I've noticed something around here that at first struck me as a little curious--every now and then I catch glimpses of the Protestant work ethic, that work in and of itself is good/virtuous/intrinsically rewarding--and, by corrollary, that not working is wrong/immoral/harmful. Though rarely put so bluntly, I see these views leaking out in truisms like "You get out of work what you put in", "workers are makers, non-workers are takers", etc. These comments aren't necessarily wrong in context, but they do strike me as (perhaps unwittingly) stemming from an underlying consumeristic/careerist viewpoint, which is itself built on the Protestant concept of work as virtuous, idleness as reprehensible. This is hardly what I would've expected on an early retirement forum, especially when this very notion of work as virtuous forms one of the common criticisms of our way of life.
When I thought about it more closely, though, I realized it wasn't necessarily contradictory. The goal for most of us is not to cease working entirely but rather to increase our locus of control over when, how, and what kind of work we do. There is also the idea in fitness training that fitness is improved by adapting to ever increasing "work" (with work being the total effort of performing X action Y times in Z minutes).
So how do you think about labor? Is labor in itself virtuous, and why? Are certain types of labor--for instance, those likely to invoke self-improvement--more or less virtuous than others? Or is all labor merely a means to an end, with no intrinsic virtue or goodness?
For these purposes I define labor as "expending effort toward a defined goal". Paid or unpaid makes no difference--in fact, since payment is the primary "end" to which labor is the "means", and we are evaluating whether labor is an end in itself, we should consider labor as its own concept divested of payment.
Very curious what people around here think.
ERE, Work Ethic, and Labor as Virtue
I think one needs to distinguish two things:
1) work you do to make ends meet/make money etc.
For me, this means TPS reports, meetings, emails, and such. That's horrible and should be minimized.
2) work you do for self-expression, fun or meaning
This can involve an actual job. Jacob seems to have cut himself such a deal. But it can also mean painting pictures nobody buys, coding games nobody may want to play or beating that tetris high-score. It can mean cooking the best turducken there is. It can mean running 100 miles. It can mean building chairs out of wood or scrap metal.
Some of these can be horribly challenging, moreso than any paid job.
Psychological experiments in the area of video games have shown that it is important that the games are hard and challenging. If the game is not hard enough, it becomes boring. Related to work, I think, many of us are actually underworked, we mostly do work that doesn't challenge us. But I think one reason for this is that a lot of this work is neither fun nor meaningful to us.
I guess the main difference is that good and pleasant work is self-directed and self-motivated. THEN it can get more fun the harder it gets.
The main reason I so want to leave the paid work world behind is that I want to reclaim my time to do some real work.
1) work you do to make ends meet/make money etc.
For me, this means TPS reports, meetings, emails, and such. That's horrible and should be minimized.
2) work you do for self-expression, fun or meaning
This can involve an actual job. Jacob seems to have cut himself such a deal. But it can also mean painting pictures nobody buys, coding games nobody may want to play or beating that tetris high-score. It can mean cooking the best turducken there is. It can mean running 100 miles. It can mean building chairs out of wood or scrap metal.
Some of these can be horribly challenging, moreso than any paid job.
Psychological experiments in the area of video games have shown that it is important that the games are hard and challenging. If the game is not hard enough, it becomes boring. Related to work, I think, many of us are actually underworked, we mostly do work that doesn't challenge us. But I think one reason for this is that a lot of this work is neither fun nor meaningful to us.
I guess the main difference is that good and pleasant work is self-directed and self-motivated. THEN it can get more fun the harder it gets.
The main reason I so want to leave the paid work world behind is that I want to reclaim my time to do some real work.
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Spartan_Warrior
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@Felix, I agree, but isn't thinking of it that way sort of letting the "ends justify the means"? Running 100 miles is a good example. Say there are two people, X and Y, both of whom have a goal of running 100 miles. X hates running and only runs because he is paid to do so, whereas Y loves running and would run regardless of pay. In each case, the "ends" are different, that is, what each person hopes to get out of it, but the "means"--the activity itself, the actual labor--is the same. So is running virtuous or not? Is it virtuous for X and not virtuous for Y, or vice versa? Or is it simply the case that for labor the ends DO justify the means, and that the activity itself is neither intrinsically virtuous or non-virtuous?
