Why Work?

"The enslaved ploughman cries: O! O! magnus labor etiam, magnus labor est, quia non sum liber in Latin, or Hig! Hig! micel gedeorf ys hyt. / Geleof, micel gedeorf hit ys, forþam ic neom freoh.

 Oh! Oh! The labour is great. Yes, the labour is great, because I am not free."

Very few of us work to survive, although in recent years it has increasingly felt as if that is the case. The social safety net has become all but impossible to access and so profoundly shaming and destructive when it is that most of us would rather do anything rather than use it, even if that means becoming physically and mentally unwell.

At the same time, rates of workplace stress and bullying have spiralled out of control. This is nothing new. Legislation has had to be created and enforced to protect people from colleagues and employers for centuries. Since 2009 many pieces of academic research consistently show that most of us dislike our employment and that record numbers of us are being bullied.

The interest that governments take in work moves far beyond economics. Work is an idea, an ideology with multiple, contradictory meanings: a virtue, a curse, a necessity, a right, a duty, a punishment. It is a source of individual and societal, national and international health and illness, unrest and stability, satisfaction and dread. It is an indication of your status, worth, values, goals, ideals, attitudes, beliefs, your place in your family and wider communities, your religion.

Yet we find it difficult to define what work is.

At its most basic, work is the transfer of energy.

Work is employment

Work is activity

Work is task fulfilment

Work is manifestation

Work is an ethic

Work is a spiritual principle

Work is a socioeconomic relationship

Work is an action involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a result. Money is not necessarily involved. It can be a hobby, a passion, an obsession, a drudge, a punishment, an act. Machines work. Non-human animals work, and can be worked. Money is not necessarily involved. 

Activity is simply the condition in which things are done. Money is not necessarily involved. 

Employment is an agreement between an employer and an employee that the employee will provide services in return for money and other benefits. More granularly, it is the offer from the employee of their capacity to work. Whether we do that work or not is another matter.