Why Do We Work?
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- Опубликовано: 21 ноя 2020
- Most of us spend most of our lives working in one way or another. Most of us also eagerly anticipate the times when we can stop working. When we get the chance, how many of us really stop altogether? What motivates us to work or not work, and our feelings about the work we do?
There is something more to work than material necessity. Doing work that you feel is meaningful and worthwhile tends to make you happier and healthier; doing work that you feel is pointless or shameful tends to lead to the opposite. The motivation to work for the sake of meaning is less obvious than for financial or material gain, but it may be just as potent. When thinking about the shape of society we want, it would be a mistake to think of work only in terms of the material gains it produces and delivers. Depriving people of meaning causes suffering just as surely as depriving them of food, shelter, medical care and comfort. Work will always be a vital part of human life, but work for work’s sake, even accompanied by all the material riches you can imagine, will never be enough. At the end of the day, what are we all really working for?
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Sources
‘The Selfish Gene’, ‘The Extended Phenotype’ and ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins.
The Oxford Handbook of Meaningful Work - Edited by Ruth Yeoman, Catherine Bailey, Adrian Madden, and Marc Thompson - books.google.com.au/books?id=...
Volunteering and health benefits in general adults: cumulative effects and forms by Jerf W. K. Yeung,corresponding author Zhuoni Zhang, and Tae Yeun Kim - www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Data on Australia's Welfare: Volunteers (2019) - www.aihw.gov.au/reports/austr...
Credits
Written by Andrew Johnson and Jackson Winter
Spoken by Andrew Johnson
Edited by Jackson Winter
Icons made by MD Badsha Meah, www.wishforge.games, Charlie, icon king1, Raj Dev, fengquan li, Free Preloaders and Shabna Ashraf from www.freeicons.io
by Freepik from flaticon.com
Yacht by Becca, Palace by monkik, Knit by Icons Bazaar, Game by Adrien Coquet, Paint by Gregor Cresnar, Mobile Phone by Iconnic and Human Evolution by Gan Khoon Lay from the Noun Project
All other graphics created by Jackson Winter
Music
Night Snow by Asher Fulero
1940's Slow Dance (Sting) by Doug Maxwell, Media Right Productions
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It’s funny how even with all the technology, work hours have barely budged.
Exactly why it's so silly when people speculate that automation and AI will eliminate work. It won't eliminate work, we'll just find different work to do.
Under capitalism technology take out the jobs.
Under socialism technology take out the work.
we are WAGESLAVES that simple
I agree with this. Would have been a lot happier at 18 if I knew then what I wanted to do.
I'm 72 Years Old-Uh!-YOUNG!&I Choose-To Keep Working!-Because The Work&People&The Great Foods-Keeps Me-Going&Being HAPPY&FREE!-Raymond "Mike" Hong!&(Someday-I'll Retire-But Not-NOW!-I HOPE!-Mike!)😎👍!!!!!!!!!
To what effect are we working so hard?
In short, to keep ourselves busy. We work to keep ourselves occupied because if we don’t, meaninglessness of our existance will catch up to us. Life, at the end of the day, does not have that much of a meaning. We are born into this world, not by our choice, in a place not chosen by us, in a family we may or may not like. Everything is completely random and arbitrary. And then we have to die. Even in that, we have little to no control. If we had enough time to think about it in our daily lives, we all would have gone insane by now. We need something. Something to keep us occupied, something to be worried about, something to complain about, something to hate, or if we are lucky, something to love and enjoy. That is why we have structured our society in such a way that we have to work in most days. We work not because we have to, we work because, if we don’t, reality will hit us hard. And we don’t, in no circumstances, want that.
Wouldn't it be that behind that reality is God?
@@m.h.b8478 maybe
Well not all of us are have nihilistic views of life I for one know I have found more enjoyment in life working less. I do tree work and maybe work 1 or 2(if it's a hard job) days every couple weeks. What I do is highly skilled so I usually charge 800-2000 based on the tree. See I make money don't mooch and work less than most people
@@m.h.b8478 no. god created to cope with this meaningless dumb existence and death that can come at any point and end everything you ever worked for
@@kiril323 **for in this life.
You're correct on this.
Ask anyone what they would be doing with their time if they were wealthy and did not have to work, and you will get all kinds of answers of _work_ that people would do just because they enjoy it.
