Selling
the Work Ethic: from puritan pulpit to corporate PRSelling
the Work Ethic: from puritan pulpit to corporate PR
304pp 234 x 152mm with references, bibliography & index, ISBN 0 908011 48 2
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| Description
At the onset of the twenty first century work and production have become ends in themselves. The resulting material affluence is accompanied by increasing levels of stress, insecurity, depression, crime, and drug taking. Escalating production and consumption are also destroying the environment on which life itself depends. Yet employment has become such a priority that much environmental degradation is justified merely on the grounds that it provides jobs. And people are so concerned to keep their jobs that they are willing to do what their employers require of them even if they believe it is wrong or environmentally destructive. The social benefit of having the majority of able-bodied people in a society working hard all week goes unquestioned, particularly by those who work hardest. Few people today can imagine a society that does not revolve around work. How did paid work come to be so central to our lives? Why is it that so many people wouldnÕt know what to do with themselves or who they were if they did not have their jobs? In this major new book, Sharon Beder unearths the origins and the practices of a triumphant culture of work in which the wealthy are respected and inequality is justified. Dr Beder shows that these values are neither natural nor inevitable. They have been actively promotedÑthrough religious preaching, corporate propaganda, the education system, and socialisationÑby those who benefit most from them. Selling The Work Ethic provides an absorbing account and critique of this central aspect of modern capitalist society. Prompted by her conviction that humanity needs to unlearn and change these powerfully held but now pathological values if we are to reverse the declining quality of life in industrial society, Dr Beder illuminates the impasse we are now in.
Dr. Sharon
Beder Review from the Australian Higher Education Supplement, 7 Feb 2001 by Dianne Carlyle and Nick Walker. THE concept of work as a determinant of personal value and identity, and as an indicator of good character and good morals, would have been alien in many past societies. It was after the Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries that work acquired this moral dimension and became a defining characteristic of human existence. People worked hard to serve God and to prove their worthiness to others. This helped create a diligent and reliable workforce. Similarly, the idea of money-making being the primary goal of the most admired people in society, the goal of nations and the primary determinant of social success would have been strange indeed to previous societies, Sharon Beder begins. The basic themes of this book may not be startlingly new, but they call for reiteration, and in her hands they are exceptionally well developed. Beder deals with work, wealth and inequality, and the role of coercion, persuasion and conditioning in motivating labour. She presents a history of managed work that many should read, and her observations on the contemporary scene are spot-on: The dispiriting of people forced into dead-end, temporary jobs without any future has led some writers to claim a decline in the work ethic, but what is really happening is that these employees are unable to express their work ethic in such jobs without feeling exploited. There is a dearth of literature on work addiction and the future of labour. This local book, which also sells in an international edition, is needed. Other Reviews: |
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