About Hard Work

We are told that hard work pays off, that if we work hard we can get that big position with a large salary and retire with enough money to live on until we die. We are told the rich are rich because they work harder (or smarter, but I’ll get to that) than poor people. The poor are told poverty is their fault, that they don’t work hard enough or smart enough, that they are lazy, and that they don’t want out of poverty.

Bullshit! All of it.

Why wouldn’t hard work be rewarded, the hard worker benefits businesses? Just because one benefits a business doesn’t mean the business would reward the worker. First is pure practicality, if one is doing the job of three people, then promoting them means the company would have to hire three people to take their place. If the person is making $60,000 a year it would cost the company $180,000 a year to replace the worker. Even if they paid the replacements less, say $40,000, it would still cost the company more, $120,000, so the company wouldn’t promote such a person. In terms of greed (which dominates modern business culture), the person is already doing the work of three people for the amount they are already being paid, why would a greedy company offer the person more when they have shown they are willing to do so much work for that amount of money? The company wouldn’t, that is the nature of greed, they pay as little to their employees as they can get away with. Lastly,  a lazy manager doesn’t want to be shown up by a hard working manager, keeping the hard worker in a lower position prevents that, and the manager can then take credit for the workers hard work. Working hard doesn’t usually get one anywhere, instead it usually gets one stuck in positions while people who don’t work as hard are the ones who get raises and promotions.

On the surface it would seem the “lazy” worker can easily be fired, but it is usually riskier to fire someone only to hire someone who might not work out and has to be trained. For that reason management doesn’t want to have to replace many “lazy” workers. They are still replaceable though, so they can be promoted without costing the company more money unlike the hard worker. Then there is the issue of nepotism, when one isn’t spending all their time working they can’t make friends, friends that can get them raises promotions. Lastly there is luck, when a management position needs filling the person who will be selected to fill that position will not be the one who it will require three people to replace, it is the person who is replaceable. Hard workers prevent themselves from being promoted by not being replaceable.

The dedication to hard work doesn’t just get one nowhere, it takes time away from people’s lives. Our time on this earth is finite, we can go at any moment. People have been killed by lightning out of the blue, by bullets shot a mile away, twenty eight people a day die in drunk driving related accidents, there is a heart attack called “the widowmaker heart attack”. The more time one spends working the less of their finite time they have for family, friends, hobbies, fun, etc. Working long hours has been associated with depression, and loneliness, which makes sense as being at work is being away from the people one cares about. Depression and loneliness are associated with addiction and health issues and even death. These cause larger societal and economic issues, health issues can shorten lives, reduce the quality of their lives, and prevent people from working and contributing to society. Working long hours keeps people from their children which can be emotional neglect and prevent parents from teaching children what they need to know. Working long hours can prevent people from having a family, Japan has a strong work ethic where people are expected to work long hours, Japan also has a steep population decline, and a word that means word that literally means “worked to death”. These,, at least in part, have caused Japan’s economic decline which has come to be known as “the lost decades”. This population decline is not limited to Japan. While population decline may in the long term be good, a steep population decline is bad in the near term and long term.

The philosophy of hard work isn’t just detrimental to those who buy into it, it is used to demonize the poor and minorities. The poor have been accused of being lazy because they are poor when in reality most poor people work more and harder than most middle class and rich people and the middle class works harder than the rich. This extends to minorities as minorities tend to be poorer than the majority so minorities are called lazy, and when a majority is poor, the minority with the power calls that majority lazy. This is used to rationalize racism. It is used against the young by the old, boomers often complain about millennials and zoomers being lazy, even though millennials work more than their parents and grandparents generations did and when adjusted for inflation, millennials are making less than their parents and grandparents generations while the cost of living has been increasing.

“Idle hands are the devil’s playthings” is an old saying, those who have time to think and question, will. Keep people busy and they will not have time or even energy to think and question their lots in life. In this way hard work is used to oppress people. By keeping them busy it keeps them from questioning what they have been told, from looking at the plight they live in, from seeing what the wealthy and powerful have, and from organizing against the wealthy and powerful. It keeps the people in line while the wealthy and powerful use them and abuse them and throw them away. The hard work philosophy has been used to rationalize unjustified inequalities, oppression, hatred, supremacism, and exploitation.

“Don’t work hard, work smart!” people will respond, “the rich work smarter not harder” (unless they want others to work harder, then the rich are “hard workers”). What does that mean though? In my personal experience people who say that use that as an excuse to do as little as possible, meaning others (and me) too have to pick up the slack. That is just my experience though, so I googled “what does work smarter not harder mean” the results i got where just lists (the bane of the internet) (17 Ways To Work Smarter, Not Harder (With Benefits), Work smarter, not harder: 15 tips for success, 7 Ways to Work Smarter, Not Harder) of suggestions, half of which are bog standard advice. The only ones that are any good are the ones that basically tell you to respect your own time. The worst advice is “don’t multitask”, when I multitask I get more done and then have standing around time, and some jobs require multitasking. 

The biggest problem with the whole “work smart not hard” thing is that the wealthy either work harder than the poor or work smarter than the poor depending on the argument being made. When hard work is being lionized the rich are hard workers, when the rich are called out for not working hard or it is pointed out the poor work harder, than the rich work smart. This is the problem with the “work smart” argument. Rich people are people, some are workaholics, some spend all day at the office but barely do any work, some spend as little time at work as they can, and some don’t work at all. The difference in this regard is the rich can get away with doing as little work as they can, the poor and middle class can’t. The poor and middle class have to work to survive. Maybe there is some validity to working smart not hard, but it is often used by the rich and their apologists as a rationalization for the rich doing as little work as possible while the poor have to work to survive.

“If one works hard or smart now, builds up wealth, one can have a family and hobbies later” some will respond. Hard work doesn’t usually  get one anywhere though and even if it did, one can go at any moment. If one spends all their time working, waiting for retirement, they might not make it to retirement or might not live long enough after retiring to enjoy it. Even if one dies at a hundred, when one retires their body is past its prime and the skills in the hobby they planned to spend their retirement doing would have atrophied in all the years spent working. Even if one retains one’s hobby skills, the people one wants to spend their retirement with might not be there. Having a family later in life can be much more challenging. Imagine chasing around a toddler in your 40s, imagine having to deal with a teenager in your 50s and 60s. It gets harder to learn as one ages and one has to learn a lot about parenting when they have children. It is better to take time doing what you love and spending time with the people you care about than spending all your most productive years working.

While I have been saying “hard work goes nowhere” I do recognize that it is not universally true. If one owns their own business then hard work is a necessity, without it the business will never last long enough to make a profit. If one is assertive and willing to abandon one job for another then their hard work can pay off. By doing the work of three people, demanding more money, and leaving a job when one doesn’t get the raise then they will end up making more money elsewhere in the long run. Some businesses do recognize hard work and some industries require hard work. In these places hard work can benefit an individual. These are not the majority though.

The time one spends working is time one can not get back, it is gone forever. Hard work is used to oppress people, and the people who work hard usually don’t get anything for it. The money being made from people’s hard work goes to a rich few while the cost of living and housing is rising faster than inflation. It is better to work so one may live, as in living one’s life, and not spend all their time at work. You owe no loyalty to your employers, you owe nothing to your employers. Respect your time, don’t let it be taken away from you by your job. Spend time doing what you love and with the people you love.