Berehat-lah! Because Work is NOT 'Working' (2010)
- seihon tan
- Dec 4, 2024
- 29 min read
Updated: Feb 2
INTRODUCTION
Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Frees You)*
Work is perhaps the most important activity that we’re engaged in our lives where we spent more time at it than we do sleeping. And many of us today cannot afford not to work beyond the official retirement age, which is 60 in this country while some countries have capped it at 75. Besides putting food on the table and keeping a roof over our heads, our work is supposed to give us a sense of direction and purpose in life. However, when I was young, I noticed that many people around me were deeply dissatisfied with their working life. Later, when I became part of the workforce I felt similar frustrations though not so much with the job, but with colleagues, oftentimes with the bosses and chiefly with myself for my lack of experience and naivety which left me in a position of disadvantage. Though my time as another insignificant cog among the millions in the machine was relatively short, I’ve seen enough to conclude that people in general just meander through life looking busy at doing something they have not the slightest interest nor care until it becomes habitual or until something better comes along, and the cycle repeats itself all over again.
Indeed, ‘work’ does free you… from the distress of realizing that you are without worth and value if you do not or could not make yourself useful enough for any type of paid labor. Secondly, ‘work’ frees you from the distractions of existential responsibility and its conundrums. And finally, ‘work’ frees you from the ‘truth’ that we just do not know what to do with ourselves if we were not engaged in ‘something’ with our time. By being ‘at work’, we would at least be paid even if we just spend hours watching the clock counting the minutes.
A significant factor to our unhappiness at work is that very few of us ever managed to secure,remain or excel in the professions that we aspired to from when we were young. Most of us today are engaged in fields totally unrelated to our interest or training, with our already dated, limited and replaceable skill sets failing to meet many of their professional requisites. And while we’re on auto pilot mode as we trudge along that long and dreary path of working life, we incur debt.
‘Debt is the Slavery of the Free’
Attributed to Publilius Syrus (fl. 85–43 BC).
Most people are obliged to work chiefly to service their debts, which could stretch decades. This is mostly due to the fact that many strive to own things and engage services that are beyond their immediate means, which were advertised or promoted as to make their lives ‘better’ (meaning more desirable, satisfactory, or effective) on a physical level and in the estimation of other fellow debtors. However, all things have expiry dates. By the time a debt is settled, whatever that was acquired on loan is no longer desirable, satisfactory or effective (which include debt accrued in pursuit of higher education). All these credit purchase are done on the basis of boosting our self esteem and which we believed is some sort of magical panacea to the psychic injuries we suffer daily from enduring the crushing boredom, meaningless routine and the shit we have to put up on the way to work, during work and after work. The fact is that when a person whose lifestyle is sustained by credit, labors from a place of fear and false security. Who does not know of someone who was unprepared and unable to fend off creditors when crises struck or bubbles burst?
To be stuck in an occupation where one is uninterested, ill equipped or unsuited but compelled to stay on for years because of one’s lack of employability or debt (usually both) is to me a total waste of life. Yet the majority of us in the workforce (those who still have a job!) labors under such bleak circumstance. Why should we subject ourselves, year in year out, to the tyranny of clock hands just so we could maintain an expensive facade of prosperity and joyfulness propped up by debt? Why then should we waste our precious years feeling exhausted, unfulfilled and unappreciated in labour that brings no meaning, pleasure or satisfaction?
Now that we’re facing probably the toughest round of cyclic recession made worse by a new deadly global virus pandemic, how will the “slaves” ever repay their creditors when jobs in almost every sector are suddenly affected by this long anticipated disruption which we, in denial and naively expecting the powers that be to resolve, has left us gravely unprepared and utterly at its mercy?
If we remove the need for going into debt from among the reasons why we work, perhaps the concept of work will offer more meaningful and positive possibilities.
This essay was originally written for an exhibition entitled ‘BEREHAT’ which I curated to celebrate Workers’ Day in 2010.
Tan Sei Hon
2020
BEREHAT-LAH! Because Work Is NOT ‘Working’
The post-left anarchist, lawyer and musician Bob Black wrote in the opening lines of ‘The Abolition of Work and Other Essays’1 that “No one should ever work. Work is the source of nearly all misery in the world. Almost any evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working”. According to an Oxford English dictionary at hand, the first and most general definition of the word ‘work’ is ‘the application of mental or physical effort to a purpose; the use of energy’. Bob Black’s minimum definition of work is “forced labor, that is, compulsory production”2, a task done for others out of necessity or obligation, enforced by cultural, political or economic means.
