Work, Consumerism and the New Poor

First understand two concepts: work ethics and consumer aesthetics.

professional ethics

Work ethics is essentially a discipline, with two explicit premises and two implicit assumptions.

Discipline: Even if you can't see any benefits, you should continue to work. Work is justice, not work is evil.

The first premise: in order to maintain life and get happiness, everyone must do something valuable that others agree with and get a reward.

The second premise: it is shameful to be content with the status quo and not make progress. It is unwise and undesirable to stop trying because you are satisfied. Rest is not decent unless you save your strength to finish more work.

The first assumption: most people have the ability to work, and they can earn corresponding rewards through labor to maintain their lives.

The second hypothesis: Only recognized and valuable jobs-those that can be paid back and used for trading-will be recognized by work ethics.

Let me introduce the background of the times first. Although the above description seems to be the epitome of China's "996" tragedy, in fact, work ethics entered the vision of Europeans as early as the early industrial revolution, and then it ran through the tortuous process of modernization in various forms, becoming the loud slogan of politicians, philosophers and missionaries, helping them to unplug the common bad habits of their time: most people were unwilling to be employed by factories and refused to obey the pace of life set by foremen, clocks and machines. This bad habit is regarded as the biggest obstacle to building a better new world. Work ethics is born to fight against these dangerous and morbid bad habits, aiming at uprooting them and completely destroying them.

The true story is contrary to the complaints of early entrepreneurs about the inefficiency and incompetence of workers. The birth of the factory system actually disintegrated the intimate relationship between craftsmen and occupations. Ironically, this intimate relationship is exactly what work ethics pursues. This reform is intended to reshape the work attitude and artistic expression of dedication and selfless dedication within the factory and under the discipline controlled by the factory owner. However, these pursuits are exactly what craftsmen in the past naturally showed when they controlled their own works.

In the past, workers obtained the meaning and motivation of work by setting their own goals and controlling their own processes. Now, they can only passively complete the tasks set and controlled by others, and work has lost its meaning to them. Work ethics is essentially a abandonment of freedom.

In 1806, a knitwear businessman vividly described the true meaning of this moral preaching for his target group with the cloak of work ethics:

"I find that people are extremely disgusted with any regular arrangement. They are very dissatisfied because they can't go in and out as they like, they can't enjoy their holidays as they like, they can't do things in the customary way, and they will be monitored by other workers after work, which makes them hate the whole system and I have to break it. "

However, in the vast world covered by work ethics, there are also some advantages and disadvantages. In addition to solving the labor problem needed for the rapid development of industrialization, it is also necessary to deal with the most troublesome problem that post-traditional society has to face-the need to provide necessities for those who cannot adapt to environmental changes for various reasons and make a living under the new system-not everyone can be arranged on the factory assembly line, and there are always some old, weak, sick and disabled people who cannot adapt to the strict requirements of industrial employment.

Thus, the poor were born. ?

Consumer aesthetics

The industrialized modern society mentioned above can be called "producer society". Now, we are a "consumer society". The transformation from a production society to a consumer society has brought about many far-reaching changes, the most important of which is the mode that people are trained and trained to meet the requirements of social identity, that is, the mode that people integrate into social order and gain their own position. The circular prison (factory) that once played an important role has gradually lost its function, large-scale industrial employment has shrunk rapidly, and small-scale and free professional groups have replaced the mass production of the whole people, and most people can no longer be affected by it. Technological progress has ensured the growth of factory strength under the premise of shrinking employment, and factory employees are getting less and less. Simplification has become a new code of conduct.

The training mode of circular prison is not suitable for training consumers. That system is good at training people to get used to routine monotonous behavior, and consolidating the effect by limiting the choice or completely canceling the choice. However, constantly making choices is precisely the virtue or role requirement of consumers.

In the consumer society, economic growth depends not so much on "national productivity" (that is, healthy and abundant labor force, considerable fiscal revenue, enterprising capital owners and operators) as on the enthusiasm and vitality of consumers. Consumption replaces work and links personal motivation, social integration and system reproduction.

Producers can only accomplish their mission collectively, and production is a collective undertaking, which requires division of labor, cooperation and coordination. Consumers are just the opposite. Consumption is a personal, independent and even lonely activity. This kind of activity is realized by constantly satisfying and awakening, and slowly releasing and stimulating a certain desire, which is usually a private and unspeakable feeling. Freedom of choice sets the class of consumer society, sets the framework for members of consumer society to describe their ideal life, and defines the direction of self-improvement and the picture of a better life for them. The greater a person's freedom of choice, the more choices he can freely exercise, the higher his position in the social class, the more he can gain social respect and self-esteem, and the closer he is to the ideal of a better life. Of course, wealth and income are also important, otherwise consumption choices will be restricted or completely deprived.

Just like freedom of choice and freedom of action, the aesthetic value of works is called a powerful hierarchical factor in the consumer society. The trick is no longer to minimize working hours to make more leisure space, but on the contrary, completely erase the boundaries between work and interest, hobbies and entertainment, and turn work itself into the most enjoyable entertainment. Recreational work is an enviable privilege, and those lucky enough to get this privilege devote themselves to the intense sensory enjoyment and exciting experience provided by work. Workaholics have no fixed working hours and concentrate on the challenges of work 7*24 hours a day. These people are not slaves in the past, but lucky and successful elites now.

