The Role of Work in Society and Individual Development

Extract

[...] Work reveals our individual qualities. Work educates: it mobilizes our attention and energy. The more the material resists the human being, the more he deploys physical and intellectual resources to subdue it. Sociability, responsibility, listening, application, patience are qualities that emerge and develop in various activities. More than an activity, work has allowed our civilization to be led into social and moral progress. Work also allows us to exploit human intelligence. The effort in human work, as Marx says in Capital, is very different from the instinctive way in which animals are active. [...]

[...] We will see that work is necessary for a society to function and that it is beneficial for the individual. Then we will treat the negative aspects of work. Finally, we will define the conditions for a work that does not alienate the individual and that knows how to manage times of leisure and idleness. Certainly, work is necessary for a society to function and it is beneficial for the individual. Work is a means of social integration. Work satisfies the human being with a social status. [...]

[...] They are indeed subject to laws that are not their own: working hours, market laws that force them to be profitable, the laws of hierarchical superiors . The conditioning to work, the negation of the individual in the name of the group, of profit prepares for social uniformity. Due to lack of time and energy, one uses their free time for rest, entertainment. Without reflection, one lets oneself be manipulated by political authority, as at work by hierarchical authority. Work can alienate. [...]

[...] The product of work is therefore born from a conscious and progressive transformation of the environment so that it is likely to meet our needs. Similarly, it reveals us to ourselves and allows us to build ourselves. For all these reasons, many are convinced that work is a blessing. But we must not forget its negative side by giving it only a positive value. However, work presents negative aspects. Work can hinder individual freedom and autonomy. Work occupies the time of individuals and takes away their energy. This continuous and repetitive fatigue kills any will to question the existing power. [...]

[...] They no longer have consciousness of the final result of their work, it does not belong to them because they are only a link in a chain. Their work becomes an abstraction without concrete reality. The worker is dispossessed of the consciousness and meaning of their work: they are alienated. For example, in the film Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin, work alienates, workers are seen as mechanical beings repeating the same gesture in a chain, tirelessly, all day long. The character of Charlie Chaplin is even caught in the machinery: he is dehumanized, and becomes an object. [...]