Of course, upon further reading the author did not mean to do away with ‘work’ per se; rather it was the exploitation of workers and the effects of forced/ coerced labor enforced by both the capitalists, socialists and by followers of various ‘isms’ in between that he opposes. A good example of forced or coerced labor are the inhumanely low paying, dead end jobs popularly known-and shunned- in Malaysia as the 3Ds (Dirty, Dangerous and Demeaning) that we gladly unload on the poorest strata of our society and increasingly on cheap labor foreign imported by the shipload from so-called ‘third world’ countries while we opt for the less strenuous, refined and respectable options in the sales and services industries -or ‘McJobs’3 - but even these areas are increasingly employing foreign labour. For many of us who are not born into privilege or higher stations in life, work is undeniably a necessity and to suggest otherwise is unthinkable. But to spend countless hours expending mental and physical energy in excruciating and soul-destroying drudgery for pittance is mind-boggling, sheer stupidity and utter pointlessness.
What else is the purpose to working if not to be able to earn enough to survive and shop? But as the costs of living rises not in tandem with wages, and as our purchasing power declines, the idea, confidence and sense of security derive from ‘work’ (and the governments of the day!) also falters, no?
1) For the full text and other essays by Bob Black, see: http://deoxy.org/endwork.htm or www.inspiracy.com/black/abolition/part1.html
2) Bob Black’s definition was most probably based on Marx’s definition or at least closest to it:
“First, the fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his essential being himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working, he is not at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it. Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labor is shunned like the plague.” Marx and Engels,’ Economic and Philosophical Manuscript’ (1844) from ‘Socialist Thought: A Documentary History’ edited by Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders, Anchor Books (1964) pp 283-4
3) “…..is used to describe any low-status job — regardless of the employer — where little training is required, staff turnover is high, and workers' activities are tightly regulated by managers. Most perceived ‘McJobs’ are in the service industry, particularly fast food, coffee shops, telemarketing, retail and business-to-business copywriting. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McJob
Every year, short of a few weeks or days before ‘Labour Day’, ‘May Day’, ‘Worker’s Day’, ‘Day of Labour’, International Labor Day’ or ‘International Workers Day’4 as it is known and celebrated in countries around the world- Malaysia began observing Labour Day (1st of May) as a public holiday in 1972-predictably without failed, issues of workers’ right to better or fairer wages, pensions, medical and other benefits, safety at the workplace to the setting of minimum wage or proposed salary increases for those in the public and private sectors in order to meet the rising costs of living are heard, discussed and debated. The powers that be routinely promised to look into the grouses and demands by proposing to set up bodies to study the feasibility of such demands but it is duly forgotten months later. The cycle repeats itself again in the coming ‘Labour Day’.
In many countries, ‘Labour Day’ is usually marked by street protests, colorful parades and night-long revelries. The organized rage against unfair trade practices to exploitation and even naked aggression committed by big transnational businesses, aided and protected by elected governments have to certain extents bore results, though fair treatment and an equitable share of the fruits of humanity’s labour is still a long way from becoming a reality.
You are OR will become what you do
Will work or has it already resulted (due to greed, competition or exploitation) in the inevitable (which it must) erosion of one’s humanity leading to an increasing affinity with ‘automatons’ in exp; unfeeling, unthinking, uncaring while going through the motions with predictable regularity and clock-work precision5? Is work an exercise in futility which we are resigned to grow accustomed to as we aged (along with the insecurities that accompanies it) or is it the ennobling, meaning generating vocation, romanticized in various versions and tenaciously promoted by all competing political-social ideologies and institutionalized value systems from the past to present6?
Notice how the worth of individuals is judged by their ability to perform and complete both menial and complex tasks, and how they are acknowledged by those abilities which might bring them a notch or two up in the social class hierarchy.
5) “Political economy conceals the alienation inherent in the nature of labor by not considering the direct relationship between the worker (labor) and production. It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things-but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces-but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty-but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines-……...and the other workers it turns into machines…” Marx and Engels,’ Economic and Philosophical Manuscript’ (1844) from ‘Socialist Thought: A Documentary History’ edited by Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders, Anchor Books (1964) pp 282-3
6) “But if all the ideologues (as they do) advocate work-not only because they plan to make other people do theirs- they are strangely reluctant to say so. They will carry on endlessly about wages, hours, working conditions, exploitation, productivity, profitability. They’ll gladly talk about anything but work itself. These experts who offer to do our thinking for us rarely share their conclusion about work, for all its saliency in the lives of all of us. Among them they quibble over the details. Unions and management agree that we ought to sell the time of our lives in exchange for survival, although they haggle over the price. Marxists think we should be bossed by bureaucrats. Libertarians think we should be bossed by businessmen. Feminists don’t care which form bossing takes so long as the bosses are women” http://deoxy.org/endwork.htm
Therefore, to be unemployed, unemployable or to consciously shun full employment is to be both invisible (unacknowledged or denied) and socially (but not politically) excluded from the scheme of things, unless of course, one is born into money or into royalty. In short, to not work is to risk material poverty, marginalization and discrimination. To be able to engage with -and relate- to others, one must be ever ready, willing and able to sell one’s labor (to be of use to others). One must learn to be a WORKER!
