The Centrality of Work
Author: John Edwards
Macquarie University
15 May 2013
INTRODUCTION
This paper critiques Jean-Philippe Deranty and Christophe Dejours’ paper, The
Centrality of Work (2010).
Work dominates our lives, and has a forceful impact on our self-esteem, our
friendships and our financial wellbeing. Deranty’s article on The Centrality of Work
(2010) presents some of the main features of the notion of “centrality of work”
within the framework of the “psychodynamic” approach to work developed by
Christophe Dejours. The paper argues that we should distinguish between at least
four separate but related ways in which work can be said to be central:
psychologically (at the individual and social level), in terms of gender relations,
social-politically and epistemically.
Deranty argues that the place of work in the contemporary theoretical field is a
contradictory one. Many empirical studies continue to be based on the assumption
that work and employment are key factors in the study of major social phenomena
such as inequality (economic, sexual or cultural), or shifts in family structures.
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This assumption is largely relayed in public discourse and policy discussions. On the
other hand, there is widespread consensus in the theoretical arms of the humanities
and social sciences that the work paradigm is now obsolete, both on descriptive and
normative grounds. Adding to this complexity, substantive new models have
emerged, notably the “psychodynamics of work” in France, which challenge this
theoretical consensus. Deranty’s paper positions itself to reaffirm and redescribe
theoretically, the centrality of work. The author’s focus is on the historicist
assumptions at the heart of the theoretical consensus against the centrality of work,
and identifies four major reference points for these historicist objections: Marxist,
Foucauldian, social-theoretical and anthropological.
METHODOLOGY
Deranty analyses peer-reviewed academic papers to construct an argument for
centrality of work. The researcher provides an established framework developed by
the Centre National des Arts et Metiers over the past 40 years, and presents some of
the main features of the notion of centrality of work developed by Christophe
Dejours, a French Professor and expert in the field psychoanalysis health work.
The research method is all qualitative (that is, no quantitative), which is appropriate
for a philosophy review paper.
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LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORY DEVELOPMENT
Deranty applies an extensive literature review of the differing philosophies relating
to the centrality of work, going back to many historical 17th, 18th and 19th century
authors and publications. The world we recognise as “modern” began by revoking
the curse on work. In 18th-century France, the compilers of the Encyclopédie
laughed at the lethargy of the governing elite and treated artisans with
unprecedented respect. Denis Diderot, a French Philosopher, and one of the
encyclopaedists, was fascinated by specialised trades like glassblowing, masonry and
silver-plating, which showed that menial men possessed rare, almost magical skills
(Currant, 2013).
The English 17th philosopher John Locke challenged hereditary privilege when he
declared that all property derived from "the labour of our body and the work of our
hands" (Delaney, 2005). These two terms are often used interchangeably, but for
Locke they were not synonyms: labour remained using “blood, toil, tears and sweat”,
still as much of an agonising chore as a woman's giving birth, whereas work was
performed by our nimble, ingenious hands. In 1776, Scottish moral philosopher and
economist Adam Smith made such handicraft the foundation of what he called "the
wealth of nations" (Buchan, 2006).
European Industrial societies, geared for productivity, transformed work into a
religion. For Karl Marx, German Philosopher in the 19th Century, argued what
distinguished men from animals was not reason, the prerogative supposedly
awarded to us by God, but labour (Mehring, 2003).
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However, theories did less than justice to the totalitarian toil of the beehive, to
beavers building dams or to birds fabricating nests from twigs and bits of scavenged
rubbish (Conrad, 2009). Maybe Marx should have said labour defined us as animals,
creatures compelled to feed a livelihood and raise a family from the soil rather than
relying on divine interventions.
With working, human tend to assimilate nature, as currently seen with the digging
up and using raw materials in order to regurgitate wealth: a lump of rock dug from
the ground is cut, polished and transformed into a diamond. The biblical God
claimed to have created the Earth. For the steam-powered 19th century, this world
was actually made by men, who added value to the crude, inert, boggy nature by
harnessing the elements (Hunter, 1985).
The author’s focus is with the age of work which began in the mid-19th century to
the present day. Interestingly, but not recognised by Deranty, this exposure of work
during this period is depicted in a famous painting called In Work (1852-63), by the
English Painter, Ford Madox Brown, who painted a gang of labourers gutting a street
in London, to lay a drain. Brown's workers might be idealised Greek statues who
have stepped down from a shrine. They are embodiments of muscular force and
determination, admired from the sidelines by 19th century Scottish philosopher
Thomas Carlyle, who recognised the aspirations of such men by setting up the first
colleges for workers (Nichol, 2004).
