Does Work Really Work? by L. Susan Brown
One of the first questions people often ask when they
are introduced to one another in our society is "what
do you do?" This is more than just polite small talk --
it is an indication of the immense importance work has
for us. Work gives us a place in the world, it is our
identity, it defines us, and, ultimately, it confines
us. Witness the psychic dislocation when we lose our
jobs, when we are fired, laid off, forced to retire or
when we fail to get the job we applied for in the first
place. An unemployed person is defined not in positive
but in negative terms: to be unemployed is to lack work.
To lack work is to be socialIy and economically marginalized,
To answer "nothing" to the question "what do you do?"
is emotionally difficult and socially unacceptable. Most
unemployed people would rather answer such a question with
vague replies like "I'm between contracts" or "I have a
few resumes out and the prospects look promising than
admit outright that they do not work. For to not work in
our society is to lack social significance -- it is to
be a nothing, because nothing is what you do.
Those who do work (and they are becoming less numerous as
our economies slowly disintegrate) are something - they
are teachers, nurses, doctors, factory workers, machinists,
dental assistants, coaches, librarians, secretaries, bus
drivers and so on. They have identities defined by what
they do. They are considered normal productive members of
our society. Legally their work is considered to be subject
to an employment contract, which if not explicitly laid out
at the beginning of employment is implicitly understood to
be part of the relationship between employee and employer.
The employment contract is based on the idea that it is
possible for a fair exchange to occur between an employee
who trades her/his skills and labour for wages supplied by
the employer. Such an idea presupposes that a person's skills
and labour are not inseparable from them, but are rather
separate attributes that can be treated like property to be
bought and sold. The employment contract assumes that a
machinist or an exotic dancer, for instance, have the
capacity to separate out from themselves the particular
elements that are required by the employer and are then
able to enter into an agreement with the employer to
exchange only those attributes for money. The machinist
is able to sell technical skills while the exotic dancer
is able to sell sexual appeal, and, according to the
employment contract, they both do so without selling
themselves as people. Political scientists and economists
refer to such attributes as "property in the person," and
speak about a person's ability to contract out labour
power in the form of property in the person.
In our society, then, work is defined as the act by which
an employee contracts out her or his labour power as
property in the person to an employer for fair monetary
compensation. This way of describing work, of understanding
it as a fair exchange between two equals, hides the real
relationship between employer and employee: that of
domination and subordination. For if the truth behind
the employment contract were widely known, workers in our
society would refuse to work, because they would see
that it is impossible for human individuals to truly
separate out labour power from themselves. "property in
the person" doesn't really exist as something that an
individual can simply sell as a separate thing. Machinists
cannot just detach from themselves the specific skills
needed by an employer; those skills are part of an organic
whole that cannot be disengaged from the entire person,
similarly, sex appeal is an intrinsic part of exotic dancers,
and it is incomprehensible how such a constitutive, intangible
characteristic could be severed from the dancers themselves.
A dancer has to be totally pre sent in order to dance, just
like a machinist must be totally present in order to work;
neither can just send their discrete skills to do the work
for them. Whether machinist, dancer, teacher, secretary, or
pharmacist, it is not only one's skills that are being sold
to an employer, it is also one's very being. When employees
contract out their labour power as property in the person to
employers, what is really happening is that employees are
selling their own self determination, their own wills, their
own freedom. In short, they are, during their hours of
employment, slaves.
What is a slave? A slave is commonly regarded as a person who
is the legal property of another and is bound to absolute
obedience. The legal lie that is created when we speak of
a worker's capacity to sell property in the person without
alienating her or his will allows us to maintain the false
distinction between a worker and a slave. A worker must work
according to the will of andther. A worker must obey the boss,
or ultimately lose the job. The control the employer has over
the employee at work is absolute, There is in the end no
negotiation -- you do it the boss' way or you hit the highway.