But what good is a ‘worker’ to an employer if ‘it’ is not to be exploited for profit AND pleasure?
How we embrace ‘work’ & loving it
But what is life if not to labor, shop, procreate and save enough for posterity until we expire?
The way in which ‘work’ has been constructed, packaged and promoted to be as closely associated as possible with one’s identity, sexuality, station in life and self-worth, is disingenuous. This is evident when we see the many market segments such as food and eateries, fashion and furnishing, gadgets, modes and types of transportations, venues, outlets, entertainment and information, treatments, services and sitting arrangements, locality of residences, healthcare and even toiletries are specially tailored to target individuals from various professions and positions in society. Whole ways of acting, behaving and interacting carefully tied to one vocation are studied, dissected, repackaged and promoted in the market place to be bought and consumed7.
In short, we can be manipulated, milked and exploited, demographically and psycho-graphically because we are all ‘consumers’8.
But yet, we grow fond and even polish daily the physical and psychological ‘chains’ that bind us. The media, advertisers and all those with vested interests-usually commercial- conspire to reinforce the stereotypes that we were brought up to assume and chastise us for acting ‘out-of-character’ with ridicule, condemnation and rejection. We dare not even imagine there is more to life other than being stuck at work, miserably counting the hours while looking forlornly to the weekends and wages day. That is when we strip off our ‘body-armors’, namely uniforms, office attires, noose-like neck ties, and this façade of ‘professionalism’ and eagerly don our mall-worshipper’s robes, unleashing the devout consumer on a religious shopping spree as if in eager anticipation of an impending Apocalypse! But this ‘spiritual’ high is transient. What remains later is the guilt of over- expenditure, burden of debt and more useless ‘stuffs’ cluttering our living spaces.
Ironically, the more you own, the lesser you become’9
7) ‘We may distinguish both true and false needs. “False” are those which are superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his repression: the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and injustice. Their satisfaction might be most gratifying to the individual, but this happiness is not a condition to be maintained and protected if it serves to arrest the development of the ability (his own and others) to recognize the disease of the whole and grasp the chances of curing the disease. The result then is euphoria in unhappiness. Most of the prevailing needs to relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this category of false needs.’
Herbert Marcuse, ‘One Dimensional Man’, Sphere Books Ltd (1970) PP 21-22
We cosplay, interact and communicate in assorted gestures and lingo culled from popular culture, advertisements and the media. We strut about sassy, complete with the attitude in our foreign sounding apparels -to our adopted foreign sounding names even! - and other branded goods/gadgets to an inner soundtrack (which is usually whatever mind-retarding commercial fluff that the controllers of the airwaves and shopping malls try to pass off as music) as if we’re sashaying down the run way or striking poses like glamorous actors in an expensive production.
Form follows fiction: fantasy or fallacy10……….
However, as the imaginary applauses and accolades, the clicking sound of the paparazzi’s cameras in our heads subside, as our persona reads his/her parting lines and takes a bow with the cheap, gaudy curtains drawn to a close, our longings remained insatiate, our yearnings unfulfilled, still. Come the dreaded Monday mornings, we hit the reset mode again, ready to commence with the pointless cycle of routine and the unpleasant, nasty business of making a ‘living’ (so we can continue paying the never-ending bills and the ever-increasing debts.) In fact, most of us have the Monday blues until the weekends. We grow fat, old, wrinkled, and bald, become sick, tired, hunched-back, feeling disillusioned, cynical, and apathetic –or all of these- before our time…
Life = Labor
Is ‘work’ a necessary ‘evil’ as it’s made out to be, a lifelong inconvenience to be tolerated and endured?
The men of commerce working hand in hand with the ruling classes (regardless of ideology, heredity, pedigree or whatever ‘isms’ they claimed to adhered to) of the day along with the self-appointed gatekeepers to the almighty have for hundreds of years drilled into our species that one must suffer the indignity of ‘work’ for various unavoidable reasons such as ‘original sin’, ‘bad karma’, ‘destiny’ or ‘luck’.
