Table Of ContentWork
THE ART OF LIVING SERIES
Series Editor: Mark Vernon
From Plato to Bertrand Russell philosophers have engaged wide
audiences on matters of life and death. Th e Art of Living series aims
to open up philosophy’s riches to a wider public once again. Taking
its lead from the concerns of the ancient Greek philosophers, the
series asks the question “How should we live?”. Authors draw on
their own personal refl ections to write philosophy that seeks to
enrich, stimulate and challenge the reader’s thoughts about their
own life. In a world where people are searching for new insights and
sources of meaning, Th e Art of Living series showcases the value of
philosophy and reveals it as a great untapped resource for our age.
Published
Clothes John Harvey
Deception Ziyad Marar
Fame Mark Rowlands
Hunger Raymond Tallis
Illness Havi Carel
Pets Erica Fudge
Sport Colin McGinn
Wellbeing Mark Vernon
Work Lars Svendsen
Forthcoming
Death Todd May
Middle Age Chris Hamilton
Sex Seiriol Morgan
Work
Lars Svendsen
For my parents
First published in 2008 by Acumen
Published 2014 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© Lars Svendsen 2008
Th is book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
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known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
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system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notices
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their
own experience And knowledge in evaluating and using
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described herein. In using such information or methods
they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of
others, including parties for whom they have a professional
responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor
the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability
for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a
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from any use or operation of any methods, products,
instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
isbn: 978-1-84465-154-2 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Typeset in Warnock Pro.
Contents
Introduction 1
1. From curse to vocation: a brief history of the
philosophy of work 13
2. Work and meaning 29
3. Th e distribution of work 49
4. Work and leisure 57
5. Being managed 73
6. Getting paid 87
7. Work in an age of affl uence 97
8. Th e end of work? 111
9. Life and work 119
Further reading 129
References 131
Index 136
v
Page Intentionally Left Blank
Introduction
In 1954, when my father was fourteen years old, he became a plumb-
er’s apprentice at a shipyard in Moss, a small industrial town in the
southeast of Norway. Th e shipyard primarily built large tankers. It
was the largest company in Moss, and 2,000 workers were employed
there. At the age of eighteen my father became a regular plumber,
and about ten years later he became a foreman. In 2002 he retired
owing to health problems, having been exposed to large amounts of
asbestos at the shipyard early in his career. He was employed at the
same company for his entire professional life. My impression was
always that he, for the most part, enjoyed working at the shipyard.
Yet he was also eager to leave at exactly 3.30pm every single workday,
and as a child I usually met him at the gates of the shipyard before we
walked home together. Th ere was a very strict distinction between
work and leisure, and my father had limited contact with his work
colleagues outside the workplace. If a particularly close colleague had
fallen ill, he might pay him a visit in the afternoon, but otherwise
work and leisure were strictly isolated social spheres. Questions as
to whether his job was “meaningful” or whether it was an expression
of his “true self” do not seem to have occurred to him.
Th is description of my father’s career is in many ways the exact
opposite of current descriptions of what work is supposed to be all
about. Th e current ideology of work is that it should be meaningful
and entertaining, that one’s colleagues should be one’s friends and
that work is primarily a tool for self-realization. Furthermore, with
the development of new technology, work has become deregulated
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Work
in terms of where and for how long it takes place, thereby blurring
the distinction between work and leisure. We change jobs at an
increasingly higher rate. Few now have a job for life, and radical
changes of career in the middle of one’s working life are more and
more common. And even though we live longer than before, we
spend fewer years at work.
I have the sort of job that seems to be all about self-realization,
as to a great extent I can spend every workday exactly as I like, but
I nevertheless frequently wonder: is my work really meaningful? Is
this what I am supposed to do with my life? At least once a month I
consider leaving the university to fi nd something more worthwhile
to do. Th e diff erence between the attitudes to work of my father’s
generation and mine seems to be so great that one is tempted to
say that we live in diff erent worlds, but I also think that my father
and I share a lot in our experiences of work. Even though my father
never refl ected much on work and identity, his work at the ship-
yard was clearly a signifi cant part of who he understood himself to
be and how he was regarded by others. Without that job, he would
have been deprived of an important source of meaning in his life.
Th e same holds for my job as a philosopher. We both take our jobs
seriously; there is certainly pride involved. Even though neither of
us are particularly religious, we are both Protestants in terms of our
work ethic. And without work we would probably both go mad.
(Since his retirement my father has brought my mother to the verge
of insanity, since he is incapable of relaxing for more than a few
minutes at a time, and has redecorated every room in the house
several times.) Th e idea of a world without work would probably
fi ll us both with despair.
But imagine a world without work. It would diff er signifi cantly
from the world in which we live, but it is far from obvious that it
would be a better world. In a world without work, we would no
longer have our jobs as essential markers of our identities. Social
relationships would have to be formed on a new basis. We would
2
Introduction
lose some – or maybe most – of our sense of purpose in life. We
would have more time to spend, but on what? Our entire lives
would have to be re-imagined. Some argue that “the end of work”
is drawing near, that a world without work is our historical destiny.
While I don’t share that view, such a world nevertheless supplies
an interesting thought experiment, as it brings out how great a role
work actually plays in our lives.
Th is book will focus more on the existential than on the political
aspects of work. Th e meaning of work will be my major concern. Of
course, I would not dream of thinking that a strict or “analytical”
distinction could be made between the existential and the polit-
ical aspects of work, since work and politics have been intertwined
for as long as there has been work and politics. It is a question of
emphasis. Issues of gender, social class, ethnicity, disability, migra-
tion, and globalization will not be addressed to any great extent.
I shall draw on various philosophical, historical and sociological
sources but with the general reader as my target. Also, my focus will
be on Western societies; to cover the working conditions of people
in the developing world would be an altogether diff erent essay.
Some people may ask what a philosopher might possibly know
about work. After all, doing philosophy does not seem like “real
work”, does it? I can certainly see their point. I guess that most
people who become full-time philosophers do so out of some sense
of vocation: the feeling that this is what they are meant to do in life.
Others may regard doing philosophy full time more as a perma-
nent vacation than as a vocation. Reading some books, lying on a
couch thinking, writing a few pages and saying something suppos-
edly “profound” is not much of a job, is it? If any readers wonder if
I have ever had anything resembling a “real job”, eight years of part-
time work as a cleaner might count. However, I confess that I do
not follow John Locke’s recommendation that every scholar should
spend three hours a day on manual labour, because one also needs
to exercise the body and not only the mind.
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