Sociology of Work

Sociology - Work WORK in ITS LARGER SOCIAL CONTEXT Traditional Social Values and the Merit of Work: In the United States, one of the most pervasive moral beliefs concerns the inherent value of work, as much for its own sake as for any specific value of its actual product or purpose.

Critics of the so-called "Christian Work Ethic" remind us that the roots of this belief can be traced back to British aristocracy and the need to placate the working poor to distract them from their miserable existence of the perpetual backbreaking labor necessary for them just to feed their families.

I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached." (Russell 1992) in the U.S.

work has become one of the primary elements of individual psychological identity and derives much more often from the concept of relative social status and income associated with occupations than from any pleasure or satisfaction inherent in the work or the objective value of its product to society.

Psychologists warn that this is a recipe for perpetual unhappiness and the current subprime mortgage crisis illustrates the pitfalls of a constant theme of upward mobility that is "measured by consumption and the impulse to increase earning in order to display acquisitive wealth" (Stanley & Danko 1996). According to Albert Einstein, this motivation for professional achievement poisons the educational system as well, by virtue of the underlying reasons that students choose their courses of study and devote their efforts to them.

The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." (Einstein 1954) The Psychological Bases of Vocational Motivation: In primitive times, the purpose of work within the human community was very obvious: one worked to provide one's self and one's family with the necessary requirements and whatever extra comforts one could find, build, grow, or barter.

Specialization evolved as a natural function of different people perfecting different tasks or the manufacture of different products: instead of everyone smelting his own horse shoes, knitting his own cotton fibers into clothing, or raising his own agricultural crops for consumption, people contributed the product of their labor, bartering it for the product of others'.

The monetary system replaced direct trade and the natural dynamics of demand and supply provided a means of quantifying the relative value of one's work in relation to the value of others' for the purpose of establishing a basis for fair trade.

In principle, everyone contributes to the welfare of society by providing the product of his work, but in contemporary society, the psychological value of work has completely overtaken this underlying principle, as illustrated by renowned 20th century social commentator and philosopher Bertrand Russell: Suppose that, at a given moment, a certain number of people are engaged in the manufacture of pins. They make as many pins as the world needs, working (say) eight hours a day.

Someone makes an invention by which the same number of men can make twice as many pins: pins are already so cheap that hardly any more will be bought at a lower price. In a sensible world, everybody concerned in the manufacturing of pins would take to working four hours instead of eight, and everything else would go on as before. But in the actual world this would be thought demoralizing.

The men still work eight hours, there are too many pins, some employers go bankrupt, and half the men previously concerned in making pins are thrown out of work." (Russell 1992) The Futility of Aspiring to Upward Economic Mobility in the United States: In 1996, two American economists, Thomas Stanley, Ph.D., and William Danko, Ph.D., published the results of their extensive study of wealth in America.

Their findings illustrate the degree to which American social values have distorted the meaning and value of vocational achievement and the relationship between American values and the economic plight of so many Americans. According to Stanley and Danko (1996), the vast majority of Americans with seven-figure net worth live substantially under their financial means because it is precisely their frugality that enables them to become prodigious wealth accumulators (PAWs).

Meanwhile, it is the high-earning but consumption-oriented under accumulators of wealth (UAWs) who patronize luxury car dealerships, high-end country clubs, and so- called "high fashion" clothing manufacturers. In this regard, one of the most powerful influences motivating such irresponsible consumption is the concentration of media attention on relatively few wealthy celebrities whose model of ostentatious consumption is simply not representative of the habits of most Americans with equally high net worth (Stanley & Danko 1996).

Whereas many PAWs earn substantially less than some of their UAW counterparts, they invest a substantial portion of their salaries into long-term stable investments that translate into a secure financial future. Conversely, the typical UAW, many of whom are so-called "successful professionals" earning very high salaries, increases spending to match any increase in income.

As a result of continually "trading up" to the most expensive car, home, and clothing they can afford at any given time and income level, the high-earning but fast-spending UAWs actually find themselves in the identical position of the working poor, in that they live paycheck to meet their monthly expenses with nothing left over for long-term future financial security (Stanley & Danko 1996).

To a large degree, the motivation of continual upward mobility as measured by the ability to display the trappings associated with wealth pervades all segments of American social culture, differing at various levels of wealth only in the specific types of displays available.

Most of the more than 2 million Americans already defaulting on their mortgages or on the verge of default on their homes in the subprime mortgage crisis are victims of their own greed and the compulsion to acquire the most expensive home for which they could fudge their financial qualifications instead of a home with values and mortgages that corresponded more realistically to their actual income (Lowenstein 2007).

Given the relationship between societal values with respect to vocational success and their underlying psychological motivation, the solution lies more in the realm of social psychology and the basis for self-esteem in the individual than strictly in economic issues (Branden 1985). Differentiating Healthy and Dysfunctional Vocational Motivation: In principle, vocational satisfaction comes in psychologically healthy forms as well as profoundly dysfunctional forms.

Genuine interest in a particular type of work, the need to provide for the necessities of life and ordinary comforts, and satisfaction directly attributable to the actual value inherent in one's work would be examples.