In today's society, members are mainly regarded as consumers, and then some members are regarded as producers. If you want to conform to social norms and become a qualified member of society, you need to respond to the temptation of the consumer market in time and effectively, make contributions to "clearing supply", and actively participate in "consumer-led recovery" when there are problems in the economic environment. Without decent income, credit cards and bright prospects, the poor can't meet the requirements. Today, the social reward that the poor break is the norm of consumption power rather than the norm of employment. They were first defined as defective consumers because they failed to fulfill their most important social responsibility-actively and effectively buying goods and services provided by the market. In the balance sheet of consumer society, the poor are obviously in debt, and they can't be included in the present goods and future assets in any case.

The way out for the poor under work ethics and consumption aesthetics

Overcrowding in the labor market is blamed on the bankruptcy and decline of small farmers caused by agricultural technological progress. Decades ago, the disintegration of handicraft industry caused by industrial machines made many people miserable. Decades later, it was the turn of mines and factories to save the victims displaced by the progress of agricultural technology. In all these examples, the way to reduce the living pressure of workers and improve their living standards is to transfer the population and reduce local employment competition. Modernity is the era of great migration from the beginning. Countless people have crossed the ocean, leaving their homeland where they can't live and going to a foreign country full of yearning. With the passage of time, the hot spots of modernization are constantly changing, and the hot spots are also constantly changing, but generally speaking, immigrants flow from the more developed areas to the less developed areas in the world.

Immigration is determined by many factors. On the one hand, the surplus population can't find paid jobs in their own countries, or can't maintain their existing or inherited social status, which usually appears in areas dominated by advanced modernization process. On the other hand, due to rapid modernization, overpopulated countries are superior to those countries that have not yet started the modernization process in technology and military. This sense of superiority is enough for them to regard these backward areas as or as "no man's land". These areas were turned into no man's land either in the process of suppressing the resistance of the aborigines or in the process of the colonists waving their arms because they were too troublesome to appease.

Today, the earth is complete. However, this is not a judgment of physics or human geography. As far as the extension of physical space and human habitat is concerned, the earth is far from reaching its limit. This is a sociological and political judgment, which refers to the lifestyle of the residents on the earth. It marks the disappearance of "no man's land", which can be defined or regarded as the disappearance of uninhabited land without sovereign jurisdiction, and can be regarded as the disappearance of colonial land. Under the influence of the continuous modernization process, such land has played an important role in human garbage dump for most of modern history, and now it basically does not exist.

In short, this saturation of the earth essentially means that the treatment of surplus population is facing a serious crisis. While the surplus population is increasing and rising to a new height, there is a sharp shortage of garbage dump recycling tools on the earth.

To make matters worse, the surplus population has added a powerful new source. Globalization has become the third production line of surplus population (the other two are order construction and economic and technological progress), and it is also the most productive and uncontrolled production line. It puts a new coat on this problem and gives new meaning and unprecedented urgency to this old problem.

With the spread of modern lifestyles around the world, a large number of people have lost their previous lifestyles and their means of survival in the biological, social and cultural sense. The resulting population pressure, that is, the colonial pressure we used to be familiar with, has lost its ready-made way-it can neither be "recycled" nor "safely disposed of". The alarm of global overpopulation (insufficient jobs and insufficient welfare protection) has sounded. As a result, "immigrants" and "refugees" have become the new core of the contemporary political agenda, and vague and ubiquitous "security concerns" are playing an increasingly important role in the emerging global strategy and power struggle.

The direct or indirect source of the suffering of distant people may be what we do here and now, but because of the distance, it will not cause moral perfection or strong will to act, just like the suffering we see around us. The gap between the rich and the poor they hire or fire will continue to widen. The total income of the top 20% in the world is 1 14 times that of the bottom 20%. If the two are far apart, then the relationship between the rich and the poor is likely to be ignored. Our interdependence is global, while our moral obligation is always confined to local areas.

But if we don't pay attention to it, the sufferings of other regions will rebound back to China sooner or later, and rebound to the rich who expect to protect themselves with dense walls.

So, is there a solution?

Klaus Orphee recently put forward a logical and important proposition, aiming at completely solving the current crisis. The core of this solution is the idea of "decoupling individual income right from actual income ability". To achieve this, we must change a perspective, that is, from paying attention to wage labor determined by work ethics to paying attention to basic rights and basic guarantees determined by human status and dignity. This idea can be effectively promoted by using taxes to provide funds for social security, abolishing the principles of economic review and work willingness evaluation, gradually replacing the principle of equivalence with the principle of demand, and taking individuals as the basis of rights. By reforming the social security system according to these principles, it is possible to extend the values of a free, equal and just welfare state to the current development stage of the capitalist welfare state (at this stage, the goal of full employment has long since withdrawn from the ideal and realistic vision).

The idea of decoupling income right from income ability is not conservative. According to our inference, it only needs very big changes to achieve it. We will have to give up some sacred and inviolable assumptions in the current mode of life (they are even more sacred due to lack of reflection). For example, efficiency is a good thing, no matter what its purpose is or whether it will bring painful side effects. For another example, whatever "economic growth" is, statistically speaking, "today is more than yesterday, and tomorrow is more than today" is good, regardless of the damage caused to the human living environment and nature (the living environment enjoyed by human beings) in the process of its growth.

The interesting and insightful aspects of this book go far beyond these. Today, I will sort out the dry goods along the thread of this book. The rest will be added slowly later.