Without doubt, whether its TANSTAAFL, or the Puritan Ethic, we know we have to work.
It isn't so easy for us to put ourselves in the place of someone who just has "a job" - not a choice for a life's work, or a learning career, but a job.
Yet, this is the lot of many.
Working - which must be done if one is to survive - is better than not working.
We received a form letter at Christmas from some friends in Arizona. It described all the good things that they had experienced during the year.
Couple of weeks ago, a mutual friend was on her way to Arizona. The husband had been fired. He came home and put a bullet through his head.
The future of work in America?
Harry
--------------------------------------------------------------
Ed wrote:
Harry Pollard:> Ed, > > Considering the miserable subject, this was a fun post. > > Classically, we don't want to work - which is why we follow the "least > exertion" principle. We want the fruits of our labor - preferably without > the labor. > > So, we don't want jobs, but we take them reluctantly because without them > we are soon hungry. Religion comes into play always to make us do the > miserable jobs because we will get a later reward - or because it's penance > for our inadequacies. Harry, I suspect that we really do want to work, whatever the exertion, not only because of biblical injunctions, but for many other reasons. It's partly a class thing - not to work, not to put forward the effort, identifies you as social trash. Parents with a sense of the importance of their position in life encourage their kids to work from an early age not only for the sake of independence but in order to maintain the status of the family. Friends of ours, both professional, have a nineteen year old who does not want to work or go on to higher education. They are appalled! When they are not beating him over the head and shoulders they are beating themselves over the head and shoulders. Despite how the Classicists put it for theoretical purposes, I'm sure they recognized the implications of work for maintaining class and self- and family-respect. Robert Louis Stevenson's life overlapped the later Classists. His "Child's Garden of Verses" contains several little mantras to help keep children moving in the right direction. For example, the poem "System": Every night my prayers I say, And get my dinner every day; And every day that I've been good, I get an orange after food. The child that is not clean and neat, With lots of toys and things to eat, He is a naughty child, I'm sure --- Or else his dear papa is poor. Work means not only food on the table, but Godliness, cleanliness and status. Ed
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.393 / Virus Database: 223 - Release Date: 9/30/2002