(Also...
"The main reason I so want to leave the paid work world behind is that I want to reclaim my time to do some real work."
Amen!)
(Also...
"The main reason I so want to leave the paid work world behind is that I want to reclaim my time to do some real work.
"Amen!)
I think when focusing on satisfaction, x shouldn't run and y should. I don't think it's "virtuous" for x to run. But that brings me to an important point. I don't believe that it's worthwhile to do something hard because it's hard. To "exercise discipline". To me, that's self-punishment. And I don't think it "builds character". I don't really want to see the kind of character that would build. I can understand the pay-off kind of thinking of "I'll suffer a little now to suffer a lot less later." But I have a hard time understanding this entire "virtuous"-business. Is it inherently virtuous to work? Or not to work? Depends on the work and the person doing it (or not), I think?
I think there's too little thinking about working environments. You can turn a good job that could provide fulfillment to some inclined person into hell by making the hours bad, adding too many bosses, reports and meetings etc. (for example)
I think there's too little thinking about working environments. You can turn a good job that could provide fulfillment to some inclined person into hell by making the hours bad, adding too many bosses, reports and meetings etc. (for example)
"You have to assemble your life yourself--action by action."- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
I'm pretty sure he wasn't a Protestant.
Every paid job I've had, every promotion I've gotten, I got because I was interested in something and started by doing it free. When I start thinking my day-day job is shitty, pretty much always because I get bored, I know it is MY responsibility to fix it. That is why I think a job gives back commensurate with what you put in. I have always found that fix is to go learn and do something new (rotate my crops to keep the yields up). (Because of this, I try to avoid the Gervais discussions, I think it's too easy to get cynical or decide the game is rigged, which just doesn't help you.)
Last year, against many people's advice, I moved to sales because I wanted to learn it, get energy from being at customers and I love being at the intersection of tech development and the real world. Real shit happens because of what I do. I would've done the meeting I did yesterday at one of my accounts for free. But does flying/traveling suck? Yes. Does writing a trip report suck? Yes. But they are necessary to pursuing the ultimate goal, learning sales in a global environment. Just like pounding out the training miles to do an ultra, whether paid or not.
The thing is, I've just never seen a reason I had to choose between learning something, and getting paid to learn it if I put my brain to it. So I reject X or Y and say choose X and Y.
Makers vs Takers
I think idleness is a important part of life, just like taking days off when weight training. I think the day of worship, and the sabbatical year are things our modern society is in sore need of. I do not think this is necessarily for after-life salvation, but just part of the healthy rhythm of nature.
Tim Ferriss gets a lot of criticism for what people perceive as his advocacy of hedonism. Personally, I don't really care if people want to act like an MBA wielding program manager and outsource their lives to sit on the beach. I don't think there is a moral problem at all.
I obviously don't see a problem with the various ERE strategies, Permaculture, living off of financial investments, attempts at money-free living, etc etc.
I do see a huge long term problem if people are not developing the skills they need to get the lifestyle they want, through income or skills. (There are lots of studies about how people invest who inherit, vs how people that earn money invest. Those that inherit are much more insecure and fearful of their money. They never learned the skills to earn it. A tribesman might give you a spear free...because he can easily make another...same thing.)
The problem I see is best viewed through Taleb's fragility logic. A broad set of skills that allow you to earn your lifestyle in different ways make you robust to life. When one person "fails" and is incentivized to learn a new in-demand skill (or to save and invest) by say losing their house, that is an individual tragedy, but the population as a whole gets stronger, Antifragility, and more able to withstand the next mistake.
I'm pretty sure he wasn't a Protestant.
Every paid job I've had, every promotion I've gotten, I got because I was interested in something and started by doing it free. When I start thinking my day-day job is shitty, pretty much always because I get bored, I know it is MY responsibility to fix it. That is why I think a job gives back commensurate with what you put in. I have always found that fix is to go learn and do something new (rotate my crops to keep the yields up). (Because of this, I try to avoid the Gervais discussions, I think it's too easy to get cynical or decide the game is rigged, which just doesn't help you.)
