| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 56

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Russell Muirhead, Just Work (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2004)

THIS BOOK has a catchy title — one which promises the reader an interesting approach to analysing and understanding contemporary work issues. Regrettably, the author does not deliver on this promise.

The author approaches the issue of work primarily from an individualist perspective. Work is a person's life's activity, the vehicle through which he or she seeks personal fulfillment and self-worth. From this perspective, the key challenge is to find the right 'fit' between an individual's aptitudes and interests, on the one hand, and the requirements of the job, on the other. Fulfillment is individual. The relationship between worker and employment is mediated through the operation of the impartial market based on the individual's contract of employment. True, the author acknowledges, the market does not always provide optimum opportunities for such fulfillment. Sweat-shop labour and drudgery still exist. But Muirhead believes these kinds of restricting jobs are declining in numbers, while careers that offer opportunities for self-development and creativity have expanded dramatically in the US in recent years. In developing his argument, the author draws selectively on a number of different philosophical perspectives on work, citing the contributions of political philosophers including Aristotle, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Rawls. An entire chapter is allocated to Betty Friedan's views of the impact of work on women. Muirhead examines work from various points of view, both descriptive and normative. Work is conceived of in terms of necessity — the necessity of earning a living. It is also conceived of as the counterbalance to leisure. And it is examined in terms of its role in providing a fulfilling and creative way of living where the 'fit' is a good one.

Muirhead's book does not challenge the status quo in any significant way. Capitalist organization of work (described by Muirhead as simply the impartial operation of the market) is assumed to be the only viable approach to organizing a modern economic system. Individual fulfillment occurs within this framework — but the framework itself is not questioned. Although the book contains an extensive, if selective, discussion of the approach of various philosophers to work issues, it is strangely devoid of the history of workers' collective struggles. In this respect it is fundamentally ahistorical.

Surprisingly, the author largely ignores the long history of working-class struggle to counter the abuses of capitalism and to establish greater collective, democratic control over the organization of work. The enormous efforts historically of working people, both in the US and internationally, to secure decent wages, working conditions, job security, and dignity on the job receive almost no attention.

In a 204-page book, unions are discussed on one page and there is no mention of strikes or other labour struggles. The decline in US union density is dismissed as the result of inevitable changes in the US labour market in which workers have come to prefer the 'benefits' of mobility and job choice rather than the older — and outdated — approach of lifetime employment with a single employer. The following quotation gives a sense of how the author approaches this issue. "Working life today is less likely than in the past to be mediated by binding affiliations with institutions like unions and large institutions. Individuals have a more immediate relationship to their job, to the market and to the risks that markets impose. The decline in unions since 1950, for instance, has been profound. Although most people approve of unions, now only 14 percent of those in the labour force belong to one." (39)

After making this observation, the author simply moves on to other issues. Why unions are in decline despite continuing "approval" of most people is of little interest. The question of what the decline in union density means for most working people is not explored, nor is the link between this decline and the stagnation of wages in the US over the last 25 years, despite a dramatic increase in output and in the income of the top one per cent of the population. In short, there is no connection between work and class. There is also nothing about the relationship between working-class movements and the political sphere, either from a reformist or a revolutionary perspective. It is rather as if nobody thought that politics had anything to do with employment relationships.

The role of the state, outside of what the author views as failed Marxist states, is seen as largely irrelevant to the issue of finding the right 'fit' between individuals and their work. There is no discussion of such issues as employment standards, health and safety regulations, or even rights such as freedom from discrimination or harassment at the workplace. One is left to infer that whatever these standards are and how — despite their obvious weaknesses — they came to be implemented in the first place is of little importance to workers. Rather, in a modern liberal democratic society, all these issues are resolvable through individuals exercising choice in their selection of employment opportunities.

While a book analysing contemporary work issues does not necessarily need to provide solutions to the problems it identifies, it would have been helpful if the author had indicated what should be done about some of them. Instead, the book is largely descriptive. The evolution of the market economy will, according to the author, continue to shape and reshape work. We can observe what it does to work, but we are only observers: it is not our role —or rather the role of workers — to attempt to reshape the market or take control of the work process. To the extent that there are problems, these can be addressed by individuals focusing more attention on ensuring that they get the right 'fit' between their personal aspirations and the employment they choose.

While the author implies that the book addresses broad philosophical issues which are universal in their application, the perspective of the book seems to reflect a rather more narrow, US experience in which market values are dominant, individual rather than collective values prevail, unions are marginal, and the organization of work is not an issue that is a legitimate subject of political debate — or government action. The concept of work as a social activity in which workers as a group or class have a collective interest —and an active role to play — is almost entirely absent from the analysis.

While this reviewer unquestionably has a different take on the role of work in society, he finds it difficult to comprehend how a book dealing with the issue of just work can say nothing about strikes and devote only two brief references on one page to unions. It is a discussion of work from which workers are absent.


John Calvert Simon Fraser University

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