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The Work, as the painting states, is a source not just of wealth but of contentment,
pride and moral valour. In the 19th century, work became a wonderful miracle,
transforming pain into profit, energy into cash. Even new terminology was needed to
keep up with the new activity. The term "Job" is an old, coarse word, which originally
overlapped with "jab" (Conrad 2013). "At work!" wrote English journalist Blanchard
Jerrold in a tour of Victorian London published in 1872. The exclamation was a
rallying cry. Before dawn in the cold and gloomy streets, Jerrold saw "the vanguard
of the army of Labour" mobilising. These multitudes marched to work rather than
wearily trudging, eager to "add a new storey to a new terrace" or "another station to
another railway", raising the world to new heights or extending man's reach through
space (Wilman, 1882).
Deranty could have made more reference to when discussing Marx, is what do we
mean by the labour theory of value (Jaffe, 2003), which was brilliantly summed up by
Thomas Edison’s well-known quote that “genius consists of 1% inspiration and 99%
perspiration” (Walsh, 2010). Intriguingly, the famous 19th Century English writer,
Charles Dickens competed with the printing presses that manufactured his much
celebrated works (for example, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield), driving him so
relentlessly that his health broke down. However, in this era, to be any less
industrious was seen to be offensive (Ackroyd, 1990).
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DISCUSSION
Deranty’s paper assumes the centrality of work to one’s life, sense of well-being,
identity and so on and also the centrality of work and the work regime to social life
more generally (Dejours, 2006; Dejours and Deranty, 2010). For most people the
centrality of work entails the fundamental importance of the employment
relationship and of the workplace as, at the very least, central to one’s social and
wellbeing. Indeed, for many, the workplace may be more existentially significant
than is the home (Rosenbury, 2011; Delaney, 2011). The home, of course, is a
primary site of unremunerated work, but consider too the unpaid work of looking for
work, and the lived, social difference between being employed and being
unemployed (of having or not having work, a job, a boss). One can, indeed work very
hard to find work. One may fail to find it or one may find work that is easier to do
than the work of having had to find it. The point, especially under present conditions
of a jobless recovery (Groshen, 2003), is that it is no mean feat to find work.
Practically speaking, there is an inside and an outside of the regime of paid work.
The anxieties associated with the inability to get inside, the trauma of being
involuntarily outside, may, for some, be a form of social death (Dejours, 2006).
For many others, like those for whom joblessness induces homelessness, it may
impair biological life as well (Deranty, 2010).
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Transfering from the 19th to the 21st century, and contrasting how the scenarios
described in Dickens books, Brown’s paintings, Marx’s publications, apply to the
modern workplace theories with the contemporary office or factory: a playground
where the members of the so-called "team" tell unfunny jokes, bend paper clips out
of shape, use their computers to search dating and social media websites, fuss about
the positioning of their desks, flirt at the water cooler and keep an impatient eye on
the clock (Vogl, 2004). The “power broker” nations of Europe in the 18th and 19th
century, now leave productivity to China, India or Korea; the speciality of western
based work is now focused on "financial products" (Gretchen, 2008). The wealth of
nations has lost that connection with the body's “sweat and toil” and the Earth's
abundance which John Locke and Adam Smith emphasised. The term “work” is now
redefined or reclassified and now, for many Western and Eastern nations, consists of
rows of numbers and letters flickering on computer screens (Bargh, 2004).
How would the people living and “working” in the Classical Greek and Roman times
view current work in the current digital age? The classical philosophers like Marcus
Cicero despised trade, which they saw this as unfit for free, intelligent, autonomous
citizens. Cicero sniffed at fishermen, fishmongers, butchers, poulterers and cooks, all
of whom soiled their hands by dealing with food (Wood, 1991). Would Cicero have
considered it finer to be a PR expert, a political consultant, a talk-show host, or a
currency trader on the stock exchange?
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The centrality of work topic is also highly related to the complex relationship
between value and utility, which could have been explored more by Deranty. In
1917, American economist and sociologist, Thorstein Veblen noticed a paradox. "The
lasting evidence of productive labour is its material product, commonly some article
of consumption” (Tilman, 1992). We produce in order to consume; overproduction
obliges us to consume items we don't need. Hence the built-in obsolescence of
fashionable clothes and cars or of the electronic equipment like computers and
phones that we replace before it wears out. And if we consume something, what
happens to the "material evidence" of our toil?
CONCLUSION
Marx told workers that they had nothing to lose but their chains (Mehring, 2003).
However, what do consumers (workers) have to lose in the 21st century? Deranty
eloquently writes about the philosophies, theories and concepts of work, whereas I
feel the present situation needs his and our focus to think again about the
significance of work and its centrality to our lives. As mentioned in the introduction,
work dominates most of our lives, and has a forceful impact on our self-esteem, our
friendships and our financial wellbeing.
Man “the worker” was supposed to be perfecting a world left unfinished and
unfurnished by “God the Creator”. Deranty argues about the leading theoretical
approaches but ignores the situation where our industrial greed and passion for
consumerism (wanting more) has come close to destroying that world.
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This alone is reason enough to “stop work”, whether we want to or not, refocus, and
reconsider the principle and application of centrality of work.
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