The Employment Problem

Abstract

In this chapter, we ask what the impact is of working itself on welfare, that is, aside from any benefits derived from the products of work. Even if working conditions have improved since children were sent up chimneys, we have the modern equivalent in terms of widespread job-related stress and the incapacitated or sick of working age. Indeed, if jobs are so great, why are we paid to do them? The apparently obvious reason why we keep working is that, in the current ‘work-and-spend’ culture (Schor, 2000, p. 112), we all ‘need’ a job to get the income; and given that the current Western (but increasingly global) emphasis on economic growth presumes ever-increasing consumption, and therefore corresponding increases in the production of goods and services, we always will. But, as will become clear in this (and the following) chapter, rather than being a timeless feature of our societies, this is a recent post-Second-World War phenomenon. Indeed, in most free human societies — that is, those not based on slavery — the objective for most of the population has been to work as little as possible in order to enjoy life as much as possible (Sahtins, 1974). There is no evidence that the genetic make up of twenty-first century man or woman is any different in that respect.