Work and the economy

[G. Stewart]

Thanks to Charles Brass for a most interesting recent posting on work and employment.   What is called "work" seems to be (I'm avoiding assertion) nothing more than a human convention, differing in different places and times and even in our own lives at different moments. One moment I may be doing something with a happy sense of fulfillment and usefulness-in-the-world and feel that I am doing meaningful work. The next moment the same task, become over-elaborated, may lose the worth of work or, coming to the edge of my energies, may cease to be work and become toil. The capacity to self-define what I will choose to regard as work, a subjective judgment, is important to my sense of well-being. Further, as we now seem to be learning, our image of ourselves in relation to the work we define ourselves as doing can affect our health, mental and physical. No work is intrinsically lowly, none intrinsically superior, but only as we perceive it to be so?   As it is for myself, so it is, through my eyes, with respect to others. Thus others who may see themselves as working, perhaps even in well-paid employment, may not in my eyes be working, while many who regard themselves as unemployed (voluntarily or non-voluntarily) may in my view be doing significant work. In short, I reserve to myself the opportunity to look around me and accord the accolade of work where I believe it is merited. I assume that others do the same. (I therefore don't agree that the decision to choose what a word will mean is confined to the rich and powerful. Brian has written to Harry: "Alice is perfect because as you recall the rich and powerful  get to decide what language means and they get to change that meaning when  it serves their purposes!! Now that is infinitely better than privilege." I think we all have that privilege although the rich and powerful may have better access to leverage in making their definitions known, but even they cannot force acceptance of their decisions.) Where is this going? Given the capacity of each of us to decide what we will regard as constituting work, I am constantly surprised by how many choose to define paid employment (working for hire) as being co-extensive with work, and to define non-employment (voluntary and/or non-voluntary), as "not working." Is anybody else surprised by this phenomenon in contemporary society? It seems to me quite marked. In making work and employment synonymous I think a valuable distinction is lost, one that opens, as do all distinctions, an opportunity for fresh perception and discourse. In instance, some of the hardest-working and most productive workers I know are retired or have never held a job.   This creates the possibility of "more jobs, less work," a language game -- or a real cost to society arising from a failure to sustain a distinction in language? (The other side of that real cost of course is perhaps a real opportunity? )   Regards,   Gail     Gail Stewart [EMAIL PROTECTED]