Work Ethic

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

The very expression to me is fighting words. It’s one of those loaded expressions. “You don’t have a strong work ethic.”
The word ethic makes it immediately sound like if you don’t have it, you’ve broken some moral code, you’re a bad person or something.

I think the protestant work ethic might have had something to do with the afterlife.
But I get it a lot from secular people, Jews, everyone talks about work ethic.

I don’t like it. Not one bit. It scares me.

Lately I’ve been keyed into this idea that we’re all part of and contributing to a confining consumerist system that results in vast numbers of wage slaves
forced into disutility to make the 1% richer. So when I hear the word “work ethic” my skin crawls.

I believe in honesty, fairness, and taking responsibility for yourself, which is an offshoot of honesty and fairness.
But nowhere does this necessarily intrinsically include work, or if it does, it certainly doesn’t comment on how much work,
or what kind of work, one is obliged to do in order to have intrinsic value as a person. It doesn’t mean long, tedious work for low pay.
And yet when people use the phrase, it usually describes something that isn’t, on it’s face, all that fun or exciting. It’s hard work
they’re espousing.

I guess what bothers me is it sounds like there’s something honorable or good about a person who feels morally compelled to do a lot of work,
who is willing to do things the hard way, and to do more work than he needs to.

I know it also comes from a campaign to get workers to feel morally obligated to do enough work to justify their pay. This makes sense.
If you enter into a contract to do work, you should do the work. But I don’t call that work ethic. I call that contract ethic. Or honesty. Fairness.

Again, why does it have to be articulated as “work ethic?” Those words. WORK. ETHIC. Paired together. I’ll tell you why.

1.So that the poor can make the rich richer. It’s a word that keeps people working even when work is not fun.
2.So that the freethinking poor won’t challenge the status quo of the working poor with blinders on; it’s a way to make the freethinkers ashamed
of advancing the virtue of leisure and calling out the hideousness of wage slavery.

Folks, I’ll say it again, there is nothing morally or intrinsically GOOD about work. There is no work ethic.
There are martyrs. There are wage slaves. There are people who love what they do. There are obsessive compulsives.
There are simpletons. There are religious zealots. There are driven artists who couldn’t stop their work any sooner than stopping their breathing, and they are lucky. Driven warriors. They each have a different story and a different motivation.
They are the ones who perpetuate the expression, along with the rich and the government. And there’s plenty of overlap.
For instance, you might have a relative who is a rich, obsessive-compulsive, religious zealot who used to be and is still at heart a poor wage slave simpleton,
who is also part of the government, and/or is fortunate enough to LOVE WHAT HE DOES. “I love what I do,” said Bill, the insurance salesman.

Work is a physics concept. You have to work to walk to the pot to piss in it, to grab the grapes from the vine,
Breathing is a form of work. Work is actually fine. It’s the stuff of life.

Then there’s jobs. Disutility, becoming the means of production to an ownership class.
Who in their right mind would ever be a piece of human factory equipment?
Someone who is desperate. but often desperation isn’t enough. They have to believe it is morally good.
Talk about evil.

If you have a run-in with someone who wants you to be doing something you don’t want to do, they will bring up work ethic as a form of manipulation.
An attack on your self-esteem, to make you feel like a loser, instead of a visionary. When that day comes, remember, Gamer himself gave you permission to not be fazed by their manipulation.

Can you defend work ethic as a phrase? I’d like to hear from you.

2

“Work ethic” is just a measure of how a person responds to slavery and exploitation. If you don’t like slavery and exploitation, then you have a bad work ethic. Some people have a “Strong work ethic”, and in spite of this, are still unable to make ends meet after the bosses get the bonus checks and there’s not enough money left to go around. Then…to top it all off, those people are then considered “immoral” or “lazy”, or, “irresponsible” because they can’t keep up with what they owe.

3

What is neglected in “work ethic” is the back side which is pay. You did a fair day of work for a fair wage.
It was an agreement but now you are expected to work to death without the fair pay part. You are suppose to
be happy just to have a job and thus not caring about the fair day of work for a fair wage. there are
several parts to this idea of work ethic. One part is people who get millions for just being famous, never
having worked a day in their lives and trust fund babies. Kim Kardasion is a perfect example of someone
who has become famous for being famous and at no point is a work ethic ever mentioned. Why have an work ethic
if you can become famous and thus rich without actually ever working. The other part is the part whereas
working for 40 years and really having nothing to show for it has become the norm. My mom worked all her live and
she has nothing to show for it. Part of the American dream is to be able to retire with a pension that will support
one until death however corporations are taking away those pensions and there is a strong drive to take
away pensions from people in the public sector. Where is the incentive to work when there is no pension
to support oneself when you finally retire? The work ethic requires there to be some incentive to actually work
and today with wages falling and pensions being taken away, why work? what is the point when
it can’t possible lead anywhere. You don’t get what you worked for in pay and you don’t get any type of
pension when you are done, so why work? What is the point? Your family? Your family will get even further
down the pay scale and with less pension (if that is even possible) so your family will do even worse then
you did thus for the first time in American history, our children will not be better off then the parents,
and thus ending another aspect of the American dream. Thus ends the American dream. a modern success story.