8) Ibid ’Such needs have a societal content and function which are determined by external powers over which the individual has no control; the development and satisfaction of these needs is heteronomous. No matter how much such needs may have become the individual’s own, reproduced and fortified by the conditions of his existence; no matter how much he identifies himself with them and find himself in their satisfaction, they continue to be what they were from the beginning-products of a society whose dominant interests demands repression’. PP 22 (emphasis added)
9) Ibid ‘Free choice among a wide variety of goods and services does not signify freedom if these goods and services sustain social controls over a life of toil and fear-that is, if they sustain alienation’. PP 23 (emphasis added)
10) ‘For many of us, buying the goods and services we want does wonders psychologically. When we spend, we see the rewards of our hard work. Once those rewards were more abstract. We may have felt happy that we are doing our duty to God or our community, or enjoy the feeling that work itself a virtuous activity, a good thing to do. Our work was financial but also spiritual and religious. Materialism, hedonism, the linking of happiness with consumption were all regarded as dubious pursuits in a religious age, but for our secular world there is no shame in being shallow enough to lust after a mezzaluna or a mortar and pestle. Consumption has filled a vacuum of meaning in the twenty-first century and plays a powerful role in our ambitions. You may not get an interesting job-after all, not everyone can- but you can moderate the anger and sadness at missing out by buying hard, by acquiring goods that describe you and how you live your life’. Helen Trinca &Catherine Fox, ’God to gold card: what drives us to work’ from ‘Better than Sex: How a whole generation got hooked on work’ Random House Australia Pty Ltd (2004) PP 61
Of course, they never see the need to explain themselves for freely and unashamedly living off the labours of others, by hook or crook. This trinity of dominion subjugates our imagination and potential of becoming by ruse, coercion and penalty. The belief that life is a sentence as penance for ‘disobedience’ or the results of cause and effects of ‘past lives’, the outcome of a game of chance or destiny even, are used to justify the oppression meted out on us, the misfortunate that befell us or the stations in life that we find ourselves in. It opened the gates to unbridle tyranny, discrimination, exploitation and indifference. All the monuments and so-called man-made wonders of the world now in ruins, were once built on the million broken backs of forced and exploited labour that stood on the foundations of such beliefs. But yet we learnt not! We see revolutions against institutions, and in turn, the revolutionaries becoming the institutionaries, building its own towers of Babel and other vainglorious displays of superiority from the rubble of past towers(!) in the name of the people, and paid with the toil of the people, before being overthrown by the people as what has happened in Eastern Europe decades ago. Will the cycle repeat itself again today in numerous Middle Eastern countries namely Tunisia11 Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Qatar, Bahrain etc.? How had life come to such a predicament?
“All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”12
257 years ago, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote in his revolutionary document ‘A Discourse on Inequality’: “I discern two sorts of inequality in the human species; the first I call natural or physical because it is established by nature, and consists of difference in age, health, strength of the body and qualities of the mind or soul; the second we might call moral or political inequality because it derives from a sort of convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the consent of men. This latter inequality consists of the different privileges which some enjoy to the prejudice of others-such as their being richer, more honoured, more powerful than others, and even getting themselves obeyed by others” (PP)
This political or moral ‘inequality’ that was authorized with the so-called ‘consent’ of men pushed to its most elaborate and sophisticated, were to find its complete, actualized epitome with the rise of ‘civilizations’. The word itself conjures images of spectacular cities and majestic monuments, high intellectual achievements, artistic, cultural refinement and scientific breakthroughs embodied by a particular race or nation (usually western). Civilizations are synonymous with empires, and all great empires of the past that gave the world the 7 wonders, writing and arithmetic, institutions of authority and institutionalized value systems etc. were all built on the labour supplied by the lowest strata of an established master and slave hierarchy. Like all ‘rags to riches’ stories, ‘civilization’ had modest beginnings 13.