Last year, against many people's advice, I moved to sales because I wanted to learn it, get energy from being at customers and I love being at the intersection of tech development and the real world. Real shit happens because of what I do. I would've done the meeting I did yesterday at one of my accounts for free. But does flying/traveling suck? Yes. Does writing a trip report suck? Yes. But they are necessary to pursuing the ultimate goal, learning sales in a global environment. Just like pounding out the training miles to do an ultra, whether paid or not.
The thing is, I've just never seen a reason I had to choose between learning something, and getting paid to learn it if I put my brain to it. So I reject X or Y and say choose X and Y.
Makers vs Takers
I think idleness is a important part of life, just like taking days off when weight training. I think the day of worship, and the sabbatical year are things our modern society is in sore need of. I do not think this is necessarily for after-life salvation, but just part of the healthy rhythm of nature.
Tim Ferriss gets a lot of criticism for what people perceive as his advocacy of hedonism. Personally, I don't really care if people want to act like an MBA wielding program manager and outsource their lives to sit on the beach. I don't think there is a moral problem at all.
I obviously don't see a problem with the various ERE strategies, Permaculture, living off of financial investments, attempts at money-free living, etc etc.
I do see a huge long term problem if people are not developing the skills they need to get the lifestyle they want, through income or skills. (There are lots of studies about how people invest who inherit, vs how people that earn money invest. Those that inherit are much more insecure and fearful of their money. They never learned the skills to earn it. A tribesman might give you a spear free...because he can easily make another...same thing.)
The problem I see is best viewed through Taleb's fragility logic. A broad set of skills that allow you to earn your lifestyle in different ways make you robust to life. When one person "fails" and is incentivized to learn a new in-demand skill (or to save and invest) by say losing their house, that is an individual tragedy, but the population as a whole gets stronger, Antifragility, and more able to withstand the next mistake.
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jacob
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I don't work because it makes me virtuous.
Aside from a very very limited set of internally motivated activities, I work because there's an external reward for it in the form of goods and services. Without those, I wouldn't work. If I received an external reward anyway, I wouldn't work either. This is an important point! Even as I'm internally motivated for researching markets and blogging (albeit not so much anymore), there's tons of stuff which needs to be done which I wouldn't do without an external reward.
In order to understand work ethic, I think it's important to focus on the marginal utility of work. I spend $7000/year and I'm comfortable with that. If I get a $0 living wage, then my marginal utility (before FI) of working would be pretty high until I reached $7000 and then it would drop off steeply because I don't want more stuff. Consequently, I would stop working or only focus on what internally motivates me, which is a very limited subset of things.
Consequently I would do about $7-9k worth of work.
Now, suppose I received a living wage of $5k. Now, I only have incentives to do $2-4k worth of work. After that I'd rather focus on my own stuff, like playing chess, making wood boxes, and building trading models.
If as of now, I receive about $12k in investment returns (or be it a living wage), I would only do what's of any internal interest to me. Which is kinda what I do.
The question is whether that would work if done for the whole of society. Most people have far higher wants. Lets give them a living wage of $47k/2.1person/year. The question really is this
Are there enough people who are internally motivated to drive around and collect the garbage at 5am, serve as cashiers, drive taxis, file taxes, flip burgers, etc.
Until such a time when EVERYTHING can be done by robots we need at least SOME humans to do some work. However, if everybody gets a living wage, who's gonna do it? Nobody. That's a problem. Therefore, we set the living wage low enough (it's currently called welfare and carries a stigma, but we already have a living wage) so that there's enough labor to do the necessary work.
Maybe putting on glasses of morality, work can be thought of as a sacrifice that everybody is thought capable of. Therefore in order to decide who gets the limited rewards (robots can't do everything) we need to see who is willing to sacrifice more effort. Those in turn get the rewards. Hence work becomes seen as virtuous(?)
