ABSTRACT
“Gypsy work” looked like “social parasitism” to the new, puritanical rulers and would have to be halted. Even though the Rom agreed that working had transformed their lives, this in itself did not mean that Communist policy had succeeded. Work would no longer be based on a private contract between employer and employee but would instead become a service that constituted one as a full member of society and provided social status. To a large extent, the rate of work was set by the machines. Workers were quite aware that the rate one was paid reflected “how close one sat to the fire,” that is, how much one could persuade the foreman of one’s indispensability to his production team. The Gypsy rejection of the idea of work as an end in itself had more important consequences, too. In all these ways, then, the experience of work provided little reason for the Gypsies to adopt the socialist ideology of labor.
