Language, said the fabulist Aesop, is the best or the worst of things, depending on what we do with it. It can be used to speak love, to proclaim the truth and to pray to God, but it can also fuel division, spread slander and give voice to blasphemy. Language is essential to the good life, but must be handled with care.
The same could be said about work. For Hegel, for example, work sets free in that it allows humans to become aware of themselves. For Marx, work is noble in that it contributes to building a just world for all, free from poverty. Work, however, is also suffering and indignity for the worker crushed by a boss obsessed with profit.
Western societies worship work. It’s not uncommon to hear people boast about working twelve hours or more a day — even when it’s not true — and to have their claims greeted with admiration. However, work in itself is not necessarily a virtue.
In Incident in Vichy (Robert Laffont, 2023), a little-known play by the great American playwright Arthur Miller, Jewish men have just been arrested by the collaborationist Vichy regime and discuss among themselves the tragic fate that awaits them.
One of them lectures the others about the cult of work. “And now,” he said, “we hear that everywhere in France — we have to learn to work like the Germans. Good God! So you never read the story? Every time a people starts to work hard, be careful, they will eliminate people. »
Further on, in response to those who oppose him that we must still produce what is necessary, he summarizes his point of view by saying that “we must do our work without making it a god”.
This is also the perspective that sociologist Julia Posca adopts in Working less is not enough (Ecosociety, 2023, 144 pages). We can, she says, emancipate ourselves in work provided that it is meaningful, is not overwhelming, offers decision-making autonomy, is recognized by others and has a public utility.
However, today, for too many people, work is a source of harmful stress endured out of necessity. We endure the work week while waiting to be able to flourish in the private sphere, most of the time by indulging in compensatory consumption. This spiral feeds a capitalist model that is dehumanizing and destructive of the planet.
Researcher at the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) and member of the journal’s editorial board FreedomJulia Posca is a woman of the left driven by a concern for social justice and the environment.
In this essay and from this perspective, she therefore questions the modalities and purposes of work so that the latter, “as one of the central activities of our lives, is rather a source of fulfillment and gratification”. We have not, in fact, finished working. Can we organize ourselves so that this activity is beneficial rather than mind-numbing?
Posca argues strongly – with convincing studies to back it up – firstly for the reduction of working hours without loss of salary. It shows that this measure has benefits on the physical and mental health of workers, on their motivation at work, on their family life and on the environment. This first step, however, is not enough, she insists. We must go further “to re-enchant this fundamental human activity”.
Inspired by daring thinkers like André Gorz and Dominique Méda, Posca does not hesitate to describe his vision as “postcapitalist”. For her, giving meaning to work means “democratizing the economy” by giving decision-making power to workers in companies, by allowing communities to have a right of review over the functioning and purposes of companies that set up shop there. them and by favoring organizations — public companies, cooperatives, non-profit organizations — other than the company obsessed with profit alone.
Such democratization of the economy would allow activity focused on “social and material utility”, which would also have the effect of changing consumption habits. When our work has meaning, when it allows us to fulfill ourselves by contributing to the common good, we feel less need for compensatory consumption of useless things.
Posca knows well that his plea for democratic, fulfilling and environmentally friendly work is, for the moment, utopian. His essay nevertheless gives us weapons to resist those who fatten themselves on the work of others, in defiance of everything else, in an inhumane save-what-can.
Columnist (Presence Info, Game), essayist and poet, Louis Cornellier teaches literature at college.