Undoing Work, or Doing it up? How Central Should Work Be to Society?

I just finished reading James Chamberlain’s new book Undoing Work, Rethinking Community: A Critique of the Social Function of Work (Cornell University Press). It’s an ambitious theoretical work that raises fundamental issues regarding not only the meaning of work but also the construction of society. But let me first back up. My own book, The Thought of Work, is intended partly as a statement of the diverse ways in which work is important—materially, psychologically, sociologically, and so forth. Behind this is an assumed default in which work’s diverse values are not fully appreciated, especially when it is reduced largely to an income-generating activity. That is, capitalism and neoliberalism devalue work by prioritizing the monetary aspects and reducing work to being seen as simply a commodity.

Undoing Work comes from a seemingly-opposite perspective—that work is too central in today’s neoliberal, capitalist societies.  So whereas I want to raise the value of work, Undoing Work wants to, well, undo it. Why? Because neoliberal social norms require an individual to be working full-time for pay in order to be fully welcomed and included as a citizen—normatively if not in fact. But this raises at least two problems. One, the highly-unequal nature of capitalism limits the opportunities for full-time, paid work to a privileged set, thus excluding from full citizenship many who have traditionally been marginalized, whether on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, class, or other bases. Two, the material and social pressures for full-time salaried or waged work limit human freedom by coercing people into spending more time at work than they would choose if they were truly free.

Chamberlain strongly argues that at a fundamental level, these norms are rooted in how society is constructed. That is, Undoing Work argues that neoliberal, capitalist societies are seen as collections of individuals who form societies (communities) because they benefit from exchanging their work. So the twin features of individualism and work lie at the core of a capitalist society. Through the Marxist lens that grounds Undoing Work, this is highly problematic because capitalism always degrades work and because individualism always leads to hierarchy and exclusion. So how can individuals—or maybe I should say, members of communities—be free to follow their self-determined rather than neoliberal needs and wants?

A popular proposal these days is for a universal basic income, the (simplified) theory being that reducing people’s dependency on work for subsistence will allow them to choose from a broader set of life activities. An interesting contribution of Undoing Work is showing how the thinking that lies behind many of the proposals for universal basic income do not break with traditional views of work and society to the extent needed to really bring about a large-scale change in the centrality of work. Which brings Chamberlain to the heart of his argument: for humans to truly be free, the basis of society needs to be seen as something other than work. So it’s not just about rethinking work, it’s about rethinking the definition of community. Maybe it’s my own lack of sophistication, but unfortunately, after reading Undoing Work I’m left with a much greater appreciation of the nature of this problem than for the author’s solutions. And by this, I don’t just mean practical solutions—which the author admits are challenging given that he believes this entails a rejection of capitalism; rather, I’m referring to the conceptual solution. Maybe I’ve been studying work for too long, but I can’t figure out what it would mean to undo work.

Undoing Work is clear (at least towards the end), that work would remain important (otherwise I think we’d really be getting into utopian territory), but what would seem to be left of value are psychological rewards and caring. This strikes me as a movement towards the more individual aspects of work—which make sense in some respects because it’s the social aspects of work in terms of exclusion and lack of solidarity that are at the root of the problem presented in Undoing Work. But on the other hand, this seems contradictory with the overall direction advocated—that is, this movement toward individualism does not seem consistent with the overall goal of trying to reconstitute society on basis of something other than a collection of individuals.

So where do we go from here? I think Professor Chamberlain would agree with me that work is too important to be left in the hands of neoliberal thinkers or propagandists. But dedicated readers of my blog will know that I’m a pluralist scholar rather than a critical, heterodox (including Marxism) scholar. So imbalances of labor market power are important, but can be alleviated. This requires continued attention to the material institutions that shape work—laws, unions, and the like—as well as the normative institutions. Going back to The Thought of Work, my goal is that if society can more fully recognize the ways in which work is important—including the dimensions that Undoing Work rightly recognize, like inclusion, citizenship, and solidarity—then we can design institutions that will better support inclusion, citizenship, and solidarity. And empowered individuals can pursue something that comes closer to their desired forms or conditions of work and do so with dignity.

But as I admit in my own writings, this is challenging because we don’t want to elevate work to such a level of importance that it is the only way of creating an individual and social identity. I think Undoing Work is premised on that ship having sailed. I maintain that somehow it’s still possible. But we can both agree that these issues are too important to not discuss as scholars and a society.  

Thank You Wells Fargo...For Reminding Us of the Nature of the Employment Relationship

The biggest business story of the past month has been the Wells Fargo banking scandal. Driven by pressures to sell banking customers additional products, thousands of employees created perhaps two millions new accounts without customer approval. Over 5,000 workers were fired for creating fraudulent accounts, and some who were fired for failing to meet sales goals are suing Wells Fargo for wrongful termination. One lawsuit alleges that “The managers and bankers routinely harassed and pressured [the plaintiff] and she was denied promotions and bonuses because she would not engage in the unethical and fraudulent banking practices for unethical quotas.” 

