In search of lost time from work

In recent years we have seen a resurgence in debate about reducing weekly working hours. The 32-hour-a-week project comes at a time when the retirement age is being raised across Europe, with a 70-year taboo now being lifted. However, the link between weekly working time and working life is never established. This statement, however, is at the heart of the issues related to the reduction of working hours from the end of the 19th century.^e century

Before commenting on these matters at 21^e century, which will be proposed in another column, it is important to understand how our relationship with working time has been built over the last thousand years. once, and from stronger working time, above all social constructs. Therefore, starting a critical reflection on the workplace requires time to observe this construction before considering its construction.

Work, time wasted

In the 1960s, anthropologists Richard Lee and Irven DeVore showed that hunter-gatherer societies, far from being crushed by the quest for food, lived in abundance and above all ” work” less than sedentary societies that have developed since the Neolithic[1]. To put it briefly, sedentarization has forced mankind to work. James Suzman extends this analysis to recent times by proposing the bold hypothesis that the more energy resources a species has the more it works.[2]. In short, work would waste energy and time. With Neolithic agriculture, our relationship with time changed dramatically, with work now controlling the rhythms of people’s lives.

By following a fast and deceptively linear schedule, sedentarization allowed a political elite to emerge in the service where the majority of group members submit to work performed for others. , removing the workers politically. However, and for a long time to come, the work has no intrinsic value. On the other hand, work is a source of pollution and addiction. It doesn’t make you free, it limits you. For example, the institution of slavery in Antiquity allowed an elite male citizen to avoid work activities[3]man is only free if he does not work.

Gradually, and especially through Christianity, work was adorned with special attributes. It became a means to an end, that of avoiding vices or acedia, the depression of the monks. The rule of St. Benedict sets from the 6th^e century work as an essential part of monastic life. Even more, reputation reflects the manual actions of monks, especially those of copyist monks. However, work and the time spent have no value in themselves, unlike idleness.

“Time is money” Benjamin Franklin

from 12^e century showing the time of traders. Working bells and mechanical clocks appeared in the most active cities. Time that belongs to God alone is coveted by human societies. Humanism of the 15th century^e century sees the question for a time under the control of instruments that are ever more precise. This mastery is part of a transformation of the relationship with time in its moral and religious dimensions. The impact of the Protestant Reformation contributed to a new ethic of secular time, time that should no longer be wasted. The maxim of Benjamin Franklin mentioned above is indicative of this new ethic which forbids the idle, the lazy, the unemployed. However, we often forget that it is not the establishment of work as high ethics; on the contraryit aims at a society where material activities are performed quickly. Freed from work and material concerns, human beings would regain free time. Finally, he joins Aristotle who thought of a city where work would be done by automatons, proposing a society without master or slave, without workers.

The ethics of time spent on work is now central and laziness would create discord, immorality and social crimes. In addition to its moral value, work acquires a financial value making its execution one of the foundations of the wealth of nations. The control of working time overlaps with other social rhythms, including educational rhythms. Therefore, in debates about the prohibition of child labor, idleness is seen as a possible reason for crime and crime. In 1889, the liberal vice-president Eudore Pirmez, who strongly supported child labour, compared them to vegetables that grow better in the darkness of the mine than in the light of day .[4]. Doubt affects time not spent on work.

Hoping for time off from work

After more than a century of business, the work ethic has done its job, the instability of workers seems to be a threat to the social order. The folk tale of Alasdair Beannaichte says nothing else: he who does not work introduces an imbalance in a society that is nevertheless dysfunctional. The scope of the work is so great that it defines being as a whole. Tell me your job, I’ll tell you who you are. It basically structures our social relationships and desires from a very young age. Studies of long-term unemployment have often shown how devastating these long periods of professional “inactivity” are. However, it would be possible to reverse the view. In the end these studies do not show that unemployment is a factor of social isolation, but above all they show that work affects other social relationships . In a sense, they confirm the right philosophers of Antiquity who saw work as one of the main obstacles to citizenship.

However, productivity gains over the last two centuries have allowed for a reduction in working time over a lifetime. But they did not allow us to think of a society that was freed from this period of work, to escape from the morality of these slaves, says Bertrand Russell. There are violations. Since the 1920s, the dramatic reduction in working hours has been seen as a goal that can be achieved within a generation or two, with Keynes predicting that we would only work 15 hours a week in 2030 Afraid of this reduction in working hours, we are scared. moving away from civilization without work[5].

Indeed, robotics and artificial intelligence could provide tools for thinking about a different relationship to time and work. Talking about a general reduction in working hours at a time when so many sectors are experiencing labor shortages is rather inappropriate. Freeing part of our time from the influence of work does not mean rejecting the positive dimensions of work but allows us to rethink our life outside of work. -work. Instead of universal income corresponding to the disappearance of work, the creation of a universal time resource could heal our work-damaged social relations.

Nicolas VerschuerenProfessor of contemporary history, Free University of Brussels, for Academic Letter (https://www.cartaacademic.org/).

The views expressed in the Carta Academica columns are those of the author(s); they do not guarantee the members of the Carta Academica, who, among themselves, do not necessarily think the same. By supporting the publication of these columns, Carta Academica believes that they contribute to useful social debates. So Chronicles could be published in response to others. Carta Academica essentially ensures that the published statements are based on a scientific approach.

[1] This definition is clearly not clear and has been subject to some criticism. KAPLAN, David. “The Darker Side of the “Original Rich Society”.” Journal of Anthropological Research2000, vol. 56, no 3, p. 301-324.

[2] James Suzman, Work, History of how we spend our timeLondon, Bloomsbury, 2020.

[3] Hannah Arendt, The condition of man todayParis, Calman Levy, 1961.

[4] Parliamentary Annals, House of Representatives, debates August 5, 1889, p.1824.

[5] André Gorz, “Building a Civilization of Leisure”, The diplomatic world1993.