Beyond the Work Ethic

Nicholas Abel

The work ethic is so integral to our society and way of life that one hesitates to suggest that it may have run its course. Richard Cumberland, an 18th-century Bishop of Peterborough, once summed up the underlying philosophy when he said: "It is better to wear out than to rust out." After the second world war the right to work was included in the United Nations Declaration of the Universal Rights of Man. Indeed so unacceptable is unemployment that the UK government has now abolished the word: the unemployed are now classified as 'job seekers'. They can only claim benefit if they are prepared to work. Work is an end in itself.

This obsession with work is a very recent phenomenon  in our history, and dates from the post war period. In the past people worked because they had to not because they wanted to. Aristotle believed the main purpose of life was the proper use of leisure by self-development through education, contemplation, philosophy, music and sport. In his Utopia Thomas More set aside several hours a day of leisure to be spent reading, playing games like chess, attending lectures, holding conversations and listening to music. Thackeray in the nineteenth century wrote of the "leisure, independence and high ideals" that propelled Britain to its cultural heights. 

Myths about work

Myth 1: Hard work makes you rich

The West Germans work the shortest hours in the world, take the longest holidays, start work latest, retire earliest... and have the highest wages in the world. The Bangladeshis work the longest hours in the world, take the shortest holidays, start work earliest...and have the lowest wages in the world.

In general the less productive a country the harder people work. Thus people in OECD countries work less hard than in the developing world. The exception is North America. Americans still work harder and take shorter holidays than any other industrialised nation. While it is true that North America is still the richest country in the world it lags far behind every country in Europe when it comes to basic provisions for health and welfare, is racially divided, crime-ridden and socially crumbling.

In Europe, the British work the longest hours and together with the Portuguese have the lowest labour costs. Despite this, as the UK Government itself admits in its third annual White Paper on industrial and economic competitiveness, a gap of as much as 25 per cent exists between the UK and other European countries' competitiveness performance.

Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style.

Warren Buffet (the world's 2nd richest man)

Myth 2: Unemployment is expensive

Politicians repeatedly tell us that unemployment is expensive to the taxpayer, but this is because they think it is what people want to hear rather because it is true. The UK government budget is now £300 billion a year. There are around 1.8 million unemployed who receive £47 per week unemployment benefit giving a total of £84.6 million i.e. less than .03% of total government expenditure.

The truth is that keeping people unemployed is far cheaper for the government than subsiding them to do work no one needs, which is one of the main reasons governments abandoned Keynsian style policies  and why they are reluctant to adopt workfare schemes today. Indeed, the taxpayer pays a high price to keep people economically active. It is true that governments  bribe foreign companies to set up factories, but this is for political not economic reasons. The cost is always  greater than keeping people  unemployed.

One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.

Will Durant

Myth 3: Unemployment leads to social unrest

In Europe Spain has the highest rate of unemployment which averages 23%. In regions such as Andalusia and Extremadura it is even higher with a third of the workforce out of work. Among young people too the rate is high: the latest estimates for the under-25s is over 40%. Half of the unemployed have been out of work for a year or more. And yet, if you travel around Spain people look happy and there are few protests. Politicians do not even make unemployment their top priority.

By contrast it is the British, who have unemployment of 8% and who work some of the longest hours in Europe, who are the least contented with their lives of any country in the European Union, according to recent survey by the European Commission.

The Costs of Work

In a recent survey by the charity Parents at Work in Britain, which not only works the longest hours in Europe but also has the highest divorce rate, 70 per cent of employees said that work keeps them from their loved ones and almost 80 per cent said pressures at work have led to illness. More than 70 per cent said they wanted to change their work hours, and 10 per cent said they were considering giving up their jobs.

According to a survey of British and Australian accountants published to coincide with the first National Go Home on Time Day eight out of ten British accountants said they never left the office on time for fear of being seen to be shirking - even though most of them recognise that long hours are bad for productivity.

Among the catastrophes in which human fatigue has played a part are the Exxon Valdez oil spillage, the Challenger crash, the Bhopal disaster, and the Clapham Junction railway crash.

This fanatical dedication to work even affects our legal system. A survey in Scotland showed that 70% of jurors were unemployed, housewives, or the retired. Only 2% were professional people who were too busy to do juror service, thus making the verdicts given by juries unrepresentative of the population as a whole and leading some people to question the jury system itself, the cornerstone of British justice.

The Value of Leisure

 It is fashionable to criticize the work-shy and couch-potatoes but the truth is industriousness is a greatly overrated virtue. Indeed it is hard to see that it is a virtue at all. For a start it is a inimical to invention. If people liked work they would hardly seek to eliminate it by looking for more efficient ways of doing it. Idleness is the mother of invention.

To like work is analogous to liking pain: it is unnatural. Humans are naturally idle. This is true of most animals and is a necessary survival mechanism for reducing the amount of unnecessary energy the animal expends. A cat for instance will sleep as much as 16 hours a day and spend as little as 1/2 hour hunting.

The work ethic is the ethic of the slave, the drudge, the drone, the serf, the helot, the peasant, invented by his master to keep his nose to the grindstone. Having been born and bred for centuries to be a beast of burden, the working man is at a loss to know what else to do with his time. Even his leisure hours he has to fill with work, thus perversely making the leisure industry the biggest in the world. The superior man seeks a life of leisure and freedom from the tedium of work which he leaves to donkeys who have nothing better to do with their time.

Conclusion

Unemployment is rising all over the world. Even in Japan the lifetime employment system is under threat. Most governments have given up even the pretence that they can do anything about it, even though they acknowledge that it is one of the major problems facing society. Every year the unemployment total increases inexorably. The reality is that work is rapidly becoming redundant.

Unemployment is here to stay and there is nothing we can do about it. Nor should we seek to do so. Unemployment is a sign of progress, it shows that humanity is at last being freed from the drudgery of work to have time for personal development. A life of leisure, once the exclusive preserve of the rich, is now open to all.  Doing nothing should not be considered a soft option but a lifestyle choice requiring determination and commitment. We need to rediscover the pleasures of idleness and teach people the art of doing nothing. Time is the most precious thing on earth and to waste it working is a sin. Instead of trying to eliminate unemployment, which is neither achievable nor desirable, we should be seeking instead to remove the stigma attached to it and to give back pride to those unable or unwilling to work.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation.

Bertrand Russell  

© Nicholas Abel 1999 

The Leisure Party Explores many of the ideas raised in this article.