There are many variants of the phrase attributed to various gurus of our time such as Steve Jobs or Oprah Winfrey, but most of the time the Internet links its origin to Confucius: “Choose a job you like and you will not have to work a day of your life.” If so, the Chinese philosopher could hardly have imagined that, twenty-five centuries later, this thought would become a kind of magic trick thanks to which millions of us carry out the tasks assigned to us every day without considering doing anything else. Although perhaps we would have many reasons not to do them or to demand better conditions for it.
The love of work has become, as Sarah Jaffe explains in her book Job. An unrequited lovewhich Captain Swing has just published in Spain, in a system tool. A masterstroke of capitalism to “let us” work in what we like in exchange for having a low salary and improvable conditions. As the title says, we may love our work but, of course, our work does not love us.
In the book, Jaffe examines the lives and work experiences of workers in a variety of industries, from the unpaid intern to the overworked teacher, the nonprofit worker to the professional athlete or artist. Few professions have been saved from this strategy.
The journalist, originally from New Orleans and author of several books and countless articles that usually revolve around activism, work, labor exploitation and the struggles of the working class in the context of contemporary capitalism, is currently on a tour of presentation of his new book recently published in English, From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire (From the ashes: mourning and revolution in a world on fire). In one of the few free spaces that this promotion leaves him, he assists us from London.
Where did the idea for this book come from?
I started working as a full-time journalist during the financial crisis in 2009. I had previously worked in shops and restaurants and being a journalist was my dream job. I soon realized that there was not that much difference from before: I was still without money, with endless hours, I was exhausted and emotionally it was just as intense as before.
At that time I interviewed a producer of realities television producers who had created a union of television producers freelancesince they were very underpaid and overworked. When they complained, they were always told that if they didn’t want to work all weekend, they could find twenty other people who would be happy to do so. So I started to wonder, what role does the idea of the “dream job” and the love of work play in our general attitude toward work today? Is it an old idea? How long have we been thinking that we have to love what we do for a living?
I trace the origin of the idea of ’love of work’ to caring jobs, such as nursing and teaching. Occupations that are very similar to what women have always done at home without pay
Trump was later elected president, and his popularity helped me put this issue in historical context, especially when thinking about deindustrialization and the loss of certain types of jobs. Jobs you weren’t expected to love. No one expects you to smile at a car as it passes through an assembly line.
Later I will ask you about Trump and the american electionsbut before, according to accounts in the book, the pandemic also exposed the coercive nature of work.
I finished the first full draft of Job. An unrequited love in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit, and it showed how little control we have over work. In those days, I interviewed many people who were still working during the epidemic and I remember a conversation with a worker at a large perfumery chain. His work was not bad; I made $15 an hour, which isn’t much in New York, but it wasn’t bad. However, when it came time to reopen the stores, she told me, “I don’t want to die from lipstick.” Suddenly, work had become something very different.
The same thing happened in restaurants. During the first weeks of the disease, cooks were the profession with the most deaths. You don’t expect to risk dying by working in a restaurant. Many people had to face this, that their job was suddenly dangerous and that their bosses, to put it bluntly, didn’t care if they died.
Many years before the pandemic, according to accounts in the book, after World War II, the industrial work ethic was imposed in the developed world. What did it consist of?
The industrial work ethic was about going to work, work that was hard, but for which you got a decent wage, weekends off, and medical care. Nobody expected you to enjoy your job, but rather that it would give you good living conditions. Now, however, the prevailing ethic is “love of work.”
I remember a poster encouraging people to work at Amazon saying: ‘Get a job spreading smiles’, we all know that working in an Amazon warehouse is terrible. However, they advertised it as if it were going to make you happy.
What does it consist of? And how did the change come about?
The idea of “love of work” had been around for a while. I trace its origin to care-related jobs, such as nursing and teaching. Occupations that are very similar to what women have always done at home without pay. On the other hand, there is creative work, like art. Artists were expected to be artists for the love of art, not for the money.
But over time, jobs that were traditionally seen as “caring” or “creative” began to be integrated into the labor market through, for example, hospitals and public schools. But this idea that certain jobs aren’t really work and don’t deserve to be paid the same as others somehow prevailed. It was assumed that they would be done because the person liked to take care of others or because the work itself was the reward.
With deindustrialization, there were more and more service sector jobs, such as home health care, and slowly the idea that you should love your work spread to other sectors. Even some that you don’t expect to have these types of expectations associated with them.
I remember seeing a sign in Philadelphia encouraging people to work at Amazon saying, “Get a job spreading smiles,” but we all know that working in an Amazon warehouse is terrible. However, they advertised it as if it would make you happy. No one wants to work at Amazon or McDonald’s for pleasure, but that doesn’t mean those jobs couldn’t be good if they paid well and provided other benefits, as happened with industrial work.
The system is always looking for ways to make more money, even if the stories they tell us change so that we behave well and don’t set fire to Jeff Bezos’ house or fill the streets protesting.
So the goal of capitalism is to make people think they are “happy” in their jobs?
The goal of capitalism is for a small group of people to accumulate a lot of wealth. The justifications and ways in which this is carried out change over time, depending on the struggles and resistance that is opposed. The capitalist system is restructured in search of cheap labor and places where environmental regulations are more lax. We also see how attempts are being made to replace workers with artificial intelligence because it is cheaper, even though AI requires enormous amounts of energy and resources.
The system is always looking for ways to make more money, even if they change the stories they tell us so that we behave well and don’t set fire to Jeff Bezos’ house or fill the streets protesting. Promoting a love of work is a way to make us continue doing it so that Bezos continues accumulating money.
In the book you ask the question: “What would you do if money were no problem?” That question scared me a little, I thought about what he would answer. If money wasn’t an issue, I’d probably do the same thing I do. So, I don’t know if I’m completely consumed by the love of work. What about people who really love their jobs?
I would also continue writing, although I would probably try to write a novel. Maybe I would do journalism differently, spending more time following a story and making sure it was the best it could be. If money wasn’t an issue, I think working in the industry would be very different too.
But regardless of that, what I do believe is that in recent years things are changing. There are a lot of horrible things happening in the world, but I detect a change in the way people think about work and how they are fighting for their rights around the world. That gives me a lot of hope. In the United States we have not had so many strikes in 40 years, especially in sectors that fit the profile of “love of work” such as, for example, teachers or journalists.
I detect a change in the way people think about work and how they are fighting for their rights around the world
Your book is full of hope, but in a few days there are elections in the United States and Trump may win again. How is it possible?
If Biden had truly dedicated himself to improving people’s lives, Trump would have no chance of winning. But the reality is that life for the majority has not improved enough. Kamala Harris isn’t promising to do it either, and that’s a problem. People have suffered 40 years of decline in their quality of life, unless you are Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, and they are very angry and that anger often explodes in a visceral way.
What we really need is to improve people’s lives, their jobs, their health care, their ability to afford decent housing in a city where they can find good employment. And until that happens, there will continue to be anger, and figures like Trump will always find a way to take advantage of it.
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