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Work ethic is a belief that work and
diligence
Diligence—carefulness and persistent effort or work—is one of the seven heavenly virtues. It is indicative of a work ethic, the belief that work is good in itself.
In students
Bernard et al. suggest that diligence in students is define ...
have a moral benefit and an inherent ability,
virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...
or
value
Value or values may refer to:
Ethics and social
* Value (ethics) wherein said concept may be construed as treating actions themselves as abstract objects, associating value to them
** Values (Western philosophy) expands the notion of value beyo ...
to strengthen character and individual abilities. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination or desire to work hard. Social ingrainment of this value is considered to enhance
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
through hard work that is respective to an individual's field of work.
Factors of a good work ethic
Proponents of a strong work ethic consider it to be important for achieving goals, that it gives strength to their orientation and the right mindset. A work ethic is a set of moral principles a person uses in their job. People who possess a strong work ethic embody certain principles that guide their work behaviour; to develop and process a strong work ethic will inevitably result in the production of high-quality work which is consistent. The output
motivates them to stay on track.
A good work ethic fuels an individual's needs and goals, it is related to the initiative by a person for the objectives. It is considered as a source of self respect, satisfaction, and fulfillment.
Factors are:
#Goal-oriented actions: It is not about making plans or the next logical steps; it's about getting things done so that the work invested wouldn't be counter-productive.
#Prioritized focus: Focusing on qualitative activities that a person is responsible for and in areas where they can make a difference or a high impact based on objectives.
#Being available and reliable: Spending time on the work and building oneself up for the task.
#Conscientiousness: A desire to do a task well, being vigilant and organized.
#Creating a rewarding routine/system: Engaging in tasks that provide strength and energy which can be transferred to your ultimate goals, creating a habit and a habitat for success.
#Embracing positivism: Shape a problem with the statement "good, (action) (problem)", e.g. "I'm tired and it is time for a workout" leads to "Good. Workout tired".
Work ethic also has been measured as a multidimensional variable composed of seven factors, including self-reliance, ethical behavior, valuing leisure time, hard work, giving importance/centrality of work, productive use of time, and delay of gratification.
A negative work ethic is a behavior of a single individual or a group that has led to a systematic lack of productivity, reliability, accountability and a growing sphere of unprofessional/unhealthy relationships (e.g., power politics, lack of social skills, etc.).
Assumptions
Assumptions about good work ethic, drawn out in the philosophical writings of Goldman, are:
#The path to what you want is to take action.
#The success of action plans depend upon how congruent one's worldview (
Weltanschauung
A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural ...
) is with the society's.
#Many problems faced are only a temporary breakdown of self management.
#Setting time limits for achieving goals helps to overcome the edge of discomforts that time can have on subjective needs.
#A positive problem-solving or goal attainment experience improves one's ability to cope with the next difficulty.
#Hardships in life is a normality, they become a problem when they are the same over and over.
#A person is what s/he does, and feelings flow from behavior.
#Feelings can be viewed as beliefs about one's wants.
#How hard you work will determine how far you go.
Capitalist view
The Puritans who settled in New England around the 17th and 18th centuries believed that working hard at one's call was a sign that one would be saved. They were followed by Calvinists who believed in
predestination
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby G ...
and had faith that they were chosen or had the call from God to fulfill their duty in the world. To both of them, accumulation of wealth was an indicator of working to their fullest capacity as a response to the call and assurance for earning
salvation
Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...
. These ideologies are the foundations of the Protestant work ethic.
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
quotes the ethical writings of
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
:
Remember, that ''time is money''. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon ''that'' the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides.
Remember, that money is the ''prolific, generating nature''. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.
Weber notes that this is not a philosophy of mere greed, but a statement laden with moral language. It is in effect an ethical response to the natural desire for
hedonic
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...
reward, a statement of the value of delayed gratification to achieve self-actualization. Franklin claims that Bible readings revealed to him the usefulness of virtue. Indeed, this reflects the then-Christian search for the ethic for living and the struggle to make a living.
Steven Malanga refers to "what was once understood as the work ethic—not just hard work but also a set of accompanying
virtue
Virtue ( la, virtus) is moral excellence. A virtue is a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good and thus is valued as a foundation of principle and good moral being. In other words, it is a behavior that shows high moral standards ...
s, whose crucial role in the development and sustaining of
free markets
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
too few now recall".
Experimental studies have shown that people with fair work ethic are able to tolerate tedious jobs with equitable monetary rewards and benefits, are highly critical, and have a tendency for
workaholism
A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health.
There is no generally accepted ...
and a negative relation with leisure activity concepts. They valued meritocracy and egalitarianism.
In the 1940s, work ethic was considered very important and nonconformist ideals were dealt autocratically. It is recorded that, at the Ford Company, a worker named John Gallo was dismissed for, "...laughing with the other fellows, and slowing down the assembly line...".
Anti-capitalist view
Countercultural
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
groups and communities have challenged these values in recent decades.
The French Leftist philosopher
André Gorz
André Gorz (né Gerhart Hirsch ; 9 February 1923 – 22 September 2007), more commonly known by his pen names Gérard Horst and Michel Bosquet , was an Austrian and French social philosopher and journalist and critic of work. He co-founded ...
