[snip]
>>Yes, the competitive process
>>can cause wrenching changes in society, but what about the lower
>>prices we pay, the wider variety of goods and services we choose
>>among, the improved quality of products...?
This seems to be my day for reading mindless book reviews. I went from groaning over this ridiculous piece to flinching over the Economist’s current roundup review of three books examining America’s "puzzling spectacle of discontent amid plenty." One of these books sounded really interesting, though: _The Working Life_, by Joanne Ciulla. The Economist notes: "... Ms Ciulla is struck by the way that wealth has not brought happiness. People have not been freed from the need -- or the desire -- to earn a living. Even when people have enough to live on, many of them continue to want to work. 'I am perplexed,' she admits, 'at the domination of life by paid employment at a time when life itself should be getting easier.' Her persuasive answer is that work 'offers instant discipline, identity and worth. It structures our time and imposes a rhythm on our lives. It gets us organised into various kinds of communities and social groups. And perhaps most important, work tells us what to do each day.' Maybe the best way to give people a larger share of … badly distributed spiritual resources is to get them into work and keep them there. If the youthful poor had jobs, they would be less poor, and if the old could work for longer, they would be far less lonely."
I myself find what passes for social life in a corporate setting psychologically taxing in a way that idling around the house by myself never is. I've never been able to fathom people who say they dread retirement, and I'm always confounded by those septuagenarian fellow commuters who do indeed appear to remain in the workforce for reasons of social contact rather than economic necessity.
At any rate, has anyone here read Ciulla's book and have any opinions he/she would like to share?
Carl
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