The difference between a job and work (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 4 : Ethics
Prelims level : Not Much
Mains level : Work Culture

Context

• Among the words that have infiltrated the vocabulary of common sense during the recent past, none is as egregious as ‘aspiration’.
• Its rampant use in the economic and political spheres has dented public awareness of reality. In the sphere of economics, in terms of both policies and propaganda, the use of ‘aspiration’ in various combinations and contexts has pushed aside common sense knowledge about life’s necessities.
• Things have come to a point where something as important as the need to work in order to make a living is referred to as aspiration.
• As political coinage, ‘aspirational India’ connotes revolutionary change.
• The users of this phrase ignore the long and tiring struggle of countless youth to find work. The vast majority spends years waiting, or in ‘time pass’ as an economist has called it.
• Those who portray India as ‘aspirational’ look at other basic needs in a similar vein.
• The security that a house gives and the basic amenities of life one needs in a house are deemed to be part of an aspirational package.
• We are not far from the day when the desire to avail one’s constitutional rights will be treated as a sign of aspiration.

Ethos behind Job and Work

• In an ethos where words and meanings are mutating fast, we must ask whether a right any right can be described as an aspiration.
• The debate whether the right to work is fundamental or not will hopefully be settled one day; for now, let us talk about one’s need to have some income, preferably by working.
• Someone who has no income can only survive as a dependent.
• That is how children and the elderly often do. The family provides the cover that the state does not explicitly acknowledge.

Degrees and jobs

• Today, when people say that educational standards are declining, they are in fact responding to devaluation of degrees.
• They feel that a certificate or degree does not mean what it did some time back, both in terms of knowledge and its value in the job market.
• People’s memories are often subjective, but the phenomenon they are talking about is real.
• Quite often, the reason for devaluation of degrees is that institutions cannot cope with the increased number of candidates without letting norms become lax.
• Stagnant financial resources are often an additional reason why institutions cannot cope with swollen enrolment.

Job versus work

• The term ‘job’ is now more common than ‘work’, indicating a shift in perspective. It also signifies the emergence of a new ideology that reinforces the traditional denial of dignity to work. ‘Job’ and ‘work’ differ in that a job is what someone gives you whereas work is what you do.
• For some kinds of work, the two meanings may be close or similar, but this is not true for many other kinds.
• If the political economy is eating up work opportunities, it can still keep on creating jobs artificially, to avoid social instability.
• Short-term jobs are often used to cite the success of an economic policy which, in reality, is decimating work and de-skilling people. This is often done in the name of modernisation.
• Driverless trains and automated manufacturing are presented as symbols of progress. An automation-obsessed economy thrives by maintaining millions in replaceable, short-term positions involving low-skill tasks.
• Such jobs make it impossible for lower-income participants in the work force to gain experience and a self-identity associated with a specialised skill.
• Those who justify all-round automation as a legitimate means of economic progress define the term ‘skill’ in a sense quite different from how it was understood so far.
• In its conventional sense, skill implies a specialised expertise that grows with experience and imparts a personal identity.
• Jobs that vanish after a brief period, forcing the work force to leave and look for re-training for a new short-term stint, offer no genuine opportunities for developing a skill.

An ideological trap

• To treat such job-culture as a symbol of progress is to fall into an ideological trap. Supporters of reckless automation say that it represents a natural course of technological progress.
• They also suggest that there is no alternative to automation, so we have no choice in the matter now.
• This approach echoes a theory of destiny.
• It assumes that the human desire to find meaning in work and cultivate a personal identity through skill will soon surrender to economic pressure and acceptance of vulnerable jobs as a permanent fact of life.
• This is a rather limited and myopic view.
• The history of work shows that work is more than a means of livelihood. It satisfies deeper an urge which, if ignored or denied, takes significant political and social tolls.

Conclusion

• In our society, the family provides a financial cover to the young for remarkably long periods.
• No wonder, university and college teachers routinely refer to their adult students as children. No matter how much you quarrel with this usage, its hold in academic institutions persists.
• One reason for this is that the family continues to support a student well past the official age of childhood.
• Parents go to remarkable lengths to support their progeny through expensive higher professional education for howsoever many years it takes.

Prelims Questions:

Q.1) Which of the following statements is/are correct about the reign of Firoz Tughlaq?
1. He established firm control over Bengal.
2. He disregarded the advice of the ulemas.
3. He abolished slavery.

Select the correct answer using the code given below.
(a) 3 only
(b) 1, 2 and 3
(c) 1 and 2 only
(d) None

Answer: D

Mains Questions:
Q.1) Work satisfies a deeper urge than livelihood which, if denied, takes a significant political and social toll. Critically examine this statement.