(1923–2007) wrote:
"The work ethic has become obsolete. It is no longer true that producing more means working more, or that producing more will lead to a better way of life.
The connection between more and better has been broken; our needs for many products and services are already more than adequately met, and many of our as-yet-unsatisfied needs will be met not by producing more, but by producing differently, producing other things, or even producing less. This is especially true as regards our needs for air, water, space, silence, beauty, time and human contact.
Neither is it true any longer that the more each individual works, the better off everyone will be. In a post-industrial society
In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.
The term was originated by Alain Touraine and is closely related to si ...
, not everyone ''has'' to work hard in order to survive, though may be forced to anyway due to the economic system. The present crisis has stimulated technological change of an unprecedented scale and speed: ' the micro-chip revolution'. The object and indeed the effect of this revolution has been to make rapidly increasing savings in labour, in the industrial, administrative and service sectors. Increasing production is secured in these sectors by decreasing amounts of labour. As a result, the social process of production no longer needs everyone to work in it on a full-time basis. The work ethic ceases to be viable in such a situation and workbased society is thrown into crisis."
Anti-capitalists believe that the concept of "hard work" is meant by capitalists to delude the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
into becoming loyal servants to the
elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
, and that working hard, in itself, is not automatically an honorable thing, but only a means to creating more wealth for the people at the top of the
economic pyramid. In the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, the regime portrayed work ethic as an ideal to strive for.
The recession is a contributing factor that holds back work ethic, because the generation that inherits economic decline lives in an economy that isn't ready to receive them. Without work there to do, the ethic that is attached to it fails to generate distinctive value. The negative work ethic and power structures that don't value or credit work done or unethically attribute work done as a service or with higher moral ideals have dissolved the ethic presented in the society and turned the focus onto self-centered perks and individualism. Further, urbanization and an emphasis on large-scale businesses has led to eliminating avenues for learning vital concepts about work. Millennials in a research identified what made them unique was consumerist trends like technology use, music/pop culture, liberal/tolerant beliefs, clothes, and individualistic ones like greater intelligence than work, they were not able to distinguish the concept in the traditional understandings of work ethic.
See also
*
Armchair warrior
Armchair warrior is a pejorative term that alludes to verbally fighting from the comfort of one's living room. It describes activities such as speaking out in support of a war, battle, or fight by someone with little or no military experience.
...
*
Business ethics
Business ethics (also known as Corporate Ethics) is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics, that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business co ...
*
Contrafreeloading
Contrafreeloading is an observed behavior in which an organism, when offered a choice between provided food or food that requires effort to obtain, prefers the food that requires effort.
The term was coined in 1963 by animal psychologist Glen ...
*
Happiness economics
The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the theoretical, qualitative and quantitative study of happiness and quality of life, including positive and negative affects, well-being, life satisfaction and related concepts – typically t ...
*
Humanistic economics
Humanistic economics is a distinct pattern of economic thought with old historical roots that have been more recently invigorated by E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (1973). Proponents argue for "persons-firs ...
*
Laziness
Laziness (also known as indolence) is disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or to
exert oneself. It is often used as a pejorative; terms for a person seen to be lazy
include "couch potato", "slacker", and "b ...
*
Locus of control
Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces (beyond their influence), have control over the outcome of events in their lives. The concept was developed by Julian Rotter, Julian B. Rotter in 1954 ...
*
Maurice Blanchot
Maurice Blanchot (; ; 22 September 1907 – 20 February 2003) was a French writer, philosopher and literary theorist. His work, exploring a philosophy of death alongside poetic theories of meaning and sense, bore significant influence on post- ...
(''Désoeuvrement'' ''Inoperativity'')
*''
Ora et labora
The phrase pray and work (or 'pray and labor'; Latin: ''ora et labora'') refers to the Catholic monastic practice of working and praying, generally associated with its use in the Rule of Saint Benedict.
History
"Ora et labora" (pray and work ...
''
*
Protestant work ethic
The Protestant work ethic, also known as the Calvinist work ethic or the Puritan work ethic, is a work ethic concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes that diligence, discipline, and frugality are a result of a person ...
*
Prussian virtues
Prussian virtues (German: ) are the virtues associated with the historical Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918). They were derived from Prussia's militarism and the ethical code of the Prussian Army as well as from bourgeois values such as honesty an ...
*
Refusal of work
Refusal of work is behavior in which a person refuses regular employment."Refusal of work means quite simply: I don't want to go to work because I prefer to sleep. But this laziness is the source of intelligence, of technology, of progress. Auton ...
*
Workaholism
A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health.
There is no generally accepted ...
*
Workerism
Workerism is a political theory that emphasizes the importance of or glorifies the working class. Workerism, or , was of particular significance in Italian left-wing politics.
As revolutionary praxis
Workerism (or ) is a political analysis, w ...
*
Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich
References
Citations
Sources
*Daniel T. Rodgers. ''The Work Ethic in Industrial America, 1850-1920''. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978 2nd edition 2014
*
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Applied ethics
Working time
Criticism of work