12) From ‘Animal Farm’ (1945) by George Orwell
13) The breakthrough was to come at the point where Africa, Asia and Europe meet. There, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, was a small change in human feeding behavior that was to alter the whole course of man’s progress. It was trivial enough and simple enough by itself, but its impact was to be enormous. Today we take it for granted: we call it farming’. Desmond Morris, ‘The Human Zoo’ Corgi Books (1971) PP 17
It was the abundance of the ancestors of the staple food we enjoy today such as wild wheat, barley, rice, maize and other types of wild ancestors of the domesticated life stocks namely goats, cattle, pigs and sheep that effectively convinced our nomadic hunter/gatherer ancestors to opt for agricultural settlement14. For the first time agricultural life produced a steady supply of food for all its members and even excesses or surpluses. “The creation of this surplus was the key that was to unlock the gateway to civilization 15”
This transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural life16 also brought other benefits such as living in larger communities which provided safety for its members. “The tribe could not only become bigger, but it could free some of its people for other tasks: not part-time tasks, fitted in around the priority demands of food-finding, but full-time activities that could flourish in their own right. An age of specialization was born. From these small beginnings, grew the first towns17” (emphasis added)
Domination and Social Rank
Marx and Engels wrote in 1848 that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle.” 18.
While each member of a tribe of hunter/gatherers contributes to ensure the survival of the tribe, in a community, a dominant individual or groups –similar to larger and stronger mammals that live in packs- will seek to dominate. For some strange psychopathological reasons and reasoning, they believed that they are entitled to more than others while doing less than others and for some strange pathological reasoning, we obliged them19!
14) Ibid “It is no accident that the other two regions of the earth which, later on, saw the birth of independent ancient civilizations (southern Asia and Central America) were also places where hunter/gatherers found wild plants suitable for cultivation: rice in Asia and maize in America.” PP 19
15) Ibid.
16) Zerzan presents an alternative to the idea that the transition to agricultural life was not so much due to shortages and disruption of steady supply of food to meet the growing numbers of human that led to the cultivation of crops and domestication of animals. Rather it was the increasing important role that certain animals and crops began to play in Neolithic religious ceremonies for sacrificial and divinatory purposes. See John Zerzan, ‘Elements of Refusal’ (1989) from ‘Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections’ (edit) John Zerzan, Feral House. PP 68
17) Desmond Morris, ‘The Human Zoo’ Corgi Books (1971) PP 19
18) Marx and Engels proceed to list the contending classes beginning from the early epoch of history to the developments that led to the rise of two modern opposing classes, the bourgeois and proletarians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto
19 ) “ The first man who, having enclosed a piece of land, thought of saying ‘ this is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders; how much misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had pulled up the stakes and filled the ditch and cried out to his fellow men:’ beware of listening to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to everyone and that the earth itself belongs to no one!” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘A Discourse on Inequality’ Penguin Books (1984)
In any organized grouping, there is always a struggle for social dominance and status20. The implications are far graver and insidious when the domination of one particular individual, group or class-the most despicable and evil being the lording of one race- over another is justified by invoking race, religion or ideology. However, if these strategies are ineffective, the dominating class employs deception and distortion, manipulation, inducement or enticement. But when all else fails, it will resort from thinly veiled to open threats and plain brute force sanctioned by law or popular support. For some, the view21 that when the social organization of a society or nation is established based on distinct classes, rankings, specialization or division of labour, it ensures equilibrium that allows the process of interaction and cooperation to take place smoothly leading to mutual benefits as a whole. This symbiosis of reciprocated support and exploitation grows and expands with the growth of civilizations. From towns to cities and nation-states, the numbers of populations increased exponentially. To meet the growing food and resource needs as well as living spaces resulted in either trade or conquest or both of neighboring towns, cities and nations near and far. Later, nation-states with imperial ambitions, aided and abetted by the mercantile (also known as bourgeoisie or capitalists) classes gave rise to colonial capitalism, subjugating people and exploiting them among other things as slave-labour working in cash crops plantations, constructions of facilities and infrastructures of colonial commerce (and their collaborators) and mining of natural resources in conquered lands etc. The division of labor that developed out of agricultural life now forcibly ‘recruited’ many of its members to the lowest strata of the imperial hierarchy from slaves, the landless and displaced peasantry and colonial subjects together with indentured servants.
20) Francis Fukuyama, quoting Alexandre Kojeve’s interpretation of Hegel’s ‘The Struggle for Recognition’, puts forward the idea that man, desires more than material things, “Above all, he also desires the desire of other men, that is, to be wanted by others or to be recognized. Indeed, for Hegel, an individual could not become self-conscious, that is, become aware of himself as a separate human being, without being recognized by other human beings. Man, in other words, was from the start a social being: his own sense of self-worth and identity is intimately connected with the value that other people place on him.”