Kropotkin

4

Besides the motivation of ‘entrepreneurs’ to divest retirees of their pension to the advantage of the former, and the disadvantage of the latter, (remember a few years ago the big to do about investing social security into Wall Street portfolios?) , there is the fact that the built in cost of living increases in no way can compensate for the actual increase in not only more and more expensive purchasing power, but the double effect that has on inflationary effects.

5

Peter, I stopped working over 2 years ago, and I’m way better off than my parents ever dreamed of being.

6

Not really, i agree it’s a form of manipulation to turn people into tools basicly.

But for the sake of discussion - i mean i doubt many philosophical minded people will be high on work ethic :-" - I will go ahead and say that without that kind of manipulation we would be living in caves. The assumption is that our civilisation is build on the back of slaves, that the kind of progress we have had, would not have been possible without this kind of manipulation.

So if that assumption is justified, you have on the one hand something that is despicable on a personal or individual level, and the other hand something that is possibily necessary to advance a group or a society.

Asked to chose between the two, you still could easily say ‘screw progress, i’d rather live in a society that is nicer for it’s people’.

But then the possible problem with that line is that societies don’t live in isolation and compete with eachother. The society that doesn’t use despicable means like this, wouldn’t advance as much as other societies that do… and would eventually be run over by the more advanced society.

So my defense for work ethics, and phrases like it, is that it is necessary to enslave part of your society through manipulation to not become all slaves of other societies. Discus!

7

Mr. R: Peter, I stopped working over 2 years ago, and I’m way better off than my parents ever dreamed of being.

K: a common fallacy thinking that one person or a couple of people with a different story
somehow defeat an argument. Of course there are people who are better off then their parents, but
extend it out in time and generations, you find it has changed for this generation. My daughter generation
and she is 29. She and millions of her generation will be worse off then their parents. Some feel good stories
won’t change that fact.

Kropotkin

8

My wife has said “my father had a strong work ethic. You do not”

And this is supposed to be some kind of insult, or an invitation to be more productive.

I just wish she said “my father did more for his family” because at least the language makes sense, even if the assertion is demonstrably false.

Has anyone in your life chided you for having no work ethic? Do you know people in your life who use the expression as a compliment? Why are philosophers hackles raised when they hear the expression?

9

Because maybe they understand a little bit better where the expression comes from. It’s a kind of manipulation, and a quite common part of human interaction. It’s used to steer behaviour in a certain direction. That isn’t necessary bad, parents use it all the time to motivate their kids to do something. It can also be used for less good stuff, depending on the way you look at it, like making someone do things that’s not in their interest. Philosphers especially hate being steered by someone else, they think they know better… maybe they want to be the ones steering.

10

If you desire an outcome but don’t do the required work, it’s not poor work ethic you exhibit per se. It’s something else. Some kind of hypocracy or inability to delay gratification? What?

Maybe work ethic means you should give what you take. If you are alive it means you are taking. But are you contributing? Maybe work ethic means, or is meant to mean, that if you don’t spend a portion of your day producing or contributing, you’re kind of a pig.

I really want to understand this. Because I don’t want this to be just a bunch of us lazy philosophers all agreeing that work sucks and people who tell us to work are stupid.

11

Work ethic has nothing to do with working hard. Work ethic is the same as regular ethic. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t put your nose where it doesn’t belong, and don’t get personally involved.
Not too much to ask for a salary, really.

12

I don’t know if this will make sense, but I think you can only really understand this if you become part of some larger community, and have internalised their goals and values… and basicly do everything with those in mind. But that is not what a philosopher does generally, he’s the one questioning those goals and values. If you totally internalised the values and are a part of the community you won’t be a good philosopher, and vice versa… There has to be some distance.

13

Gamer, I’m going to focus on you’re original post with this response, and ignore all that came after, for the moment.

You use the phrase disutility to describe the state of work as a compromise for wage and benefits, with the understanding that sometimes the compromise is unequal and exploits the worker or employee, which in turn is a direct manipulation of power by the individual or corporation that has control and is known as the employer. If this postulation is correct, what then is utility? Within the capitalist system that is currently employed, and is ever slightly shifting, disutility could be conceived of as utility. The system requires individuals that are willing to forego and forget any greater aspirations to willingly do work that may not be the romantic realization of their youthful dreams, and so the insurance salesman that loves her job is denying the fact that at one point in her life she wanted to be a forensic investigator. Isn’t it her fault for being incapable of realizing her personal concept of self-actualization? She is still profitably employed and has most likely reevaluated her goals and the dreams she previously had for herself. Disutility from that perspective would require this fictitious insurance salesman to be a drug addict or a person receiving monetary benefits from a governmental fund without actually putting any money into it even though she would be capable of being gainfully employed.

