This started as a reply to Redfoprkhippie’s comment to my previous post about the Conspiracy of Employment, but it was too long so I’ll put it here.
Yes, I could GET USED to a job, but why would I WANT TO?? Most jobs (I’m not counting useful people like nurses, social-workers and Jordan) are pointless; they are simply mindnumbing ways of keeping economic units (that’s people, to you and me) on the endless treadmill of earn and spend. Schools are little more than factories for producing more economic units, which is why any sense of individualism, idealism or creativity is quickly stamped on – whether you’re a child or a teacher.
The whole of society is geared to making you want stuff (house, car, nice lingerie) so that you’ll go and get a job. Once you have a job you’re too tired to have any interesting ideas about life so you just become a brain-dead consumer of rubbish and plough all the money you’ve earned back into the economy.
If I was at home, I could make my own bread, jam, pasta, paint, I could repair my own boiler instead of calling in the plumber, etc. I’d have time to grow lots of veg and look after livestock. But that means I am no longer contributing money to my local economy, and I’m not earning so the government don’t get my taxes… the whole thing is incompatible with modern, western economics.
I’ve had plenty of jobs, and I have no problem with hard work – but I’d like to work at home and sadly I don’t have the cash needed to invest in those things which could subsequently earn me money; eg. renovate our B&B so that we can stay open in the winter, make a second B&B room, install energy-saving devices that reduce bills, etc etc. Overheads mean that I’m forced to get a job, but a job in rural France is never going to produce the kind of salary that could change our life. A few years ago we could survive with a sporadic hand-to-mouth income; but the cost of living has become much much higher in France and sadly that’s no longer possible.
April said
Amen, again!
cormac said
That sums up whats is in my head but I never had the verbal or written skills to express it. Excelent
stevie said
I SO agree! Work just takes over your whole life. It’s not a balance at all. I work 50 hours a week and I can’t stand it, which is why we’re planning to get out of it while we’re still young enough (just!) to make a new start. Still trying to decide between Spain and Italy…
EJ said
Looking at the jobs that need to be done in order for you to “renovate our B&B”:
log trees, make lumber, ship lumber, make paint, windows, furniture and hardware, make and supply vehicles that move goods (and tourists to stay in said B&B), keep vehicles that supply these industries in working order, mine minerals to make tools, grow, process and distribute food to everyone, build roads, harbors and airports to move goods, make and supply tools to industries, extract and refine oil to keep it all running, supply capital for all these enterprises, accounting, banking, and bookkeeping services so that everyone gets paid, produce and transmit electricity .. I would say there are a lot more of jobs that need to get done so that you can run your B&B. Pointless jobs?
Perhaps you could make a list of the jobs you think are meaningful and only use goods and services provided by these jobs for a month or two or even a year. Then you could say they are pointless to you.
On the other hand, I completely agree with you that much of modern society is consumer driven, and that much of that consumerism is fueled by a sense of dissatisfaction. Most of us would all well to do without so many things, trips, and “needs”.
Scarlet said
I see what you’re saying, and of course I’m only half-serious; although it has been said that you could get rid of half the civil servants in France and no-one would be able to tell the difference.
I’m not really talking about people who make the things we use every day, furniture, sheets and towels, electricity – like you say I wouldn’t have a B&B if I couldn’t get hold of such things… but MacDonalds? Advertising agencies? Barrats homes? And I wonder if we really need 50 different toothpastes, a whole aisle of washing powders? Why do I have to choose between Pantene and Fructis shampoo? Because by creating a myriad of identical products in a variety of brightly coloured bottles they can charge twice as much and employ lots of idiots to sit around making presentations about their ‘unique selling point’. Life would be much cheaper and simpler without that kind of nonsense to clutter it up.
A company in the UK is about to launch onto the market a product of ready-beaten eggs in a cardboard carton – it’s a ‘convenience’ food… aren’t eggs already a convenience food??? How useful are all the jobs in that company? I’m nowhere near middle age but I already find myself saying “the world’s GONE MAD!!!” every half hour!
I’d like to think my job is providing a useful service to someone somewhere, but the truth is that if I stopped doing it tomorrow the world wouldn’t stop turning and the only person who would notice is my long-suffering bank-manager.
There’s also evidence that if you treated employees better – paid them better and allowed them a human working-life (flexitime, home-working, etc.) you get 30% more productivity out of them… that would free up quite a few people to get out there and grow their own veg, do some volunteer work, spend time with their kids…
permacultureinbrittany said
You’ve opened up a super debate Scarlet, a profound statement on our times and generated some really interesting comments. I think balance is a huge part of it and see what Kristen is doing as a good example of trying to find that balance. Governments tax us so that they can provide certain services, i.e., they tax a percentage of our money and perhaps we out to think of our time in the same fashion: so much to help the world tick along (se EJ above) so much to run our own lives and so much to have fun.
And that raises another point: the modern day separation of work and play. Permaculture is often touted as a way of providing ones own food using intelligent design rather than brute force, so avoiding the “drudge” of peasant life. From experience, I disagree with the supposed reduction in effort but I also disagree that it’s necessarily just a drudge. Hard work, especially working with others, can be good for the body and good for the soul and lead to worked muscles, exercised brains, a sense of pride with some frustrations and laughs thrown in.
The economics of it all also plays a huge part. We have an idea of what we should be able to buy and at what price. Food is far too cheap now, allowing us to use a proportion of our wages to buy lots of stuff which has a limited life-span and ends up buried in landfill or burnt in an incinerator. To provide cheap food, we make the farmers work alone in huge machines which they spend a lifetime paying for and reduce the alchemic know-how of a decent baker to someone who pushes a button and minds a machine. We ship our raw materials to the other side of the world and back so that they are constructed by poorer people than us working on a lower wage. Taking EJ’s point, I think it’s a great idea to monitor what one brings into the house that can’t be made on the homestead and further think where it came from and how much it cost.
I look forward to reading more posts and comments on this subject.