Nah fck that. Living live is the answer. Traveling, experiencing, interaction, etc. Definitely not volunteering to work if I'm already wealthy shyt pointless & meaningless
thats not true😂😂
@@Fukyallfukz
you've missed the definition of "work", then
Nah, it's different for example wanting to travel and meet people, and go to a business travel and make network, completely different.
We're heading to a time where humanity will have a more layed back existence. Fruit of the labour's of our species.
very nice video . I will get my students to watch it in class
Most people work because they are repaying loans/interest because they bought things they don’t need with money they don’t have.
Or things they _do_ need, like education, which in recent decades has gotten so expensive that you basically can't pay for it without loans or rich parents.
@Winchester - My Best Friend House prices are determined by what the market is will to pay for them. If a particular house is too expensive then it means you’re looking at homes in an area outside of what you’re prepared to pay.
@NatureLover Very true. You cannot blame people in Sydney wanting to live within an hour distance of their work. Travelling long distances cuts into all sorts of things: having the time to cook healthy meals, etc. People who live further away can miss out on certain job opportunities & unemployment rates can be high in those places.
Because the Ego (the guardian of individuality) itself possesses the electric momentum of Activity-Creativity and the emotional magnetic impulses of "Bonding-Rejection," whatever is born of the "Ego-drive" by its thoughts, feelings and actions, is charged with physical electromagnetic life which will produce replica life forms and will be eventually materialized within the life of the Ego-creator.
These created forms not only manifest eventually as experiences but also disturb the functioning of the physical processes of their creator and are the origin of physical discomforts or viruses or diseases.
Therefore, is it a great cause for rejoicing when the soul emerges from its encapsulating human consciousness of the Ego (the guardian of individuality), for the ascending spiritual consciousness will create the harmonious life-giving conditions it holds in consciousness. Conversely, it is a cause for sorrow while the human consciousness is submerged in Ego control, producing upsets, trials and tribulations both in life experiences and the physical condition itself.
Therefore, I tell you: if you do not like the world, you have it within your power to change the "conditions of existence," right where you are - if you have the faith and consistent will to do so.
I repeat in another form to gain your attention:
If you continue in your present level of human functioning and thought, you will only experience your present level of human existence.
You will be bound down to working hard for a paltry living, beset by numerous problems, such as poverty, ill-health, addictions, immobilized by prostrating fear and exposed to ill-intentioned attacks of all kinds.
You will be burdened by present conditions until you understand how to change them.
This is the golden opportunity to take control of your lives as never before, by getting control of your thoughts and emotions - the electrical and magnetic impulses - the blueprints of your future experiences.
For - you are like potters possessing clay and daily shaping pots and utensils for your use.
CONSCIOUSNESS is the clay - the substance with which you make your life - and every condition pertaining to it. You, alone, shape your life into the forms you experience.
By your thoughts, you can change your personal future - if you will but accept the Christ Letters, A Course In Miracles and A Course Of Love.
You can affect your environment, your homes, families, work, the people you associate with, and even plants, animals and climate.
Whatever you hold steadfastly in mind externalizes.
Ah! the timing for this comment! I have been learning this through meditation and affirmations, etc. I manifested myself into the life of a full time author and I have my own schedule now. Im attempting the next level of manifestation that goes beyond this and thus far its working! Nameste.
I love this video
I wouldn't call it work to perform actions when they don't serve to sustain yourself. Billionaires, retirees and lottery winners may play, volunteer or pursue a hobby. But they don't work. A lottery winner can leave a job any time he wants to; a normal worker can't do that and that's what seperates a hobby from work: voluntariness. Sometimes, very rarely, what you want to do and what you have to do come together. But for the vast majority of people, that's not the case. They work to not die or suffer. They work because they're forced to work under the threat of poverty and death. That's all there is to work.
You're describing a job, not work.
@@PEGSInstitute No. A job is work done in exchange for currency. Hunter-gatherers work as well, they just sustain themselves immediately through their actions, whereas most work done today sustains the worker mediately (via money). But they're essentially doing the same thing: Perform actions to continue living.
dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/work-noun 🤷
@@PEGSInstitute de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_(Philosophie)
"Im anthropologischen und philosophischen Sprachgebrauch meint Arbeit vor allem die 'Tätigkeit des Menschen in Abhängigkeit von Natur und natürlicher Bedürftigkeit zum Zweck der Lebensunterhaltung und -verbesserung.'"
