Why We Must Work

Humans evolved to experience work as pleasurable and continued to find it pleasurable for the first 98% of our history, often likening it to play. The negative associations we see now with “work” stem from the extreme inequality and exploitation accompanying the rise of the state 5,500 years ago. Consequently, today many people view work negatively, seeing it as a means to gain income to enable consumption as opposed to serving as a means for creativity, community, and self-fulfillment.

In Why We Must Work, Jon D. Wisman draws upon economics, philosophy, evolutionary psychology, social anthropology, and history to explore how work has been experienced and understood over the course of history. In addressing current conditions, he notes the absurdity that, while we live with unparalleled abundance, some workers suffer unemployment and most are not free in their workplaces, often being bossed about. Equally absurd, given our abundance, is the extreme inequality that results in pervasive insecurity, stress, and pessimism. Laissez-faire ideology legitimates the public policies that generate this inequality and these work conditions while depicting ever greater consumption as opposed to meaningful work as the means to greater happiness.

Wisman offers an attractive alternative vision of our future, grounded in two reforms to make work again fulfilling: guaranteed employment and workplace democracy. Guaranteed employment would provide security and eliminate poverty while providing everyone with the social and self-respect of being a productive member of society. Measures to bring about worker ownership and control of their firms would bring freedom and democracy to the workplace. Both reforms conform to cherished values while preserving capitalism’s two principal institutions of private property and markets.

Jon D. Wisman is Professor of Economics at American University in Washington, DC. He served as President of the Association for Social Economics in 2002, has twice been selected by American University as Outstanding Teacher of the Year, and was named American University’s Scholar/Teacher of the Year in 2023. He was also a recipient of the 2023 Veblen-Commons Award, in recognition of his significant contributions to evolutionary institutional economics.