Sharon Beder

Sharon Beder does a thorough job of examining the background and harmful effects of the work ethic. The work ethic is seen as a tool of capitalism used to exploit workers, legitimize inequality, and rob people of their identity as something other than workers. These views are well supported and have merit, but some interesting facets of the work ethic, covered by Kerr and Scitovsky, are omitted. For example, the work ethic draws much of its strength from altruistic motives to help other people, as typified for example by parents who mistakenly overwork to try to give their children a better life, when the children would be better off spending quality time with the parents. A more nuanced approach that covered the way in which utilitarian motives support the work ethic would have led the way to further insights.

Another difficulty is that Beder undermines her own topic by concluding at one point that the work ethic is in a state of crisis, effectively being supplanted by a wealth ethic or a consumption ethic. Here again Scitovsky has a more sophisticated treatment of the subject, suggesting that the problem is not consumption but an overemphasis on production and a lack of skilled consumption. What Beder does well she does very well.… (más)