The latest issue of Jacobin, the thirteenth issue of the journal produced by the youth of Democratic Socialist of America, continues, and significantly expands, its lively coverage of politics. What interests me most about the magazine is its critical coverage of work. Peter Frase’s essays on the topic are always worth a read. Frase doesn’t quite channel Paul Lafargue, but he comes closer than any other writer I know of this side of the Atlantic. You might say that is faint praise, but still it is enough praise that when I read in the current issue an article that seems to revive the old lefty handwringing about the demise of the American Dream when it comes to jobs, I was surprised.
The article in question – In the Name of Love – by Miya Tokumitsu, riffs on what the author says is the “unofficial work mantra of our time” – “Do what you love. Love what you do.” Ms Tokumitsu pulls these words from the mouth of Steve Jobs as he delivered them in his (now) famous 2005 Stanford University Graduation Speech and slaps them up against the precarious reality of work in America, and beyond. What follows, in part, is a criticism of the presumptions of the privileged that blinds them to the reality of daily life of the masses, who hardly have the energy to imagine what they love nor the money and time for it if they wished to pursue it.
Most of this essay execrates those who, obviously successful in their pursuits, adopt this slogan as a “philosophy” of life to exploit, as bosses, interns and to manipulate their employees (or team mates) to become workaholics. A corporate culture that requires extreme self-abuse as a demonstration of one’s love for the job is simply transferring the creditor/debtor power relations of neo-liberalism to a micro level. And as Ms Tokumitsu makes clear, individual effort, riveted into the skulls of youth not much after toilet training, is the driving force behind this socio-pathic behavior.
Let’s be clear about this – there is nothing new about wanting to find work one can, if not enjoy, at least take pride in. The auto mechanic doesn’t dream of oil-soaked, injured hands, but of righting a mechanical problem – that brings satisfaction at the end of the day. In other contexts, the same applies for the plumber and the electrician. These examples of skilled jobs, and not the “knowledge” work the author highlights, and seems most comfortable discussing, by definition entail pride in execution. Craftwork for generations stood as an example of the good work people sought, and in those small, self-sufficient communities Thoreau mentions in “Life Without Principle” that work was dominant.
Today salary appears to be the only measure of worth and prestige, contrary to the 19th century when social recognition for work done well counted more than money, but still the desire that drives longing for satisfying work often transcends monetary compensation as the prime goal. The number of small businesses started each year by individuals who take a loss of wages from their previous employment, testifies to this fact.
It is certainly true that many illusions accompany the desire to do work one loves, but to condemn the hope for a better life because it is saddled with fantasy hardly suffices for social analysis. Individualism skews everything, even the deepest, most heartfelt creative impulses. This should not come as a surprise given the wall-to-wall promotion of self-aggrandizement in our schools, the media and most especially in sports. The hold on our culture by this situation chokes countervailing forces. Those forces of community bonding that existed in the past may not have disappeared with the demise of bowling alleys, but it certainly seems more difficult to situate these days. On the other hand, it is not insignificant, for example, that the internet provides a forum, however tenuous, for sociality. Whether it is in collaborative gaming, social interest groups or simply responding to “comments,” the hollowness of isolated lives seeks fulfillment.
The internet may be the worst illustration of the effort to overcome an atomized existence. The better case could be made by considering the growing popularity of collective endeavors from urban agriculture to cultural manifestations, like the explosion of book fairs across the land. And the best case that I could make rests on the accelerating interest in cooperatives and commoning. For instance, the bi-coastal hotbeds of worker cooperatives have now been joined by developments in cities that lie between those two regions.
May be the slogan Jobs promoted should be altered as a more seductive appeal: “Do what you love. Love what you do, together.”