I think the concept of utility is about options and control of one’s life. If an individual is happy with his or her employment then how can that be considered disutility, unless you move the idea toward ideal labor and ultimate individual potential. Disutility itself can only be a dissonance in the function of the employment compromise. Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” can be used as reference here. And where would there idea of work ethic get someone if they were being paid slave wages in a manure factory.

I think the idea of utility you’re conveying is one of personal growth and the control that is necessary to live well. The use of the phrase work ethic is a manipulation akin to using the word sin for a child caught masturbating. The problem that exists is that in order to ascend beyond the level of wage slave you either have to have enough money to not care or you have to consider your employment as a perfect fit. That rarely happens.

I don’t know. You’ve brought up an interesting topic.

14

Well hello there Concordant from the days of old. My how gray you are getting. I think I meant disutility as a feeling that there’s a disconnection between what you’re doing with your time and the feeling that you’re actually doing anything at all. Food enters your mouth and yet you don’t recall planting, hunting, harvesting, picking. It’s just there on your plate. Disutility. Sends a message to your primal brain of neotony, the permanent childlike state. And yet, you go to a job all day, but the stuff you manipulate and move around and process etc isn’t ever really used by you and doesn’t have a direct, visceral benefit to your life. it’s a product or service that creates value for you indirectly. You go home and every two weeks money comes to you. A piece of paper you can’t really do anything with directly. Modern life is full of this feeling that we’re not connected, in simplest direct terms, with just about anything we do or consume. A “job” reinforces this feeling of not doing anything directly to benefit yourself. Your pre frontal cortex knows about the check coming, and kinda grasps the whole convoluted house of cards we have happening, but a good portion of your brain is flummoxed and slowly suffocating from disutility. We are over worked but under utilized directly, and we ourselves utilize almost nothing for direct survival. In sum, I may have dis-utilized the word.

And yes, it’s this way b/c of economic pecking order, roles, exploitation, symbiosis, etc, and the decision a long time ago that as fun as it is to eat, shit, fuck, kill and sleep, it sure sucks when we get beat up by bigger cavemen, and so we traded our simple utility life for disutility. We cooperated and sold ourselves to each other like a bunch of interlocking waffle fries. But it’s kinda like nature reaching perverse heights, but it’s only perverse where I’m standing. Maybe nothing could be more natural. Maybe it’s all cottonseed blowing in the wind, sap drying into rubbery crystal on the side of a tree. My feeling of disutility, like the spots on a ladybug…and this post, the buzz buzz of my itty bitty wings. Dig it

15

I abhor that term also: Work-ethic. It’s, basically, the glorification of slavery. Now, I’m not against working hard, that is to say, for one’s own ends, but when this ’ work-ethic ’ applies to, say, some wage-slave job, fuck no…

I’m pro-leisure; It’s the way of the aristocratic elitists, the way of the gods. More time to spend on enriching oneself intellectually and physically; less time waiting to clock out of some God forsaken job. Luckily, I’m engaging in a profession I actually like, so work isn’t a problem.

16

The term is abused. Maybe there’s also a good use for the term. Maybe if you have people depending on you and you yourself want the fruits of whatever labor, work ethic may describe the clarity and discipline one has in order to be consistent with their own desires and values. In essence it about a smart and effective transaction involving time and effort for some form of gain.

The trick then is this: figure out what people mean when they talk about work ethic in your direction. Maybe it isn’t always bad. Are they putting forth something disguised as something else to manipulate you? Every case is different. Highly abused term but not worthless in every case.

17

It’s important to note that there does not have to be any conscious manipulation on the part of the manipulator in order for the manipulation to take place, though you might want to call it something else in that case. Basically, if someone adopts slavish habits he will try to spread his slavish habits to everyone else not necessarily because he wants to (consciously) manipulate people but quite simply because he thinks that’s how things should be (the worst kind of manipulator.) And yes, these so-called slavish habits do exist, and yes, they are often related to job, though they can be lurking behind any sort of activity (thoughts, philosophies, sciences, lifestyles, etc.)

Now, jobs are not uniquely associated with slavery. What is uniquely associated with slavery is the specific way these jobs are used. Nothing wrong with jobs, for example, if they come naturally to you. Even if they are not natural to you, nothing wrong with them if you are approaching them in a gradual manner. Slavery begins when a person engages in an activity that contradicts their drives and hides this fact (due to the inability to endure the fear of death.) The slave ends up accumulating contradictions over time while being completely unaware of it. The key part here is self-deception: the slave must deceive himself in order to be able to up with his job. It’s an entirely different story if you are contradicting yourself and you are knowing that you are contradicting yourself (but that’s what slaves think they are doing.)

18

This is complete horse-shit. You don’t know what you are talking about.

You, out of all people, should be familiar with Max Weber’s Protestant work-ethic.

You uneducated fool.

19

Ever heard of Kant’s categorical imperative?

20

Yes, but what does that have to do here, in this particular context of the PW ethic?