given – they reflected the Fall of Man. This way of defining work cast an ideological shadow – in particular, it lent credence to the idea that work was to be accepted as a pain, rather than challenged as such. Because it was in the nature of things that work was a hated activity, workers were to accept their lot and put up with the burdens they were born to endure. Such views, therefore, undermined the case for reforms aimed at improving the nature of work.
Later writers carried forward the focus on work’s inherent costs. In 1706, the English philosopher John Locke argued that work for its own sake was ‘against nature’.3 Humans worked not because they wanted to, but rather because they had to. Only biological needs drove humans to work. It was implied that humans would avoid all work if they could and that human happiness was associated with a no-work state. The possibility of attaining this state was ruled out, of course, by the fact that mankind had to work in order to meet their immediate needs.
Early economic writers – linked to mercantilist doctrine – promoted the view that work was a curse, but added to this the idea that workers were lazy.4 Prominent in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, these writers complained about workers’ slothfulness. English workers were seen as too lazy and too insolent to deliver the work required to raise national wealth.5 The only cure for the ‘labour problem’, as the mercantilists saw it, was the perpetuation of poverty. Mercantilism, in this way, became associated with the ‘utility of poverty’ thesis – the belief that a more productive and compliant workforce depended on reducing wages to subsistence level.
Mercantilist writers such as Thomas Mun showed no sympathy for the plight of workers. While society had evolved beyond slavery, there was still a view that workers occupied a place at the bottom of the social order. Workers were born to labour. Indeed, they were born to labour on behalf of the nation. A nationalistic appeal to the merits of hard work was used by the mercantilists to justify poverty for the masses. Workers might not benefit directly from working hard, but it was their duty to work in order that the nation could become richer.
Allied to this view was the idea that work offered a distraction from vice. Work might not be good in itself – indeed, it was recognized to be a painful undertaking – but it offered a way to avoid the drunkenness, debauchery and riot that would come from workers having too much time on their hands. The great concern of the mercantilists was that workers – free from the obligation of work – would act immorally and without regard to the national interest. Despite its intrinsic costs, work at least provided a basis for virtuous behaviour and national economic success. In this case, work was to be enforced on workers – for their own good.6
Here the mercantilists took no account of how work was evolving in society and how changes in the character of work (particularly the shift to wage-labour) were resisted by workers not for reasons of lethargy and sloth, but because of the commitment to previously established patterns of working. Workers in England were accustomed to working irregularly and with some autonomy.7 The mercantilists, however, represented – through their arguments and protestations – a new pattern of work, based on continuous working and extended hours. The move to wage-labour was also associated with more arduous and harsh working conditions – ones that held few attractions for workers.8 Faced with these changes and conditions, it was no wonder that workers used whatever extra income they could obtain to work less. But this resistance reflected a desire for relative freedom. In short, mercantilism failed to see how workers’ resistance to work was not given by their nature, but rather was influenced by their concern to cling on to ways of working and living that were threatened by the emergent system of wage-labour.
Politically, the mercantilists were not unbiased in their views – rather, as members of the privileged classes, they had vested interests in portraying all workers as incorrigibly lazy, because it gave a justification for pushing down wages. The fact that the mercantilists’ views were subject to bias means that we can challenge their credibility as a basis for understanding how and why work was resisted at the time they wrote. Generally, though, mercantilist labour doctrine shows us how ideas about work can be mobilized – in a negative way – to justify the costs of work and how these ideas can become a direct barrier to its reform.
The classical economists that followed the mercantilists challenged the idea that poverty was required to induce workers to work – rather, taking the position that poverty was a barrier to higher productivity, they sided with moves to raise workers’ wages.9 Adam Smith, notably, supported higher wages on economic as well as moral grounds. Workers were more likely to work hard if they were paid higher wages.10 And society was more likely to be harmonious and happy if the majority in society were free from poverty.11 The continuous increase in wages, in Smith’s view, was the key to economic prosperity and social stability.12
But Smith, with other classical economists, continued to endorse the idea that work was an innate pain. He, again along with other classical economists, also continued to view workers as lazy. Higher wages were justified, in part, to provoke workers into working. The ‘carrot’ of higher wages replaced the ‘stick’ of poverty; however, the view remained that workers had to be goaded to work and that workers’ preferred life-state was one of unlimited ease or rest. The concern was to maintain some kind of ‘optimal’ wage that was not so high as to give workers the option of not working and not so low as to make them unable to meet their needs.13
On work itself, Smith offered a clear definition – work was all ‘toil and trouble’.14 For him, there was no merit in work beyond its contribution to wealth creation. Workers would not just sacrifice their free time in working; they would also experience pain in the activity of work itself. Though Smith alluded to differences in the nature and type of work, his basic position was that work was a loathed activity that workers would naturally aim to avoid.15 The costs of work were taken as given, rather than as something to be explained.
To be sure, Smith recognized that there were some specific costs linked to the nature of work. In particular, he focused on the costs associated with the division of labour. By allocating separate work tasks to workers, productivity would be raised significantly, adding to economic growth, and with it, wages. Smith gave the example of pin-making to show how workers could produce more output per hour by operating a division of labour among themselves. At a general level, productivity gains would create the basis for a flourishing economy – one where everyone would be able to improve their living standards. But, as Smith stressed, individual workers would suffer a loss in intelligence from the division of labour. Workers who performed the same task over and over again were bound to become ‘stupid and ignorant’.16 This human cost of the division of labour had to be weighed against its economic benefit in the form of higher economic growth and higher wages.
But here Smith’s criticisms of work were limited and ultimately ineffective. Firstly, while Smith acknowledged the degradation of workers in production, he failed to offer any solution to it. All he could offer workers was some years of basic education before entering the workplace. Education offered ‘homeopathy’ for workers – it neither reduced the burden of work, nor offered the possibility for better work beyond the division of labour.17 Rather, the prospect was of workers losing their intelligence once they entered work.
Secondly, Smith believed that the stultification suffered by workers in work was a price worth paying. Extensions in the division of labour would add to economic growth and push up wages. The benefits of higher wages, therefore, were put ahead of the disadvantages of work itself. Indeed, workers were asked to accept the destruction of their minds, in return for higher wages.
Thirdly, Smith assumed that the pain attached to work would outlast the reform of work. Because work was by its very nature a bad thing, it appeared that workers would suffer work as a pain, even without the division of labour. Trying to resolve the pain of work seemed futile. In the end, workers were to accept the hardship of work as a necessary evil of capitalism. Smith, in this way, set the foundation for economists and politicians to ignore the direct costs of work in judgements of well-being.18
Later classical economists took the same essential view of work. Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism, linked work to the experience of negative feelings. He wrote that: ‘In so far as labour is taken in its proper sense, love of labour, is a contradiction in terms.’19
