Why do we need jobs anyway?

[Dave2002]

Prompted by a response elsewhere which pointed to this cartoon - http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013...-josh-243.html
I pose the question "Why do we need jobs anyway?" What's the big deal?

Clearly at one level there are "things to be done", and people have to find ways to get them done - either by employing others, or by using machinery or other methods. Some things are rather fundamental, such as growing crops for food, and establishing a distribution chain, but are many jobs really necessary? There is a lot of activity in our society - and we seem to get worried if it is disrupted - as we can note by yesterday's disruption to train services and roads. However, I would suggest that a lot of what we do collectively is totally unnecessary, and the real reasons we do whatever it are because we want to feel involved, we don't want to be isolated socially, and it keeps us busy and off the streets.

At a personal level of course individuals need to survive, and in our society this usually means having money, which can be obtained by various means, but one of the most socially acceptable is to have a job.

The cartoon suggests that politicians don't really care about green energy, but are more concerned with providing jobs, whether they are really needed or not, which is where I came in.

[teamsaint]

"They" need us to have jobs, to pay tithes and stop us thinking too much.

cerebral activity (and artistic ) is professionalised ,marginalised, monetised.

Carpenters are useful to have around though.

[Richard Barrett]

This is an enlghtening perspective on the phenomenon I think.

[eighthobstruction]

Why don't we go the whole hog and ask the final question in the sequence...."Why do we need to continue to live"....

[Dave2002]

Why don't we go the whole hog and ask the final question in the sequence...."Why do we need to continue to live"....

You can join up here - http://www.vhemt.org/

[french frank]

The old SDP floated the idea of a 'Citizen's Wage' - the state would pay people not to take a job. The gamble was that there were enough people who would prefer to live simply and frugally on a small allowance doing things with their lives that they would find more fulfilling/rewarding; and that there were, conversely, enough people who would hate that, who wanted more money, and would prefer to work as the price they had to pay for a comfortable life. I think the idea was that this would balance out in such a way that there would be appropriate jobs for all those who wished to work. Utopian? But an interesting philosophy.

[Dave2002]

The old SDP floated the idea of a 'Citizen's Wage' - the state would pay people not to take a job. The gamble was that there were enough people who would prefer to live simply and frugally on a small allowance doing things with their lives that they would find more fulfilling/rewarding; and that there were, conversely, enough people who would hate that, who wanted more money, and would prefer to work as the price they had to pay for a comfortable life. I think the idea was that this would balance out in such a way that there would be appropriate jobs for all those who wished to work. Utopian? But an interesting philosophy.

What about retirement?

It can be argued that many retired people are in fact being paid (how?) for not doing any job.

Some enjoy being retired, others, for various reasons, perhaps less so.

I believe that there are strong social reasons for people wanting jobs, and it's not really in many cases about being productive and "getting things done". There's also peer pressure in the age range 20-60 - people without jobs are perhaps demonised, and they may also be treated as 2nd or 3rd class citizens.

[eighthobstruction]

You can join up here - http://www.vhemt.org/

Thankyou....it is a question, not a projected life style choice....

[french frank]

What about retirement?

It can be argued that many retired people are in fact being paid (how?) for not doing any job.

I think if it were to be a 'policy' it would be in times when jobs were short. The retired wouldn't be in the jobs market anyway.

I agree that there are are social aspects too: like status and peer pressure. But some people feel them more strongly than others.

[Dave2002]

The retired wouldn't be in the jobs market anyway.

That's perhaps more to do with social attitudes in the UK than other reasons. Obviously some older people are less strong, less quick and perhaps not as good or slick at doing some things than younger ones, and some have a lot to do, either being ill themselves, or looking after others with poor health. Nowadays many are actually having a rather hard "job" looking after grandchildren, while their own children try to make a living, or looking after their parents and maybe even grandparents.

[eighthobstruction]

I think if it were to be a 'policy' it would be in times when jobs were short. The retired wouldn't be in the jobs market anyway.

I agree that there are are social aspects too: like status and peer pressure. But some people feel them more strongly than others.

And of course different options, aspirations reference materialism ,consumerism, tradition, challenge....

[french frank]

That's perhaps more to do with social attitudes in the UK than other reasons.

Not unconnected with the fact that at a certain age they can receive can their state benefit anyway. When jobs are short should they ever feel a conscience about staying in their jobs after the age of 65 (sometimes well after), rather than making way for those who want to work? This is a *general* consideration/choice, not an individual one - where Mr X is still supporting unemployed children and grandchildren?

The Citizen's Wage was only ever a concept, to be based on personal choice (and circumstances, of course).

[Dave2002]

Not unconnected with the fact that at a certain age they can receive can their state benefit anyway. When jobs are short should they ever feel a conscience about staying in their jobs after the age of 65 (sometimes well after), rather than making way for those who want to work? This is a *general* consideration/choice, not an individual one - where Mr X is still supporting unemployed children and grandchildren?

The Citizen's Wage was only ever a concept, to be based on personal choice (and circumstances, of course).

In the USA I knew one person who went back to work aged around 68-70 - he was I think 72 when we knew him - because his son in his 30s-40s had a serious life threatening medical condition, and had run out of medical insurance. I think he and his wife also sold a house in order to raise funds for the same reason. Some of us have different values in the UK, and the "systems" are different. Fortunately the septuagenarian was a skilled worker in a medical field, and could command a high salary even at his age. We admired him for that, and he and his wife had moved states too, though I don't think his behaviour and attitudes were particularly unusual in the States.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thankyou....it is a question, not a projected life style choice....

And only a question which "we" seem pre-formed to ask, since only we ask the whys and have to come up with the becauses. It isn't apparently encrypted into the universal consciousness that what we call needs and reasons have to be confronted in order to belong, survive and give way to the hereafter, and that is because the wisdom that led to us has been forfeited to another wisdom, conceptually-encrypted, that seeks in the abstracted and there has to find answers.

[Serial_Apologist]

This is an enlghtening perspective on the phenomenon I think.

That's terrific - takes me back to the 60s when we asked such questions. It ends at the point where an alternative way of running things non-wastefully is implied, but the important thing is to start re-asking these questions or forever retread the same over-compacted ground