Making Sense of Work, Part One

When words have quite different meanings for different people, especially when the differences are based in ideology, then communication is worse than non-existent; it is actually counterproductive.  I speak to you of a ‘good thing’ and it is heard as a ‘bad thing’: “Hurrah, women have the right to choice about how they use their bodies in the procreation of the species.”, heard as, “Women can murder God’s unborn children denying them the opportunity to love Him.”  Aside from the significant pathology inherent in one of these statements, it is clear that the same words contain more misunderstanding by “understanding” the language than would be the case between non-communicating speakers of different languages.

I chose a ‘dog-whistle’ example for affect, but my main interest is economic language. Think of the arguments around employment.  The first level of consideration is; ‘Are there enough jobs and what do they pay as compared to the cost of living?’  Millions of words have been inked and pixeled about this.

Failure to see the consequences of doing these jobs, at any compensation, pits human economic employment against the physical realities of planetary life – not so different after all from the example of dis-communication above.  Also, what is the true nature of an economic system where full-time necessary (for the economic system) work can be compensated at less than is needed to live at near modal levels in the economic system?  Further, what does it say about an economic system that diminishes the importance of the very most essential work – the work that is the most central to the maintenance and improvement of the system?

One of the first things that is the most obvious and almost completely ignored in our understanding of work is the incredible number of different kinds of jobs done in the modern world. The multiplication of activities done by humans is in itself a great mystery when looked at in the compressed “book” of history: in a Paleolithic village humans did about 50 different things that might be called jobs and almost everyone could do most of them with at least some minimal level of competence [1].  There was, of course, specialization, but it was purely an adaptive efficiency as opposed to economically driven in the most common present understanding of the term.

The Neolithic village possibly doubled the number activities and some became the province of particular people or groups by virtue of the skills and tools required, as well as the economic efficiencies created by the specializations.

A list of the occupations from the censuses taken in England in the mid-nineteenth century is more than a 1000 entries long.  And while a few of those activities have been lost, most have only changed in proportion and many more have been added as we come to the present day.  It is clear that the list could be compressed by grouping many of the similar jobs, but it is also true that the people doing them may have seen them as quite different.

From another point of view, today’s IRS lists 319 quite general business/professional categories (see section C, 1040 instruction manual). Ford motor company might list under ‘4231100 – Motor vehicle & motor vehicle parts & supplies manufacturer’; clearly, many of these business activities are supported by 100s of different kinds of jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (SOC) lists 840 categories that it calls “detailed occupations” (2010 listing). Each of the detailed occupations is usually further explained with 3 examples of specific occupations.  In most cases it is easy to add several more specific occupations that most people would see as different jobs; if there were an average of 5 specific jobs represented by each of the detailed occupations, then there would be nearly 5,000 different types of jobs represented by the SOC list.

If we take as the rule that any activity requiring specific training, skill or capacity to do is a different kind of work, then there are, today, probably 10,000 or more different kinds of activities that can be called work or, if compensated in some fungible form, jobs.

What does it mean when all the different kinds of work required to maintain a culture and way of life numbers about 50, then increases over time to the range of 10,000?  This is not the sort of thing that you can just ignore the origin of with a smile of self-congratulation and an “Ain’t we cool.”  At the very least there is a need to look at the work (jobs) to see what is being done and why.

First, if we look at the work required in a Paleolithic village, the reason for every type of work is obvious and, more importantly, it is clear that the types of work support the integration of the people into the community and the community into the environment that supports it all. Throughout the space of a year one person might do half or more of these activities.  Some activities would be assigned on the basis of gender, age or status, but no activities would be seen as unnecessary or unworthy; no one could perceive their role as isolated and independent of the whole, either positive or negative.

A Wall Street Journal report (Jan., 2009) gives a list of the 20 best and 20 worst jobs from their ranking of the 200 categories of employment [2].  Aside from the consequences of ‘having a job’ that defines you and is your sole source for meeting both essential and discretionary needs, which of these jobs seem the most essential to the society? And which of them are the most highly praised and valued in society? 

All of the jobs listed are required of our present society – it is true – but if you had to axe 20 of them, which ones would they be, realizing that to get rid of half of these jobs would result in a more simplified society where many of these activities, like the scientific ones, would continue to be done, only on an avocational level, and many activities would have to be taken over by individuals, groups and communities acting on their own? My list is shown in the second rending of the table; blue for the occupations I would retain and red for those that would go [3].  My guiding question was; “how would a simplified society function without this specialized occupation?”  You can see that the best jobs fared worst and, in my view, the worst jobs were the more essential.