-How does he go about earning that recognition? By the ability to risk his own life in pursuit of pure prestige. -
“…the encounter with other men leads to violent struggle in which each contestant seeks to make the other “recognize” him by risking his own life.” In this violent struggle, aside from the mutual destruction of both contestants or the death of either one “in which case the survivor remains unsatisfied because there is no longer another human consciousness to recognize him”
Fukuyama postulates that “the early Hegelian understanding of the early class stratification is probably more accurate than that of Marx,” which is the result of the third consequence, where “the battle can terminate in the relationship of lordship and bondage, in which one of the contestants decides to submit to a life of slavery rather than face the risk of a violent death. The master is then satisfied because he has risked his life and received recognition for having done so from another human being” Fukuyama offers the “warrior’s ethos”, the essential core culture of aristocratic societies the world over as proof. “Many traditional aristocratic societies initially arose out of the “warrior ethos” of nomadic tribes who conquered more sedentary peoples through superior ruthlessness, cruelty and bravery. After the initial conquest, the masters in subsequent generations settled down on estates and assumed an economic relationship as landlords exacting taxes or tribute from the vast mass of peasant “slaves” over whom they ruled” Francis Fukuyama, ’The struggle for recognition’ from ‘The End of History and the Last Man’. The Free Press, Macmillan (1992) PP146-8
21) The recognition of distinct classes has made it possible for members of classes below the top one to strive for a more realistic dominance status at their particular class level. Belonging to a class is much more than a mere question of money. A man at the top of his social class may earn more than a man at the bottom of the class above. The rewards of being dominant at his own level may be such that he has no wish to leave his own class-tribe’. Desmond Morris, ‘The Human Zoo’ Corgi Books (1971) PP 55
Alienation = Indolence?
Syed Hussein Alatas, in his groundbreaking work22 exposes the ideology that paints a distorted and disdainful image of colonized peoples- from their biological make-up, beliefs to social customs and traditional government-which served to gloss over and justify their colonization and oppression by the colonial powers in the first place. The chief criticism found in most colonial literature is the perceived ‘indolence’23 of the natives. This ‘indolence’ which caused much frustration and resentment on the part of the colonialist stems from the fact that most natives and indigenous people would rarely or were reluctant to ‘work’ for them. They may have been conquered and oppressed but they were not easily exploited as tools or reliable labour in the service of colonial capitalism24. That task was later to be fulfilled by immigrants- who when brought over en mass were little more than slaves instead of indentured labour from other colonies25. Though S.H Alatas did not describe all the ‘negative’ or ‘distorted’ characteristics and traits displayed by the local and indigenous populations in the colonies-and even under feudal yoke prior and during the colonial era- in colonial literature as symptoms of alienation, but by removing the racialist views injected into these unscientific and unfounded ‘observations’ of the natives’ character, the underlying dis-ease leaves no doubt of the diagnosis by this writer.
Work = Alienation?
What is alienation26 and how does it occur, especially in our postindustrial society? We begin by asking a few basic questions, beginning with “WHY DO PEOPLE WORK?”
“They work to survive and to buy things they want, not to satisfy creative needs and not because of the intrinsic rewards that work provides”27.
But if they have work (and wages) why do they become alienated?
“Because workers are alienated from the forces of production (i.e., they do not own the machines, land, or natural resources), from each other (i.e., they are competitors for jobs, security, promotions, and salaries), from the things they produce (i.e., the things they make are usually made for somebody else) and from themselves (i.e., they have little control over their own destinies or work)”28
In short, a worker in general does not own property, means of production and the raw materials, of which they can work and sell to their profit or leverage and negotiate to their advantage and benefit as all of these now belong to the ruling classes, private businesses, private land owners etc. In order to survive and have the means to buy things, they have to sell the only thing they still own, their human labour power. They have to sell it constantly to stay employed (and to upgrade them to stay employable). But the worker is competing with numerous others who are similarly offering their human labour power, oftentimes at a lower price. This situation favors the employer for he or she has the luxury of keeping wages low and benefits few because they are ensured of takers anyway.
22) S.H Alatas, ‘The Myth of the Lazy Native: The image of the Malays, Filipinos and Javanese from the 16th to the 20th century and its function in the Ideology of Colonial Capitalism’ (1977) Frank Cass and company limited
23) Ibid ‘The colonial capitalist criteria of industriousness are here fully revealed. Only labour which directly promoted profit could disqualify the subject from being labelled as "indolent"’ PP 221 (emphasis added)
24) Ibid see Chapter 5 ‘The Image of Indolence and the Corresponding Reality’ PP70
25) Ibid see Chapter 6 ‘Colonial Capitalism and its Attitude towards Labour in the 19th and Early 20th Century’ PP83
26) Various definitions of ‘Alienation’ see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation
27) John Curra, ‘Understanding Social Deviance: From the near side to the outer limits’. Harper Collins College Publishers (1994) PP 46
28) Ibid
With the advancement and constant improvement of technologies, many employers today do not require too many workers as machines can be exploited to the maximum in the production of goods and services. In fact, machines and other technical innovations have been putting people out of work for centuries, most effectively arising from the era of the Industrial Revolution with far reaching consequences. Many types of work today are now so specialized and impersonal, which do not take into account a worker’s wellbeing, development, creativity etc because the work is not meant to benefit the worker, but only requires the worker to obey and meet the objectives of the employers, which are to generate profits. This results in the worker becoming frustrated as what is offered by them i.e. their human labor power (which includes their social personality, mental and physical abilities) is depreciated or rendered worth less when compared to other workers especially foreign labour and machines. They are seen as expendable. Treated as a thing that is easily replaced at a discount, the worker loses his or her dignity and humanity.