"Anthropologically and philosophically speaking, work is basically 'any human action dependent on nature and natural needs performed for the sustainment and improvement of life.'"
🤷
And now? Could we please start debating and engaging with each others arguments instead of smugly sharing dictionary links?
"and improvement of life"... it's right there in the definition you shared.
People are stupid animals are smarter because they are FREE!
Free to eat each other
I love working....its a good way to afford life. You can not truly be a responsible adult if you can not work consistently. But all the drama that comes with work is something I can do without.
We work so that we can get off this rock and start living off planet! Bring the Sci Fi!
Usually to make someone else richer
if we didn't have such bad spending habits and only bought what we truly needed. We would have to work so much.
Needs should be free. Yet we work for them for 60 years. Utter bullshit.
Our needs are free. They come from the earth. It is a small group of people who decided to deprive these basic needs from everyone, unless they work for them. It’s slavery.
Needs can’t be free because the resources are always finite
That's why I just work, no need to spend more time at work, spend my time, most of the times alone and I do whatever I want, and usually is getting high, playing videogames and playing bass, drums, rock and roll, heavy metal, punk. This reality sucks.
StOp fEtIsHiZiNg wOrK TaNkIe!
what
Yah except not all interviews guarantee a job offer
I think u messed up the balance at 1:44. Should be going down on the right first, then on the left. but eh np great vid
Blame your parents because bringing you to this world without any money.
Then the question arises: Why did your parents do the work?😃
Definitely blame the parents infinite % I agree wholeheartedly 💯
"work that you feel is pointless or shameful..." "work for work's sake will never be enough..." These sound likes rebukes of a job guarantee. I'm here for it. But is that the main point of the vid? Not clear. Missing: Any discussion of the historical/cultural lens that colors our valuation of work... Russell's observation that work is often glorified by the ownership class.
An exploration of a job guarantee is a planned future video in this series, so think of this video as a primer for further instalments looking at redefining meaningful work.
Certainly this video shouldn't be read as a rebuke of a job guarantee though. If anything quite the opposite.
@@PEGSInstitute Oh man I could write you a novel on this. Just listened to a podcast interview of Mitchell in which he says that surfers would be included as part of his job guarantee. (Cf the famous UBI debate between Rawls and Van Parijs crystallizing around the question of why a society should pay surfers to do nothing.) Mitchell says that surfers could be paid to perform lifeguarding and swimming lesson duties. (~hand over face to the power 1000~) The technocrat's desire to micromanage and rubberstamp sanctioned activities shines through all too embarrassingly. What about people who have a hobby slightly more obscure than surfing? Can oboe players get paid to give oboe lessons? At the expense of "real" private-sector teachers? The incongruities pile up. Mitchell might as well be waving his hand in the air announcing that he has a 5-year plan for sale.
If you go back to the original literature on ELR and JG it becomes immediately clear that the MMT founders didn't really think through the most basic ethical and practical implications of JG. For them the JG was really just an all-too-enticing accounting trick to bypass the Phillips curve. "Look mom, no inflation no unemployment!" The primary ethical concern is this: The minute a job has been _guaranteed_ that job loses its moral value aka dignity. (For real, nobody seems to challenge them on this. But it's a glaring hole.) Secondary ethical concern, *if* the JG comes to replace unemployment insurance / traditional welfare: The fact that you are withholding sustenance from someone in exchange for busywork. (Let's be real: if everyone is guaranteed a job, there's going to be busywork.) The latter is not only cruel in the present moment but also a loss for the future, as the busywork comes at the expense of time potentially spent on self-care and self-betterment.
I'll go on with practical concerns. #1: JG jobs are, as per the original MMT prescription, supposed to be min-wage jobs such as not to prevent people from returning to the private sector; is a white-collar worker really supposed to "fill the gap" with a min-wage job? Will this make anyone happy? #2: As Matt Bruenig pointed out, JG jobs are supposed to come and go. Do you really want, say, the amount of elder care to ebb and flow with the economic tide? In fact, very few public good sectors show this kind of flexibility; maybe the only such sector is art and landscaping, that kind of thing, but relatively few people are qualified to do that in the first place.
JG is one of those things that looks good from afar but becomes hopelessly ugly up close. UBI is almost the opposite: looks weird and alien to novices but makes more and more sense the more you think about it.