There is something fundamental about our species being expressed when an “advanced” society has adapted to its increases in number and power by glorifying activities that are supplemental to basic survival while actively trying to diminish and marginalize those activities that are essential.  There is no “Chicago School” mathematical economic principle working its way out of the non-cognitive material universe on display here; this is human stuff.  This is something that we have “created” from our biology as we have adapted to our technology and our numbers; our patterns of specialization and our cognitive productions have formed our societies and economies.  These adaptations may not be the ones that will work in the world.

What is it about our psychologies that brings together all the myriad forces in the shifting configurations created by technology and numbers so that our present societies manifest?  The answer(s) will be vital as our economies and numbers reach their zenith over the next 20 to 30 years.  There is no question in my mind that unless we apply new principles of analysis and action to how our adaptations progress, especially in this period of increasing pressures from all directions, we will do very badly indeed.

One approach will be to examine questions like the ones I am posing here.  The next few essays will look further into work and jobs from both economic and ecological points of view.

[1] Work in a Paleolithic village:

Gathering berry, nut, fruit and leaf foods

Gathering root foods

Preparing gathered foods for storage or use

Hunting small game

Hunting large game

Skinning and butchering large game

Skinning and butchering small game

Preparing hunted foods for storage or use

Finding and storing water

Carrying water

Preparing and curing animal skins

Making work specific wooden and bone tools, utilities and weapons

Making work specific stone tools, utilities and weapons

Finding and collecting stone materials for tools

Finding, selecting and preparing wood and bone materials for tools

Finding, selecting and preparing plant materials for domestic uses

Finding, selecting and preparing plant materials for medical uses

Construction of hunting traps, fishing weirs and other infrastructure

Construction of shelters, utility and protective systems

Making of clothing and domestic implements

Making of ceremonial clothing and implements

Making personal ornamentation

Making of food storage and cooking equipment

Maintaining personal and community tools and equipment

Keeping watch

Walking and marking territory boundaries

Keeping records of seasonal, yearly and generational events

Creating and telling group stories and songs

Performing social, economic and medical rituals

Exploring adjacent lands

Organizing and leading social activities

Organizing and leading hunting/gathering activities

Organizing and leading aggressive activities

Maintaining fires and fire making

Maintaining and teaching cultural habits and traditions

Keeping track of obligations and exchanges

Walking, running, climbing (swimming)

Gestating and birthing babies

Caring for and playing with infants and children

Teaching children specific skills

Teaching young adults specific skills

Caring for the sick and injured

[2]       The Best and Worst Jobs

Of 200 Jobs studied, these came out on top -- and at the bottom:

The Best	The Worst
1. Mathematician	200. Lumberjack
2. Actuary	199. Dairy Farmer
3. Statistician	198. Taxi Driver
4. Biologist	197. Seaman
5. Software Engineer	196. EMT
6. Computer Systems Analyst	195. Roofer
7. Historian	194. Garbage Collector
8. Sociologist	193. Welder
9. Industrial Designer	192. Roustabout
10. Accountant	191. Ironworker
11. Economist	190. Construction Worker
12. Philosopher	189. Mail Carrier
13. Physicist	188. Sheet Metal Worker
14. Parole Officer	187. Auto Mechanic
15. Meteorologist	186. Butcher
16. Medical Laboratory Technician	185. Nuclear Decontamination Tech
17. Paralegal Assistant	184. Nurse (LN)
18. Computer Programmer	183. Painter
19. Motion Picture Editor	182. Child Care Worker
20. Astronomer	181. Firefighter

[3]             The Best and Worst Jobs

retained in blue, removed in red

The Best	The Worst
1. Mathematician	200. Lumberjack
2. Actuary	199. Dairy Farmer
3. Statistician	198. Taxi Driver
4. Biologist	197. Seaman
5. Software Engineer	196. EMT
6. Computer Systems Analyst	195. Roofer
7. Historian	194. Garbage Collector
8. Sociologist	193. Welder
9. Industrial Designer	192. Roustabout
10. Accountant	191. Ironworker
11. Economist	190. Construction Worker
12. Philosopher	189. Mail Carrier
13. Physicist	188. Sheet Metal Worker
14. Parole Officer	187. Auto Mechanic
15. Meteorologist	186. Butcher
16. Medical Laboratory Technician	185. Nuclear Decontamination Tech
17. Paralegal Assistant	184. Nurse (LN)
18. Computer Programmer	183. Painter
19. Motion Picture Editor	182. Child Care Worker
20. Astronomer	181. Firefighter