Aside from a very very limited set of internally motivated activities, I work because there's an external reward for it in the form of goods and services. Without those, I wouldn't work. If I received an external reward anyway, I wouldn't work either. This is an important point! Even as I'm internally motivated for researching markets and blogging (albeit not so much anymore), there's tons of stuff which needs to be done which I wouldn't do without an external reward.
In order to understand work ethic, I think it's important to focus on the marginal utility of work. I spend $7000/year and I'm comfortable with that. If I get a $0 living wage, then my marginal utility (before FI) of working would be pretty high until I reached $7000 and then it would drop off steeply because I don't want more stuff. Consequently, I would stop working or only focus on what internally motivates me, which is a very limited subset of things.
Consequently I would do about $7-9k worth of work.
Now, suppose I received a living wage of $5k. Now, I only have incentives to do $2-4k worth of work. After that I'd rather focus on my own stuff, like playing chess, making wood boxes, and building trading models.
If as of now, I receive about $12k in investment returns (or be it a living wage), I would only do what's of any internal interest to me. Which is kinda what I do.
The question is whether that would work if done for the whole of society. Most people have far higher wants. Lets give them a living wage of $47k/2.1person/year. The question really is this
Are there enough people who are internally motivated to drive around and collect the garbage at 5am, serve as cashiers, drive taxis, file taxes, flip burgers, etc.
Until such a time when EVERYTHING can be done by robots we need at least SOME humans to do some work. However, if everybody gets a living wage, who's gonna do it? Nobody. That's a problem. Therefore, we set the living wage low enough (it's currently called welfare and carries a stigma, but we already have a living wage) so that there's enough labor to do the necessary work.
Maybe putting on glasses of morality, work can be thought of as a sacrifice that everybody is thought capable of. Therefore in order to decide who gets the limited rewards (robots can't do everything) we need to see who is willing to sacrifice more effort. Those in turn get the rewards. Hence work becomes seen as virtuous(?)
In order to understand work ethic, I think it's important to focus on the marginal utility of work...
Consequently I would do about $7-9k worth of work.
Now, suppose I received a living wage of $5k. Now, I only have incentives to do $2-4k worth of work. After that I'd rather focus on my own stuff, like playing chess, making wood boxes, and building trading models.
I'd build fast motorcycles for myself rather than earn money serving others and buying a motorcycle made by yet other people. (I had a post typed out describing utility of building myself v buying...high income taxes tilt this toward non-work as well)
Millionaire Next Door had a pretty startling set of statistics on how adults who receive "economic outpatient care" earn less than their cohort if the support is in the form of cash for consumption. Blue collar and white collar.
Giving kids money for educations and to start a business however, gave a positive result.
Consequently I would do about $7-9k worth of work.
Now, suppose I received a living wage of $5k. Now, I only have incentives to do $2-4k worth of work. After that I'd rather focus on my own stuff, like playing chess, making wood boxes, and building trading models.
I'd build fast motorcycles for myself rather than earn money serving others and buying a motorcycle made by yet other people. (I had a post typed out describing utility of building myself v buying...high income taxes tilt this toward non-work as well)
Millionaire Next Door had a pretty startling set of statistics on how adults who receive "economic outpatient care" earn less than their cohort if the support is in the form of cash for consumption. Blue collar and white collar.
Giving kids money for educations and to start a business however, gave a positive result.
@Spartan_Warrior: "The goal for most of us is not to cease working entirely but rather to increase our locus of control over when"
Yup! Exactly.
On another note, sometimes I try to think about how unspoiled tribes in the Amazon think about these things. Their "work" is directly related to their subsistence, and I'm willing to bet they enjoy the overwhelming majority of what they do. They probably don't obsess over hunting (working) for the sake of hunting.
@Felix: Very well put!
Yup! Exactly.
On another note, sometimes I try to think about how unspoiled tribes in the Amazon think about these things. Their "work" is directly related to their subsistence, and I'm willing to bet they enjoy the overwhelming majority of what they do. They probably don't obsess over hunting (working) for the sake of hunting.
@Felix: Very well put!