It is ludicrous to believe that it is possible to separate out
and sell "property in the person" while maintaining human
integrity. To sell one's labour power on the market is to enter
into a relationship of subordination with one's employer -- it
is to become a slave to the employer/master. The only major
differences between a slave and a worker is that a worker is
only a slave at work while a slave is a slave twenty-four hours
a day, and slaves know that they are slaves, while most workers
do not think of themselves in such terms.
Carole Pateman points out the implications of the employment
contract in her book The Sexual Contract:
'Capacities or labour power cannot be used without the worker
using his will, his understanding and experience, to put them
into effect. The use of labour power requires the presence of
its "owner," and it remains as mere potential until he acts in
the manner necessary to put it into use, or agrees or is
compelled so to act; that is, the worker must labour. To
contract for the use of labour power is a waste of resources
unless it can be used in the way in which the new owner
requires. The fiction "labour power" cannot be used; what is
required is that the worker labours as demanded. The
employment contract must, therefore, create a relationship
of command and obedience between employer and worker....
In short, the contract in which the worker allegedly sells
his labour power is a contract in which, since he cannot
be separated from his capacities, he sells command over
the use of his body and himself. To obtain the right to
the use of another is to be a (civil) master.'(1)
Terms like "master" and "slave" are not often used when
describing the employment contract within capitalist
market relations; however, this does not mean that such
terms don't apply. By avoiding such terms and instead
insisting that the employment contract is fair, equitable
and based on the worker's freedom to sell his or her
labour power, the system itself appears fair, equitable
and free. One problem with misidentifying the true nature
of the employee/employer relationship is that workers
experience work as slavery at the same time that they
buy into it ideologicaIly.
No matter what kind of job a worker does, whether manual
or mental, well paid or poorly paid, the nature of the
employment contract is that the worker must, in the end,
obey the employer. The employer is always right. The
worker is told how to work, where to work, when to work,
and what to work on. This applies to university professors
and machinists, to lawyers and carpet cleaners: when you
are an employee, you lose your right to self-determination.
This loss of freedom is felt keenly, which is why many workers
dream of starting their own businesses, being their own bosses,
being self-employed. Most will never realize their dreams,
however, and instead are condemned to sell their souls for
money. The dream doesn't disappear, however, and the
uneasiness, unhappiness, and meaninglessness of their jobs
gnaws away at them even as they defend the system under which
they exploitedly toil.
It doesn't have to be this way. There is nothing sacred
about the employment contract that protects it from being
challenged, that entrenches it eternally as a form of
economic organization. We can understand our own unhappiness
as workers not as a psychological problem that demands Prozac,
but rather as a human response to domination. We can envision
a better way of working, and we can do so now, today, in our
own lives. By doing so we can chisel away at the wage slavery
system; we can undermine it and replace it with freer ways
of working.
What would a better way of work look like? It would more
resemble what we call play than work. That is not to say
that it would be easy, as play can be difficult and challenging,
like we often see in the spores we do for fun. It would be
self-directed, self-desired, and freely chosen. This means
that it would have to be disentangled from the wage system,
for as soon as one is paid one becomes subservient to whoever
is doing the paying. As Alexander Berkman noted: "labour and
its products must be exchanged without price, without profit,
freely according to necessity,"(2) Work would be done because
it was desired, not because it was forced. Sound impossible? Not
at all. This kind of work is done now, already, by most of us
on a daily basis. It is the sort of activity we choose to do
after our eight or ten hours of slaving for someone else
in the paid workplace.It is experienced every time we do
something worthwhile for no pay, every time we change a diaper,
umpire a kid'sbaseball game, run a race, give blood, volunteer
to sit on a committee, counsel a friend, write a newsletter,
bake a meal, or do a favour. We take part in this underground
free economy when we coach, tutor, teach, build, dance, baby-sit,
write a poem, or program a computer without getting paid. We
must endeavor to enlarge these areas of free work to encompass
more and more of our time, while simultaneously trying tochange
the structures of domination in the paid work-place as much as
we possibly can.