Note that the above issues can be clear for all to see but just as "it is hard to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it" something similar holds with respect to academics and things that threaten a previous position of theirs. The MMT founders seem to have been stuck in this rut for the last 10 years when it comes to the JG/UBI debate.
@@PEGSInstitute Well, I feel bad about my somewhat aggressive response, but the whole topic is sad. There's this beautiful macro theory, and the founders have wedded themselves to some (well, at least one) dysfunctional policy prescriptions, back in the 80s, that are now dragging the ship down... there seems no way out of this knot without hurting some feelings... /_\
@@carjaune6793 You raise some interesting points and most of these are things we've debated internally about a job guarantee, so expect them to be discussed in any video we produce on the subject. The practicalities around who decides what job are applicable and how is certainly a concern, although I believe among ourselves we've agreed a compromise of having an optional basic income for any who don't fit into the prescribed jobs might help, as well as alleviate some of your other concerns around creating further busy work.
I agree with your point also, that for the betterment of society it may well be that an individual's time would be better spent on self-betterment than relatively menial labour. One of the more radical discussions we had was proposing the availability of a publicly funded "long-service leave" or sabbatical of some kind that would purposely give people a few months to a year of financial support, free from obligations of employment (after a period of sustained participation in the job market) to pursue further education, or trial employment in a new field, or even simply just to slow down and focus on their health or any other personal issues. I think that's something that would have to be held off until after you get a job guarantee, it's probably a bit of a leap from how things currently operate and certainly requires more investigation.
Your point about the temporal nature of a job guarantee and how that works in practice is also a concern that I expect we would struggle to answer in our video on the subject, but we will certainly try. We've been trying to aim these videos at a fairly rudimentary level, so I don't expect we'll have an in-depth answer, but it's certainly something we'll discuss.
@@PEGSInstitute Hi Pegs Institute. Well I've been enjoying your videos so far and I certainly wish you the best of luck as you continue your work. "Your Taxes Pay For Nothing" is a real star.
I'm really very pessimistic about patching up the JG to somehow "make it work", though. Consider for example the fact that localities need to able to decide how to allocate (at least some) of the JG jobs. From that moment, what counts as a JG job will be tossed around as a political football and change along with the composition of the city council. In fact, you will probably lose more energy on the political infighting that this will engender than on anything that actually gets done by the JG labor. Ok, no problem, so you make another patch: "the JG jobs will be decided by a special council that rotates only one member once every ... blablabla...accountable to.... blalblabla.... having undergone specialized training... blablabla... ". Every problem is thus answered by another layer of supervisory bureaucracy. Every personal incongruity has to be answered by another special-case exemption to be crafted by the agency. (Think Mitchell and his lifeguarding surfers.) You're headed straight off the bureaucratic nightmare cliff at 100mph. The only person having any fun in this nightmare is the technocrat dreaming up the rules of the game as he/she goes along, inventing new "well all you need to do is"-type solutions to address the latest kinks that have popped up in the rug.
Also it's striking how JGers end up patching things to look like UBI. (a) surfers, mothers, and students are allowed! (b) hours will be flexible! (c) there will be a sabbatical! etc. It's like... can we fast-forward past this adolescent phase and settle on UBI already? (Unless you insist on means-testing the UBI, which is of course no longer UBI, being equivalent to present-day welfare.)
I really think that the answer is clear when you look back at the original MMT papers on the JG. What's going is plain to see: the authors are primarily concerned with the technical observation that the government has the means to pay unemployed people to be "off the unemployment books" and that this will not result in inflation or unduly compete with the private sector as long as you make the make-work employment minimum wage. So you've *nominally* achieved zero unemployment without inflationary risks. Yay! It's a shallow sleight-of-hand that does not consider the productivity of the jobs or the human side of the equation, but that gives you bragging rights over the Phillips curve. Uninteresting and antisocial. Yuck.
Anyway... for the rest, I refer you to my rant above... ;) But I really think that the courageous position would be to either to destroy the intellectual proposition that is the JG or, courage for that notwithstanding, give a history course on what the JG originally meant for someone like Wray, Warren or Mitchell (and they meant slightly different things to these three people, mind you) followed by next-generation critiques, so that people can think through the issues themselves.
In any case, best of luck, I look forward to seeing what you produce :P
fortnite
I wish I can even can get hired.
Have you had any luck yet?
Bro we are slaves...what ever you work you lost you life in the office. Work whole life and then you f children take all when you are dead at 60.