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secretwealth
- Posts: 1948
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S_W: I was thinking exactly what you said in your original post a few weeks ago. Almost word for word. It's a bit freaky, actually.
I don't think the work ethic is usually a value judgment on work--rather, it's a value judgment on the worker. There is a sense that a lot of people get that their work validates them as a human being, and this transcends more than a Protestant work ethic. I think it is well expressed by Seneca above in this quote:
"Every paid job I've had, every promotion I've gotten, I got because I was interested in something and started by doing it free. "
There's an idea that effort, energy, the will of the individual yield a position in society where you are in demand--where complete strangers will give you tokens of worth in exchange for your time, energy, knowledge, etc. You worked hard to get where you are, so you deserve to be where you are. Looked at in a certain way, this can be an intoxicating validation of the ego: I am important. I am somebody. Look at how much money people give to talk to me. Aren't I special?
Then there's another perspective that makes this self-validation highly suspect. Not to disprove the validity of that self-validating perspective, but additionally most of the individuals who look this way also forget that they got their position in society by virtue of being born a certain color. Or gender. Or in a certain geographical location. Or to non-abusive parents. Or what have you.
I think the libertarians tend to look at the world from the first perspective, most of the rest of us look a bit more at the world from the other perspective, to varying degrees.
I guess I've spent too much time in third-world countries and seen too many beggars to think that the white men who have the majority of the highest paying jobs in the world are white men by pure coincidence--that it has nothing to do with European history, imperialism, cronyism, and a slew of other socio-historical forces that are much bigger than the individual. I have never in my life worked as hard as the 8yr old girl who was trying to sell my wife and me flowers near a slew of brothels in Bangkok. And I don't deserve to earn 100x her income. Likewise, the whale trader didn't deserve to earn 100x mine. So if someone gives me money or not for my time, I don't take it as an ego boost--it's more luck than anything else.
I'm so grateful that I wasn't born Cambodian. Or as Louis CK put it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
I don't think the work ethic is usually a value judgment on work--rather, it's a value judgment on the worker. There is a sense that a lot of people get that their work validates them as a human being, and this transcends more than a Protestant work ethic. I think it is well expressed by Seneca above in this quote:
"Every paid job I've had, every promotion I've gotten, I got because I was interested in something and started by doing it free. "
There's an idea that effort, energy, the will of the individual yield a position in society where you are in demand--where complete strangers will give you tokens of worth in exchange for your time, energy, knowledge, etc. You worked hard to get where you are, so you deserve to be where you are. Looked at in a certain way, this can be an intoxicating validation of the ego: I am important. I am somebody. Look at how much money people give to talk to me. Aren't I special?
Then there's another perspective that makes this self-validation highly suspect. Not to disprove the validity of that self-validating perspective, but additionally most of the individuals who look this way also forget that they got their position in society by virtue of being born a certain color. Or gender. Or in a certain geographical location. Or to non-abusive parents. Or what have you.
I think the libertarians tend to look at the world from the first perspective, most of the rest of us look a bit more at the world from the other perspective, to varying degrees.
I guess I've spent too much time in third-world countries and seen too many beggars to think that the white men who have the majority of the highest paying jobs in the world are white men by pure coincidence--that it has nothing to do with European history, imperialism, cronyism, and a slew of other socio-historical forces that are much bigger than the individual. I have never in my life worked as hard as the 8yr old girl who was trying to sell my wife and me flowers near a slew of brothels in Bangkok. And I don't deserve to earn 100x her income. Likewise, the whale trader didn't deserve to earn 100x mine. So if someone gives me money or not for my time, I don't take it as an ego boost--it's more luck than anything else.
I'm so grateful that I wasn't born Cambodian. Or as Louis CK put it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY
@SW: There's a really cool documentary that came out a while back that you might enjoy (or already saw) called "The Lottery of Birth". The things they talk about are very much in line with what you wrote.
