Free Market Institute Blog
Work Is The Meaning of Life
I have a new idea for a Hallmark movie. A handsome young(ish) man is traveling for work during the Christmas season, stressed, overworked, and distracted as a freak snowstorm in southern California upends his plans. He meets an attractive woman, and they connect—with normal workaday life shut down—and each recognize a budding chemistry blooming in the soon-to-be melting (artificial) snow.
The movie ends when the snow melts, he drops the woman, and returns to his own city, and his job.
And he is happy as a lark.
That unusual, less-than-romantic ending likely won’t rescue the plot line, but according to author and entrepreneur David Bahnsen, work is the meaning of life. In his recent book, Full-Time, he argues that the data is clear: we have an epidemic of laziness and apathy, not a crisis of workaholism. The author George Orwell termed this the “strange empty dream of idleness.” Currently, about 3 out of 5 of American adults hold jobs; that number dropped nearly 12% during the Covid epidemic, and has recovered only a bit since then. That means over 100 million adults are not working, which hurts businesses, the marketplace, and, of course, Social Security and other government budgets.
Bahnsen argues that we are created to work: if we’re to create a civilization, being fruitful and multiplying, work is a necessary good. Baby Boomers, who have created a great deal of goods, have sometimes given the impression to millennials that the goal of work is to not work: we toil to earn enough money to retire on a decades-long vacation, maybe at 65, but even better at 55 or 4, playing golf or collecting seashells in our final segment of life.
Are we then surprised when a millennial views work as doing the bare minimum of output for survival? Ironically, that attitude won’t build much of a retirement nest egg.
I’m not arguing for pointless busyness, which isn’t really productive work. Many of us have seen this in our own work–when person x leaves, output curiously doesn't suffer much at all. When Elon Musk cut X’s workforce 80%, it had little effect on its functionality of delivering scores of 280 character tweets.
I acknowledge that the discipline of economics sees work as a cost, and I don’t disagree with that. If I need to cut down a tree, the costly effort in cutting it down with a small pocket knife is a bane and a pain, not a blessing. To whatever degree we can achieve goals with less effort is something to celebrate. Good work isn’t necessarily odious, and to create a good—let’s say a house—involves serious, creative effort.
I also realize how Europeans view Americans as workaholics who eat a salad at lunch while managing company spreadsheets; meanwhile, the French supposedly enjoy long lunches with croissants and rosé, take copious amounts of time off, and advocate for a four day work week punctuated by occasional strikes.
Europe is still a great place to visit. Rather like Disney World, it might be a better place to visit than to set down roots.
Bahsen argues that the phrase “work/life balance” is more than merely bad grammar (like a “salad/lettuce balance”) because work is part of life. A better replacement for that notion is a “work/rest balance.” If you are a parent at home, you are a parent at work. If you are a doctor at a hospital, you are a doctor at home. We don’t work so that we can rest. We rest so that we can work.
Objections?
I anticipate some objections to Bahnsen’s thesis.
1. Isn’t the saying “Do what you love; the money will follow” true? Sometimes. But if you relish playing video games or really enjoy fishing, I wouldn’t expect money to follow those or other similar passions. Doing what you love doesn’t always pay the bills in a market system, or, for that matter, in any economic system. When parents encourage their kids by telling them “anything is possible,” we just might be setting up our kids for disappointment. I may have rolled my eyes a bit when my son told me, long ago, that he’d like to play for the Lakers. That said, we need to find fulfilling work, work that is both challenging and pays the bills.
2. Don’t we sometimes make work an idol? Perhaps: working hard never excuses ignoring a spouse or children. Celebrating work doesn’t imply ignoring other important aspects of life.
3. Does everyone have to work? Of course not. Some of us cannot work, and we have an obligation to support them.
4. What about children–should they work? Of course. When my father made me trim Christmas trees eight hours each day for four weeks during the humid Michigan summers, I may have been a bit grumpy. Today, I realize the importance of my own forced labor. It’s good to teach children how to work hard, both at home, at school, and during summer. Who knew that child labor could be good?
5. Isn’t work sometimes drudgery? Yes. Thank God for automation, which is replacing that drudgery, adding dignity, and rewarding creative initiatives and skill more than ever. Bahnsen celebrates the dignity in “discovering and implementing a solution, problem solving, collaborating with coworkers, and meeting goals in a commercial context with common objectives.”
Work and Purpose
Ideally, work is a vocation, where one feels called (vocatus) to meaningful work. Meaningful work will not necessarily pay much. Nearly all work can be rewarding, which means it is challenging and it advances the good.
The biases against working hard have led to increasing amounts of idleness, which helps spread loneliness (47% of Americans had at least six friends in 1990; today, merely 25% have that many friends), suicide, and anxiety. Work fuels a sense of purpose.
Bahnsen suggests that by themselves, “friends and spouses do not and cannot give us purpose.” Purposeless solitude adds to our economic challenges. One serious challenge in the West involves demographic shifts caused by fewer years in the workforce, fewer and later marriages, and, consequently, a precipitous decline in the birth rate to well below replacement levels; this accelerates the imminent bankruptcy of Social Security, worsens unfunded liabilities, and lowers economic growth.
Working on Attitude
We can change our attitude toward our work, and if we employ others, we can help employees discover meaning and joy in their jobs, which are not only time spent in an odious slog to add to our IRAs so that we can stop working sooner. We’ve already accomplished part of this attitude change, with businesses and grandparents accommodating working parents of small children.
I remember when some public schools had young teen girls carry baby dolls around all day. The idea was to discourage teen motherhood. In fact, it backfired, increasing teen motherhood, as the pseudo babies seemed to ignite some maternal instincts.
Perhaps seeing older people working will have a similar effect, normalizing work as a purposeful, satisfying challenge.
One of my favorite economists, Nobel-prize-winning Ronald Coase, lived to 103, having written over a hundred books and articles in his storied career.
His final book was published in 2012.…he was 102.
Henry Kissinger revisited China at the age of 100.
We were made to work. Though our type of work and the amount of work will evolve, let’s not give in to the idea that the goal of life is to inhabit a hammock while the retirement payments roll in.
