Work

Why do we work?

For many people, work is closely tied up with their deepest sense of satisfaction and fulfilment, and is therefore a positive thing in itself, not merely a means to a larger gas barbecue. Even those who derive little satisfaction from their jobs and work strictly to earn money might well respond very differently if they were given an opportunity to do work they liked, were in control of and found meaningful. Indeed….there is evidence of a very strong correlation between happiness and challenging, self-directed, satisfying work. Far from the economist's conception that work is nothing more than a means to the end of material accumulation, work turns out to be, for many people, central to their fulfilment and happiness. as Robert E. Lane has shown, this presents things almost exactly backwards. It seems that material accumulation, beyond a certain basic level, is not the key to happiness—and work is.

- Linda McQuaig, All You Can Eat

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  • Daniel Pink, Drive

Down with work

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Clean these up

These tales of anti-enclosure resistance, which are representative
ofhundreds and hundreds morelike them, shed light on the depthof
attachment people felt for the common land, andtheir keen sense of
violation at losing access to it.With that loss, life changed dramati
cally for the vast number of farmers and craftsmen who made up the
ranks of the common people. The choices at this pointwere incred
ibly bleak. One option was to try to disappear into the still-immense
spaces of forest and wastes thatwere not yetdeveloped, build oneself
a makeshift shack and hope to eke out a primitive existence in
hiding, poaching the occasional deer or pigeon from the parks of the
nobles. Needless to say, the punishment for anyone caught doing so
was harsh—castration for poaching the king's deer,for instance. One
couldtry beingamobile vagabond, hoping to sellone's services as a
pedlar, palm reader, card player, singer, actor or minstrel, or
performing any other service that was in high demand. However,
even if one were able to earn a penny or two entertaining a crowd
with card tricks or palmreading, this sort of vagabond existencewas
not permitted. A series of measures known as the settlement acts
came down heavily on this form of homelessness, calling for
vagabonds to be flogged. In London, there were whipping posts
every fewhundredyards to deal withthe problem of peoplebegging
on the street.
Such harshness reflected not only a clear lack of sympathy for the
plight of those whohadlost their rights, but also the fact that the pro
pertied classes had other plans in mindfor this newly idle group of
people.The conversion to the newmarket economy requiredmore
than land enclosures. It also required the services of this motley
crew ofwould-be pedlars, palm readers, actors, forest squatters and
beggars bleeding at thewhipping posts. Themarket economy desper
ately needed all of them. The propertied classes had managed to
secure their own rights to private ownership, but they now needed
someone to do theworksothat they could strip offthe surplus value
created and turn it intoprofits for themselves. Itwas simple: nowage
labourers, no profits. This of course helps explain the distaste of the
rich for the"idleness" of the poor, their contempt for all those dirty,
lazy men hanging around the whipping posts. The usefulness of the
poor was not lost on the rich. "We hardly have poor enough to do
what is necessary to make us subsist" (his italics), noted Bernard
Mandeville, an eighteenth-century philosopher. "It would be easier,
where property was well secured, to live without money than to live
without poor; for who would do the work?" Or as Lord Goderich
succinctly put it in the nineteenth century: "Without a class of
persons willing to workfor wages, how are the comforts andrefine
ments of civilized life to be procured?"
Of course, the desire of the propertied classes to have the poor's
labour didn't mean they were willing to offer wages that were suffi
cient to live on. It seemed that they had no intention of paying such
wages. One landowner, Sylvanus Taylor, complained that he had
trouble finding workers to perform a day of heavy labour, since the
idle poor considered hiswage offer insufficient to live on andwould
"as good play for nothing than as work for another."The poor had a
point. If they were unable to eke out a subsistence existence on what
theycould make inwage labour, perhaps it was better not to work, to
take their chances in the woods or the fields, where they could"play,"
or at least remain somewhat in charge of their own lives.
Hence the need for some strict punishment to discourage "the
most damnable vice of idleness." In 1^30, a law specified that any
beggar found outside his local area was to be "sharply beaten" and
then flogged backto his home town (where, presumably, he'd get a
job). Under a statute that came into effect some twenty years later,
during the reign of Edward VI, any vagabond or other poor person
without a job could be made a slave. In 1££9, this lawwas beefed up
to include the new provision that even once an employee's term of
service was completed, he was not permitted to leave the local area
without permission.
Despite these punitive measures, the poor still didn't take to wage
labour as readily as the richhad hoped. Hence more clarity and disci
pline in the law seemed required. The Statute ofArtificers in 1^63—
during the reign ofElizabeth I,who today enjoys a reputation as ajust
and far-sighted monarch—tried to set things straight. This brutal
statute makes it clear that when market incentives failed, the state had
no reluctance about forcing the poor into wage labour in the then
new economy. It called for forced labour for anyone either under
thirty or unmarried who had been trained ina craft. Any other males
between the ages of twelve and sixty were required to work as farm
labourers. The only exceptions specified were "gentlemen born" or
those attending university, which only gentlemen born had the
resources to attend. Furthermore, oncein thiswage labour, onewas
obliged to stay. The Statute of Artificers went on to specify that
anyone leaving a job without permission would be whipped and
considered a vagabond—which meant onecould be enslaved and also
branded, so as to be easily spotted as a troublemaker. Anyone forging
a letter from an employer granting permission to leave was also
subject to whipping.
All this suggests that the transition to amarket economy, far from
being a liberating experience, was in fact the opposite for themajor
ityofpeople.
- McQuaig, All You Can Eat

strict punishment to discourage "the
most damnable vice of idleness." In 1530, a law specified that any
beggar found outside his local area was to be "sharply beaten" and
then flogged backto his home town (where, presumably, he'd get a
job). Under a statute that came into effect some twenty years later,
during the reign of Edward VI, any vagabond or other poor person
without a job could be made a slave. In 1559, this lawwas beefed up
to include the new provision that even once an employee's term of
service was completed, he was not permitted to leave the local area
without permission.
Despite these punitive measures, the poor still didn't take to wage
labour as readily as the richhad hoped. Hence more clarity and disci
pline in the law seemed required. The Statute ofArtificers in 1563—
during the reign ofElizabeth I,who today enjoys a reputation as ajust
and far-sighted monarch—tried to set things straight. This brutal
statute makes it clear that when market incentives failed, the state had
no reluctance about forcing the poor into wage labour in the then
new economy. It called for forced labour for anyone either under
thirty or unmarried who had been trained ina craft. Any other males
between the ages of twelve and sixty were required to work as farm
labourers. The only exceptions specified were "gentlemen born" or
those attending university, which only gentlemen born had the
resources to attend. Furthermore, oncein thiswage labour, onewas
obliged to stay. The Statute of Artificers went on to specify that
anyone leaving a job without permission would be whipped and
considered a vagabond—which meant onecould be enslaved and also
branded, so as to be easily spotted as a troublemaker. Anyone forging
a letter from an employer granting permission to leave was also
subject to whipping.
- McQuaig, All You Can Eat

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