They have a nice trailer in the main website:
www.creatingfreedom.info/
They have a nice trailer in the main website:
www.creatingfreedom.info/
I guess I've spent too much time in third-world countries and seen too many beggars to think that the white men who have the majority of the highest paying jobs in the world are white men by pure coincidence--that it has nothing to do with European history, imperialism, cronyism, and a slew of other socio-historical forces that are much bigger than the individual. I have never in my life worked as hard as the 8yr old girl who was trying to sell my wife and me flowers near a slew of brothels in Bangkok. And I don't deserve to earn 100x her income. Likewise, the whale trader didn't deserve to earn 100x mine. So if someone gives me money or not for my time, I don't take it as an ego boost--it's more luck than anything else.
Well put as usual, secretwealth. On a similar note, Warren Buffett became by far and away the most honest billionaire when he spoke of having won the genetic lottery.
Well put as usual, secretwealth. On a similar note, Warren Buffett became by far and away the most honest billionaire when he spoke of having won the genetic lottery.
S-Warrior "So how do you think about labor? Is labor in itself virtuous, and why? Are certain types of labor--for instance, those likely to invoke self-improvement--more or less virtuous than others? Or is all labor merely a means to an end, with no intrinsic virtue or goodness?"
For me it is an evolving experience.
Studying and jobbing during study is self-improving and means to earn a living.
First 3 jobs (in a building contractors-world) idem, but also rewarding as you see a shimmer of yourself adding value to a process. ( aka from apprentice to yourneyman )
Second 3 jobs (as civil servant in developing real estate of public owned land) be part of a democratic process, seeing the pro's and contr's, but also finding new paths for the city to attrack companies and enhance job-numbers. Here I found the first expierence of creating something ánd earning a living. That I find rewarding.
Third part of my life (still going) beeing private entrepreneur, (and for 14 years financial independent) I am creating value out of existing real estate by changing it, sometimes working for two/three years (parttime) on my projects, other years with no projects on hand but time to do other interesting things (studiing and practising what I study to see if it works).
In short: labor is for me:
allways learning/practising+
first earning for a living, then earning and saving, than earning becomes a side effect .
later: learning to create, learning to enjoy, striving for a modicum of wisdom
Not something virtuous or goodness.
For me it is an evolving experience.
Studying and jobbing during study is self-improving and means to earn a living.
First 3 jobs (in a building contractors-world) idem, but also rewarding as you see a shimmer of yourself adding value to a process. ( aka from apprentice to yourneyman )
Second 3 jobs (as civil servant in developing real estate of public owned land) be part of a democratic process, seeing the pro's and contr's, but also finding new paths for the city to attrack companies and enhance job-numbers. Here I found the first expierence of creating something ánd earning a living. That I find rewarding.
Third part of my life (still going) beeing private entrepreneur, (and for 14 years financial independent) I am creating value out of existing real estate by changing it, sometimes working for two/three years (parttime) on my projects, other years with no projects on hand but time to do other interesting things (studiing and practising what I study to see if it works).
In short: labor is for me:
allways learning/practising+
first earning for a living, then earning and saving, than earning becomes a side effect .
later: learning to create, learning to enjoy, striving for a modicum of wisdom
Not something virtuous or goodness.
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secretwealth
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:31 am
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secretwealth
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:31 am
JasonR, thank you for the historical context (and for aligning me with Hegel--pleasant company to keep). Great summary and enjoyable read.
Just one more thing I'd like to add: Dawkins's memetic theory is useful here. Societies that idolize work will tend to be more productive and, in turn, gain power and dominance over other nations. So there's a strong socio-cultural motivation to convince people that work is virtuous--it's the way you harness the power of individuals to the nation-state's best interests. People should decide on their own if they want to play that game or not without thinking they're choosing between good and evil. Really, they're choosing between making their king richer or being more idle.
Just one more thing I'd like to add: Dawkins's memetic theory is useful here. Societies that idolize work will tend to be more productive and, in turn, gain power and dominance over other nations. So there's a strong socio-cultural motivation to convince people that work is virtuous--it's the way you harness the power of individuals to the nation-state's best interests. People should decide on their own if they want to play that game or not without thinking they're choosing between good and evil. Really, they're choosing between making their king richer or being more idle.