This unfortunate mess raises many problematic issues, such as ineffective regulators, unrealistic pressures for unending corporate financial and stock returns, predatory corporate culture, leadership failings, and the danger of incentives (from stock incentives at the top, to managerial bonuses in the middle, down to the incentive to simply keep one’s job as a teller at the bottom of the banking organizational chart). And we shouldn't overlook the personal distress experienced by individual employees ("Wells Fargo's insatiable greed made me a monster," StarTribune, Sept 30, 2016). But I want to thank Wells Fargo for reminding us of the nature of the employment relationship.  

The debate over the nature of the employment relationship is as old as modern capitalism itself. Adam Smith’s model of self-interested employees and employers trading as equals in markets guided by the invisible hand continues today as the intellectual foundation of neoliberalism. I have called this the “egoist” employment relationship because of its emphasis on individual self-interest and personal responsibility. In order for this to work effectively for employers and employees, labor markets must be ideally competitive, not destructively competitive. This requires employees to have reasonable alternatives that are accessible without excessive switching costs, both economic (e.g., moving costs) and psychological (e.g., stress over the uncertainties of the nature of a new job, or a bias towards over-valuing what you already possess). In this way, if someone doesn’t like their pay, working conditions, or other elements of their job, they can legitimately quit and get another decent job commensurate with their skills and abilities. Minimal institutional supports like unions or protective labor legislative are not needed because competitive markets protect workers from abuse; indeed, they are bad if they interfere with the ideal discipline of the invisible hand.

The Wells Fargo fiasco seemingly rejects the accuracy of this way of thinking. Workers clearly didn’t feel that they could simply quit and find a comparable job. Instead, over 5,000 succumbed to corporate pressure to meet unrealistic targets, and thereby acted unethically by creating fake accounts to keep their jobs. Competitive labor markets also require potential employees to have good information about the nature of jobs, and one can question whether employees joining Wells Fargo fully understood these pressures. And competitive consumer markets require well-informed consumers, which also doesn’t appear to the case here. For example, many customers with potentially fraudulent accounts couldn’t remember whether they had requested them or not. The neoliberal or egoist model of the employment is an important theoretical baseline, but seemingly too idealistic for the messiness of real-world markets, human behavior, and therefore, employment relationships.

An alternative to the neoliberal or egoist way of thinking is the unitarist model of the employment relationship. Ideally competitive labor markets are not required, but this approach critically rests on a belief that the interests of employers and employees are largely one and the same (unitarist = unity of interests). Or more precisely, a belief that well-designed managerial policies and practices can always be found that align the interests of workers and their employers. For example, offering decent pay and benefits will create engaged, loyal workers who reward the employer with high levels of performance that serve the business and its customers. Minimal institutional supports like unions or protective labor legislative are unnecessary because companies will create win-win human resource management policies. The Wells Fargo fiasco seemingly rejects the accuracy of this way of thinking, too. Performance standards were unrealistic and incentives at various points of the corporate hierarchy were extreme. Ethical workers were fired; customers were harmed. And these problems were not self-corrected or policed internally. Rather, these practices were exposed by the Los Angeles Times which then resulted in a lawsuit against Wells Fargo by the Los Angeles city attorney.

This isn’t to say that high-commitment forms of human resource management (“high road” HRM) are a failed project. Well-designed HRM policies and practices are essential for any organization, and we need more HR leaders with sophisticated ways of thinking (like one gets with a Minnesota Master’s degree in HRIR!). But it is to say that as a society, we cannot rely solely on corporate self-interest and well-intentioned managers.

Which brings me to the pluralist employment relationship model. The pluralist model rejects the neoliberal assumption of ideally competitive labor markets, and again, the Wells Fargo scandal highlights why. Moreover, the pluralist model embraces a plurality of legitimate interest in the employment relationship. Yes, there are some interests that employers and employees have in common, but unlike the unitarist way of thinking, pluralists believe that there are also conflicts of interests. But both employer and employee interests are legitimate so none should be exclusively prioritized over others (akin to a pluralist democracy in the political sphere). HRM practices are important for aligning shared interests, but society should not rely exclusively on corporate self-interest to look out for workers. When times are tough or there are excessively strong pressures for financial returns, some companies favor their own interests at the expense of employees. This seems to me to be a better characterization of what happened at Wells Fargo than the other two models of the employment relationship can provide. And consequently, Wells Fargo employees have turned to the courts for relief. In other situations, they might turn to labor unions or other outside, institutional supports. In whatever form, institutional supports for employees, independent of the vagaries or markets or enlightenment of managers, are needed.

In conclusion, how we think the employment relationship works is critically important for determining the extent to we as a society want to rely solely on markets or managers for setting employment terms and conditions. It’s difficult to truly gauge the actual nature of the employment relationship in practice. But we can look to situations like what’s unfolded at Wells Fargo for clues. Maybe it's just me, but I see another example that supports the accuracy of the pluralist model.