I Love (…………………….) ism!
How does the worker overcome this sense of alienation?
From revolutions to reformations and currently to plea bargaining, workers, individually or collectively in general faces a difficult and almost impossible struggle to overcome this situation by overhauling or changing the status quo because the surrounding circumstances conspire to distort and defeat their efforts30. “Because the ideas of every period are, in large part, the ideas that support the interest of the ruling class and because institutions serve as mechanisms for indoctrinating people into the capitalist conception of reality, Marx posited the existence of the society wide deception called false consciousness. False consciousness is the acceptance of the ruling class ideas, and it is the failure to be critical of bourgeois society. False consciousness encourages people to believe that what is good for the capitalists is really good for everybody else. Control becomes particularly effective when false consciousness is fervently believed by many unrelated individuals who insists that the prevailing version of reality is the only reality.”31
The alienation shared by workers (whether in a socialists or capitalist country) had been roundly dismissed as subterfuges, excuses and a sickness of irresponsibility for one’s life and well being32.
29) Ibid PP47
“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeoisie mode of production; it compels to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In other word, it creates a world after its own image’
“One need not be a Marxist to recognize that a dominant ruling elite upholding a definite social, economic and political order will utilize all channels of influencing thought and behaviour to impart its ideology to the minds of the people. The higher seats of learning, the press, the church, the party, the school, the books, all have been used for this purpose” S.H Alatas, ‘The Myth of the Lazy Native’ Frank Cass and company limited (1977) PP 17
32) The problem of alienation is not metaphysical; it is not man’s natural fate, never to escaped, like some sort of Original Sin; it is a disease. It is not the consequence of capitalism or industrialism or “bigness”- it cannot be legislated out of existence by the abolition of property rights. The problem of alienation is psycho-epistemological: it pertains to how man chooses to use his consciousness. It is the product of man’s revolt against thinking-which means: against reality. If a man defaults on the responsibility of seeking knowledge, choosing values and setting goals-if this is the sphere he surrenders to the authority of others-how is he to escape the feeling that the universe is closed to him? It is. By his own choice.’ Nathanial Branden, ’Alienation’ from ‘Ayn Rand, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal’, Signet, New American Library (1967) PP295
It is not the intention of this writer to pass judgment or to elevate one ideology over another. This writer merely points out the conditions and experiences which are all too familiar to those who had work, currently still working and those about to join the work force. The references in this writing are academic exercises with which to highlight opposing or alternate views about work, it effects and its conceptions. The writer is of the opinion that as an able-bodied adult who strives- as all rational adults must-to find and achieve a balanced, contented and meaningful existence especially through work, it is one’s onus to make rational, accountable and critical decisions33 with regards to the direction one’s life, future and work must take.
If one, out of fear of freedom, imagination and responsibility opts for numbing, stultifying routine34 or the complete abandonment of the critical faculties-to conveniently absolve responsibility for one’s own actions-one follows the crowd by submitting35 to the dictates of higher authorities or cults of personalities, one has forfeited the ultimate gift that was bestowed on mankind, that is, free will.
By not exercising this gift –and right- one has committed a grave injustice to one’s self and the succeeding generations.