Barter, while superficially appearing as a challenge to the
wage system, is still bound by the same relationships of
domination. To say that I will paint your whole house if
you will cook my meals for a month places each of us into
a situation of relinquishing our own self-determination for
the duration of the exchange. For I must paint your house
to your satisfaction and you must make my meals to my
satisfaction, thereby destroying for each of us the
self-directed, creative spontaneity necessary for the free
expression of will: Barter also conjures up the problem
of figuring out how much of my time is worth how much of
your time, that is, what the value of our work is, in order
that the exchange is Fair and equal. Alexander Berkman posed
this problem as the question, "why not give each according
to the value of his work?", to which he answers,
'Because there is no way by which value can be measured...
Value is what a thing is worth... What a thing is worth no
one can really tell. Political economists generally claim
that the value of a commodity is the amount of labour required
to produce it, of "socially necessary labour," as Marx says.
But evidently it is not a just standard of measurement.
Suppose the carpenter worked three hours to make a kitchen chair,
while the surgeon took only half an hour to perform an operation
that saved your life. If the amount of labour used determines
value, then the chair is worth more than your life. Obvious
nonsense, of course. Even if you should count in the years
of study and practice the surgeon needed to make him capable
of performing the operation, how are you going to decide what
"an hour of operating" is worth? The carpenter and mason also
had to be trained before they could do their work properly,
but you don't figure in those years of apprenticeship when you
contract for some work with them. Besides, there is also to be
considered the particular ability and aptitude that every worker,
writer, artist or physician must exercise in his labours. That
is a purely individual personal factor. How are you going to
estimate its value?
That is why value cannot be determined. The same thing may be
worth a lot to one person while it is worth nothing or very
little to another. It may be worth much or little even to
the same person, at different times. A diamond, a painting,
a book may be worth a great deal to one man and very little
to another. A loaf of bread will be worth a great deal to you
when you are hungry, and much less when you are not. Therefore
the real value of a thing cannot be ascertained if it is
an unknown quantity.'(3)
In a barter system, for an exchange to be fair, the value
of the exchanged goods and services must be equal. However,
value is unknowable, therefore barter falls apart on
practical grounds.
Increasing the amount of free work in our lives requires
that we be conscious of the corrupting effects of money
and barter. Thus, baby-sit your friend's children not for
money, but because you want to do so. Teach someone how
to speak a second language, or edit someone's essay, or
coach a running team for the simple pleasure of taking
part in the activity itself. Celebrate giving and helping
as play, without expecting anything in return. Do these
things because you want to, not because you have to.
This is not to say that we should do away with obligations,
but only that such obligations should be self-assumed.
We must take on free work in a responsible matter, or
else our dream of a better world will degenerate into
chaos. Robert Graham outlines the characteristics of
self-assumed obligations:
'Self-assumed obligations are not 'binding' in the
same sense that laws or commands are. A law or
command is binding in the sense that failure to
comply with it will normally attract the application
of some sort of coercive sanction by authority
promulgating the law or making the command. The
binding character of law is not internal to the
concept of law itself but dependent on external
factors, such as the legitimacy of the authority
implementing and enforcing it. A promise, unlike
a law, is not enforced by the person making it. The
content of the obligation is defined by the person
assuming it, not by an external authority.'(4)
To promise, then, is to oblige oneself to see through
an activity, but the fulfillment of the obligation
is up to the person who made the promise in the first
place, and nonfulfillment carries no external sanction
besides, perhaps, disappointment (and the risk that
others will avoid interacting with someone who habitually
breaks her or his promises). Free work, therefore, is
a combination of voluntary play and self-assumed
obligations, of doing what you desire to do and
co-operating with others. It is forsaking the almighty
dollar for the sheer enjoyment of creation and
recreation. Bob Black lyrically calls for the abolition
of work, which "doesn't mean that we have to stop doing
things. It does mean creating a new way of life based
on play... By 'play' I mean also festivity, creativity,
conviviality, commensuality, and maybe even art. There
is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that as.
