Work: A History of How We Spend Our Time
“It is only by working – by making, producing and trading scarce resources – that we can ever begin to bridge the gap between our apparently infinite desires and our limited means.”
I’ve just finished reading Work, by anthropologist James Suzman, which charts the history of work, and how it became a central organising principle of our society.
James Suzman. Photograph Chris Fraser Smith/The Observer
Suzman explores how greed and inequality became institutionalized alongside the growth of cities, making us ever more aware of what we lacked and setting us off on the trajectory of near constant striving that we experience today. In 1965, CEOs in the top 350 US firms took home roughly 20 time the pay of the average worker. By 1980 that had risen to 30 times, but by 2015, it had risen to just shy of 300 times - a 937% growth in CEO renumeration alongside a meagre 11% for the workers. In that time, the term ‘workaholism’ has become a standard term in our vocabulary, driven by what he calls “an ever-escalating demand for growth and productivity.”
He looks at our history of being ‘a stubborn species’, resistant to change even when the status quo is damaging us, making us increasingly anxious and miserable, but ends on a positive note - particularly when reading mid-pandemic - reflecting that when change is forced upon us we are astonishingly versatile. Perhaps post-covid, where we have been forced to examine our relationship with work under a pretty harsh light, we might therefore be able to build a more positive relationship with work.
I’ll be honest, there is a lot of real estate given over to the pre-agricultural world, and Suzman’s time spent living with and studying the Ju/’hoansi “Bushmen” which, while fascinating, left me feeling frustrated that the last 200 years which is where my interest lies, was covered so much more briefly, but overall this is such a fascinating study into how and why work has become the primary identifying factor for so many of us.
I also learned that cornflakes were developed to curb sexual desire as part of an anti-masturbation crusade by John Harvey Kellogg in 1895 which was an unexpected bit of trivia that I have filed away for further use.
You can read an interview with James Suzman from the Guardian here, and follow him on twitter at https://twitter.com/anthrowittering.
About the author
Penelope Jones is the founder of My So-Called Career. She is a career coach and consultant who specialises in helping women in their 30s beat burnout and develop healthy, sustainable relationships with work.
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