Money is certainly useful, and getting it
should matter to you, but merely having money is no measure of your
dignity or your value as a producer. Actively improving the world,
however – producing – is a proper measure of dignity. So, how were the
beauty and dignity of work ruined?
By Paul Rosenberg,
FreemansPerspective.com
At
one time I lived very close to the Field Museum of Chicago; I had a
membership and spent a good deal of time there. One evening, about ten
minutes before closing, I noticed that workmen had begun preparing the
first floor for an evening event. I had a panoramic view from where I
stood at the second floor balcony, and what I saw has stuck with me ever
since.
What I saw was a lone man setting up tables and chairs -
simple work, the kind that any teenager could do. But what I watched
this man do was every bit as beautiful as dance. He moved with
integrity, with precision, and with intent. He carefully spaced the
tables in a precise geometry, he moved every chair with efficiency. This
was more than just work; it was also art. This man knew that he was
doing his job well, and, perhaps most importantly, he
enjoyed doing it well.
I
was transfixed by it all, and I stood there until the guards asked me
to leave. And even then, I moved very slowly until I lost sight of him.
There
is real beauty in doing a job well, even a simple job. It is our great
loss that this form of beauty is never mentioned in public these days -
double-sad, because at one time, such beauty
was acknowledged.
This
brings us to an obvious question: What happened? How did we lose the
beauty and dignity of work? I'll answer that in a moment, but first I
want to explain what I mean by "the
productive class."
What Is The Productive Class?
The
productive class includes all those people who are engaged in improving
life upon Earth: The people who build and repair our cars, our houses,
and our computers. The people who provide us with air conditioning,
electricity, plumbing, and food. The people who make, clean, and repair
our clothing. The people who treat our sicknesses and wounds.
If
you can drive around town and point out places where you repaired
things, or delivered things, or fed people, or made human life better in
any of a thousand ways, you are a producer.
If you survive and persist at the expense of others, on the other hand, you are
not a producer.
But if you
are
a producer, there is an inherent dignity in what you do. You are
actively making the world better. You are directly creating benefit for
yourself and for other human beings. What you do every day is morally
virtuous and worthy of respect. And you should never let anyone tell you
otherwise.
And, it's worth pointing out: Money is
not
a measure of your worth. In a perfect world, that might be true, but
this isn't a perfect world. In our time, morality and money don’t always
travel together.
Money is certainly useful, and getting it should
matter to you, but merely having money is no measure of your dignity or
your value as a producer. Actively improving the world, however -
producing -
is a proper measure of dignity.
What Happened?
So, how were the beauty and dignity of work ruined?
The short answer: They were killed by hierarchy and status. I'll explain briefly:
Humans
have been carefully taught to accept, respect, and respond to hierarchy
for thousands of years. As a result, we respond emotionally to images
of kings, 'great leaders,' and so on. But it was the industrial era that
finally did in the respect for work. After all, this was a time when
millions of people accepted deathly boring jobs simply for better pay.
The
meaning of their work became a paycheck and nothing more.
And in the industrial setting, there was one clear marker of status:
the position of ordering other people around.
The
bosses got status and the workers got checks, and both lost meaning and
satisfaction from their work. The assumption that was planted in us
over the industrial era was this:
Only people who order others around matter. Everyone else should feel shame in their presence.
This,
of course, played perfectly into the hands of politicians. This can be
seen in the plague of "great leaders" and world wars that erupted at the
height of the industrial era, in the first half of the 20th century.
In
any event, status is gorilla-level garbage; what matters is what you
are, not which position you hold within some kind of hierarchy. By
believing in hierarchy and status, we lost the satisfaction of work.
What, Really, Is Work?
It's
important to look at things directly; to focus and see them for what
they really are, not just by what other people say about them.
This is what I see when I focus on work itself:
Productive
work is the insertion of creativity into the world. It is the birthing
of benefit into the world. People who do this should be deeply satisfied
by what they do.
Compared to productive
work, status is merely ornamental puffery, a shiny coat with the word
"Important" emblazoned upon it, and worn by a sad little man.
If
you are a member of the productive class, you should re-arrange your
mind and stop responding to the demands of hierarchy and status.
Instead, pay attention to things that really improve human life in the
world.
Creating things, improving things, or making it possible
for other people to create… these are noble, beautiful, and important
things. We should gain a deep and enduring satisfaction from doing them.
And, indeed, when we put our minds and efforts to it, that's exactly what we will gain.
[
Editor's Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of
FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of
The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model.
Click here to get your free copy.]