33) Ibid ‘The alienated man is fleeing from the responsibility of a volitional (i.e., self-directing) consciousness: the freedom to think or not to think, to initiate a process of reason or to evade it, is the burden he longs to escape. But since this freedom is inherent in his nature as a man, there is no escape from it: hence his guilt and anxiety when he abandons reasons and sights in favor of feelings and blindness. But there is another level on which man confronts the issue of freedom: the existential or social level- and here escape is possible. Political freedom is not a metaphysical given: it has to be achieved – hence it can be rejected. The psychological root of the revolt against the freedom in one’s existence, is the revolt against freedom in one’s consciousness. The root of the revolt against self-responsibility in action is the revolt against self-direction in thought. The man who does not want to think, does not want to bear responsibility for the consequences of his actions nor for his own life’. PP 294
34) ‘Any attempt to standardize life is a form of domination that imposes an alienating model over people. European colonization and American transnationalization impose standardizing patterns over the differences and peculiarities of the planet and its people. Every standardizing pattern is a by-product of state and business planning, which operate in temporal-linear terms: the progression toward macrostandardizing goals that take away all liberties. Colonization fostered by the so-called civilized world negates the peculiarity of nature-people, animals, vegetation, soil, etc- and destroys the liberty of life’. Jesus Sepulveda, ‘Garden of Peculiarities’ Feral House (2005) PP26
35) ’All mass movements, as one might expect, slip with the greatest ease down an inclined plane represented by large numbers. Where the many are, there is security; what the many believe must be true; what the many wants must be worth striving for, and necessary, and therefore good. In the clamor of the many there lies the power to snatch wish-fulfillments by force; sweetest of all, however, is the gentle and painless slipping back into the kingdom of childhood, into the paradise of parental care, into happy go luckiness and irresponsibility. All the thinking and looking after are done from the top; to all questions there is an answer; and for all needs the necessary provisions are made. The infantile dream state of mass man is so unrealistic that he never thinks to ask who is paying for this paradise. The balancing accounts are left to a higher political or social authority, which welcomes the task, for its power is thereby increased; and the more power it has, the weaker and more helpless the individual becomes.’
‘Wherever social conditions of this type develop on a large scale the road to tyranny lies open and the freedom of the individual turns into spiritual and physical slavery’ C.G Jung, ‘The Undiscovered Self’ Mentor, New American Library (1959) PP71
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life” (Confucius)
Narrow views and rigid interpretations as well as purely materialistic expectations from ‘work’ has been so ingrained in the consciousness of our post- industrial era, driven by consumerism and reinforced by the lust for status (recognition), goads this obsession to make more money so as to be able to keep-up appearances, results in a lopsided paradigm towards life. The moment we accept that self-worth and dignity as individuals depends on our stations in the social hierarchy, or the things we buy or the services we use, we extend this view that levels everything else to the base and the condescending. This is detrimental to our development as conscious and unique individuals. We no longer rely on ourselves to generate meanings and actions-our mistrust and censure of our inner voices of wisdom- that are autonomous and purposefully beneficial to our needs (and of others), but to the tyranny of judgments and dictates of others for our personal material wellbeing, self-worth and social identity. The psychological disequilibrium and existential lack of meaning caused by the working life in many is proof enough that work is ‘not working’. The ‘higher’ standards of living and material comforts do not guarantee a ‘higher’ quality of life because ultimately, it is not with transient- and limited shelf-life of ‘things’ like high-tech gadgetry and other technical means of production that we relate to as human beings, but with each other. A complete ‘mental revolution’ is needed in the way we choose to live and the ways we go about making a living. It is not worth working oneself to death to maintain the profits and illusions of grandeur of others (or self) for ultimately, ‘all is vanity’. Life need not be a zero-sum game where we exploit ourselves, the environment and others towards mutual destruction for ‘pieces of silver and pots of gold’ nor should we burn ourselves like moths to the flame in seeking the applauses and approval of the fickle and the philistine.
The chief intention of this writing ‘BEREHAT’ (to rest) - serves as a platform for us to step out of the ‘cubicle’ and look at the concept of ‘work’ (and life) through ‘rest, relief and revelry’-is to generate different readings and explore possibilities. ‘Berehat’ (to rest) is the body’s natural way of compelling us to realize the necessity of breaking away from the monotony of routine or unrelenting pressures and stress, if even momentarily. It helps us unwind, reflect, regenerate and rejuvenate either in private, with nature or in the company of family and friends. It invites us to ponder on the possibilities and realities of one’s life after working hours and outside of the daily grind. Life should and can be lived as praxis for self-discovery. Self-knowledge is awareness of the internal and external forces that holds sway our expressed intentions and hidden desires. It is the conscious individual who, in command of his destiny, liberates his natural talents through his choice of ‘work’ and labors with love according to the dictum “from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her contribution”. That is when we reject the ‘life-of-toil’ ideology and embrace the joys of living.
‘Chairman’ Mao (Sze-Tung) was wrong when he said ‘The revolution is not a tea party’. If the workers had their way, the ‘revolution’ should have been one long ‘teh-tarik’ and ‘nasi lemak’ break!
Happy Worker’s Day!