I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and
freely interdependent exuberance."(5)
We must increase the amount of free work in our lives
by doing what we want, alone and with others, whether
high art or mundane maintenance. We need to tear ourselves
away from drinking in strict exchange terms: I will do
this for you if you will do that for me. Even outside
our formal work hours, the philosophy of contract
and exchange permeates our ways of interacting with
others. This is evident when we do a favour for
someone -- more often than not, people feel uncomfortable
unless they can return the favour in some way, give tit
for tat. We must resist this sense of having to exchange
favours. Instead, we need to be and act in ways that
affirm our own desires and inclinations. This does not
mean being lazy or slothful (although at times we may need
to be so), but rather calls for self-discipline.
Free work actually demands a great deal of self-discipline,
as there is no external force making us work, but only
our own internal desire to partake in an activity
that motivates our participation.
While we move towards a freer world by consciously
affirming free work outside the marketplace, we can
also make a difference during those hours when we are
paid to work. Being conscious of the fact that when
we are selling our labour we are actually selling
ourselves gives us self-awareness. Such self-awareness
is empowering, as the first step to changing one's
condition is understanding the true nature of that
condition. Through this understanding, we can develop
strategies for challenging the slave wage system. For
instance, every time we ignore the boss and do what
we want we create a mini-revolution in the workplace.
Every time we sneak a moment of pleasure at work
we damage the system of wage slavery. Every time we
undermine the hierarchical structure of decision-making
in the workplace we gain a taste of our own self-worth.
These challenges can come from below or from above:
those of us who achieve a measure of power in the
workplace can institute structural changes that empower
those below, drawing from principles like consensus
decision-making and decentralization. For instance,
as teachers we can introduce students to the idea of
consensus by using such a method to make major class
room decisions. Those of us who head up committees
or task forces can advocate institutional structures,
policies and constitutions that decentralize power.
Of course, the wage system is inherently corrupt and
unreformable; however, we can make it more bearable
while at the same time trying to destroy it.
And destroy it we must. If one's identity is based
on work, and work is based on the employment contract,
and the employment contract is a falsehood, then our very
identities have at their foundation a lie. In addition,
the labour market is moving towards an ever-increasing
exploitative form of work: it is predicted that by the year
2000, fifty percent of the labour force will be engaged
in temp work -- work which is even less selfdirected
than permanent full-time jobs. Bob Black has it right
when he proclaims that "no one should ever work."(6)
Who knows what kinds of creative activity would be
unleashed if only we were free to do what we desired?
What sorts of social organizations would we fashion
if we were not stifled day in and day out by drudgery?
For example, what would a woman's day look like if we
abolished the wage system and replaced it with free
and voluntary activity? Bob Black argues that
"by abolishing wage-labor and achieving full unemployment
we undermine the sexual division of labor,"(7) which
is the linchpin of modern sexism. What would a world
look like that encouraged people to be creative and
self-directed, that celebrated enjoyment and fulfillment?
What would be the consequences of living in a world
where, if you met someone new and were asked what you
did, you could joyfully reply "this, that and the
other thing" instead of "nothing?" Such is the world
we deserve.
L. Susan Brown holds a Ph.D. from the University of
Toronto. She is author of The Politics of Individualism:
Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism (Black
Rose Books, 1993). She is currently doing "this, that
and the other thing."
Footnotes
1 Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 150-151.
2 Alexander Berkman, ABC of Anarchism (London:
Freedom Press, 1977), p. 20.
3 Berkman, p. 19.
4 Robert Graham, The Role of Contract in Anarchist
Ideology, in For Anarchism: History, Theory, and
Practice, edited by David Goodway (London: Routledge,
1989), p. 168.
5 Bob Black, The Abolition of Work and Other Essays
(Port Townsend: Loompanics), p. 17.
6 Black, p. 33.
7 Black, p. 29-30.
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