Evil work

Is work evil? I don't mean this the way you think I might. What I want to do is analyze a typical doctrine of conservatives. In this camp I'd put Republicans, Objectivists, and Libertarians for a start, there are probably others. While these groups have vast philosophical and ideological differences, they all agree on this point.

All of these groups fear what they often refer to as "handouts". Why do they have a problem with it? Well, here's the theory. If you hand somebody a check, and give them a place to live, and healthcare, they'll be lazy. They won't go out and be productive, i.e. work, because they don't have to, you're giving them everything. They can just sit at home and watch talkshows all day, because they've got money coming in.

This certainly seems vaguely reasonable on the face of it. I'm sure we've all met people who want to get paid to sit and watch TV. There are however two problems with this. First of all, a character problem. Many of the same people who rail against "handouts" and "undeserving" people and such are the same people who wish they'd win the lottery. Then they'd be able to tell that boss off and go get that resort in the Bahamas and lay on the beach all day. So you castigate people for doing something you want to do yourself?

The second problem, and the point of this post, is this. There's an underlying assumption here that's not being talked about, well I haven't seen it, I'm sure it's being talked about and I just don't know it. Let me start with a contrast first. We'll take it in its starkest form for illustrative purposes.

Objectivism not only says productivity is good, but it's in essence the purpose of man's life. Certainly life is the first choice, according to Objectivism, but not just "simple survival", that makes you into a "brute man". Rather it's life as a rational being, read: Objectivist, should live it. And what you want to do with your life is be productive. Why do you want to be productive? Partially for survival, you have to get food and such, but also because there's this sort of inner drive the "men of ability" have. They need to do, to create, to change the world. For Henry, I realize I'm simplifying Objectivism here, but I think my point's fairly accurate. That point is, productivity is not simply a matter of survival, it's a sort of goal in itself, and it's very good.

So, if you give people everything, you make them not want to be productive. Do we have a situation where something like this happens? I think we do. That situation exists as grants. When you are given a research grant, you get money for living expenses, food and shelter and so on, but also money to fund your actual work, the research you're doing, the art you're creating ,etc. While it's true if you fail to come through, you won't get another grant, what matter? Hey, you just got some free money! Even if you'd have to pay it back, hey, worry about that in a year or two, free money!

So what's this thing that's not getting talked about? Well, we've seen that Objectivism, and I think conservatives in general, think that productivity is an end in itself, something that's just good. However, I think this is simply lip service. Why do I say this? Because of the doctrine I mentioned at the beginning. Assuming that if people had basic needs taken care of, food, shelter, health, they'd be lazy slobs who'd never work a day in their life has a corollary. That corollary is, nobody would work if they didn't have to, the only reason people work is because they are compelled by necessity to do so. If they did not have that necessity, they'd never do it.

Obviously I think this is wrong, and I think grants prove it. The whole point with grants is that people get enough to live on and continue their art/research/whatever. You can research AIDS, let's say, and not have to worry about where you'll live and where your next meal is coming from. Obviously I'm assuming a fairly nice grant, but I don't think this is unreasonable, we know such things occur. So if people get this grant, why do they work? For exactly the lip service reason conservatives give.

They are interested in the subject, they have an internal drive to create, or find out how things work, or so on. This can easily apply to other work as well, perhaps somebody really loves numbers and thus finds joy in accounting, for instance. But it's curious to me that conservatives give the doctrine of interest and productivity lip service, but belie it by claiming that if we didn't have to work, we wouldn't. Something related is the idea of shared suffering, hey I had to work and save and whatever for X, so you do too. Otherwise, somebody's getting a "free ride" and they don't deserve that.

So think about it. Next time you hear a Republican or such blathering on about work or productivity or "hard work", realize what they're saying is that there's a necessity to work and if there wasn't, nobody would ever do it. Then think about how, if everybody could stop worrying about where they were going to live and how they'd get their next meal, we might have happier people because they could, potentially, find the work they really enjoyed doing.