The protestant work ethic is based on the Calvinist notion that hard work is a necessary component of a persons calling and worldly success and is seen as a visible sign of a person’s salvation. Everybody has to work, it is an inescapable human action that we all engage in, however to attach a sense of morality and spiritual dimension to modern day work with its built in economic and environmental exploitation built into it is something that needs to be discussed  little.

Work ethic as a form of social control

There seems to be a contradiction that exists between religious people telling us all to work hard when the experience of work for many on the planet is degrading and cumbersome. There is an argument that Protestants reconceptualised worldly work as a duty which benefits both society and the individual as a whole, but how does ethic square up to people who work in the Arms industry who’s products kill and maim? And how does it also square up to people working in the fossil fuel industries whose products are contributing to the destruction of habitats and climate change. The work ethic is leaned upon by modern capitalism, in its insatiable lust for profits people are being asked to work more and more hours of their lives, for less and less pay, along with debt, this work ethic is the perfect recipe to keep people busy and locked into the capitalist system. Similarly Calvinism positively encourages the purposeful investment of money, by presenting luxury and self-indulgence as vices and thrift as a virtue. It even subtly contrives to suggest that wealth may itself be a sign of virtue, Calvinism added greatly to the development of modern capitalism.

Reclaiming work

I have touched upon this area before in relation to the work of Chris Carlsson author of Nowtopia who describes how activists in the US are seeking out new ways of redefining what they know as work.Is it possible to work a few days a week and have a decent life, I have been doing this for a few years no, its kind of like operating a mixed economy that you control yourself, mine has been two or three days a week of working for a set wage and also selling a few bits and pieces online. The reason why I live like this is that I have a lot of interests that I actively pursue such as gardening, music making, writing and generally making things such as wines, beers and a little woodworking. I am perhaps being both naive and bold when I state that I don’t have time to get a proper job, nor the interest, I have done some appalling work in my time why I have returned home covered in crap and dust to the point where I have had to take two showers to get myself clean, I have also injured myself at work resulting in a cracked pelvis, and worked in cold storage doing grueling 12 hours shifts enough is enough, no more crap work for me, and no more working for the man. From a personal perspective my own work ethic is disengaged from the protestant work ethic that has influenced Britain, the US and parts of Europe.

Future Permaculture work Ethic?

My own work ethics are based around the permaculture ethics of Earth care, people care and fair shares, they way this translates into a kind of practice is that I will not carry out any work that contributes towards ecological degradation, nor will carry out work that doesn’t put people and the needs at the heart of it, and finally I would not work in a situation were resources were not equally transferred, which I apply in my tutoring where I try to remove myself as my position of tutor and engage all of us in shared learning experience. Work in the future cannot be as resource intensive as it has been during the last few hundred years of industrial evolution, we simply don’t wont have the fuel or the resources to power a future like we have done in the past. We believe that people shouldn’t have to be locked into working 40 hours a week to pay for the basic essentials of life, but it has been designed this way as a form of social control, so that we have just enough to get by ensuring that we return back to work bright and early on a Monday Morning. Even though we obviously value work as a very positive human attribute, we need to work differently if we are to have something of a life other than the usual Birth-Work-death scenario.

Steve