ABSTRACT
Given its checkered origin, can we expect a persistence of the work fetish? Although it is difficult to predict the staying power of capitalist-infused notions, recent trends suggest that the idolatry of work is losing its magnetism. Indeed, diverse viewpoints antithetical to the supremacy of the market mentality have existed for nearly as long as capitalism itself. Although these heretical traditions have yet to alter the foundations of capitalist society, they have played an important role in protecting many aspects of society from the corrosive aspects of the free market. The history of capitalism is in large part a history of the continual curtailment of free market forces: the abolition of slavery; anti-trust legislation; prohibition of the sale and exploitation of women and children; Sunday as a rest day, the Poor Laws, the 10-and 8hour working day; the maintenance of minimum wages; legal standards for quality, safety, and pollution; social, health and retirement insurance; and so on. Many of the labor market protections erected during the 1930s, grew out of the theoretical and applied works of radical economists, who have long been mindful of the limits of the market system. Indeed, heterodox analysis and interpretation of the capitalist system affords a useful understanding of the social implications of administering society on the basis of economic gain and provides inspiration for alternative social planning. This chapter employs a heterodox perspective to investigate the emergence,
efficacy, and implications of the market system with an eye toward informing an alternative distribution of social labor conducive to greater participation and well-being. It features some of the intellectual highlights in the debate surrounding the market mechanism and its impact on paid work. It offers a radical critique of the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of scarcity and
insatiability that serve as the foundation of economic gain. The question of whether human nature or social organization compels modern man into acquisitive behavior is central to the issue of employment policy if that policy is concerned with maximizing human satisfaction. By extension, the critique of economic gain as a social lodestar calls into question the idolatry of paid work that is ubiquitous in the economic policy of market societies. Evidence from new psychological research on the failure of economic growth to improve life satisfaction (the abundance paradox) is offered to further challenge the wisdom of the growth consensus that fuels a preoccupation with paid work. Finally, the future of paid work in a post-industrial and post-service economy characterized by fewer employment opportunities is featured in this chapter as many observers contend that societies will be forced to drastically recast the relationship between remunerative work and social participation in the near future. In such an environment the erosion of the work fetish may be a foregone conclusion, which will test the sophistication and adeptness of social policy to adjust to technological change in a manner that ensures individuals the “tickets to participation (Tool 1998).”
