Merijn Knibbe — Climbing the shoulders of a giant, Veblen edition

Whoever reads modern neoclassical models will notice that “It is one of the commonplaces of the received economic theory that work is irksome.” As Thorstein Veblen wrote 115 years ago. This idea is even one of the cornerstones of DSGE-models. But is work really always irksome? Below, the rest of the Veblen article which boils down to the idea that disliking all work is in fact, in modern terminology, characteristic of a state of clinical psychological depression: “Man’s life is activity.”And as man is a social animal, at least part of that activity had to be oriented at longer term goals in the interest of the group and man has evolved to like such activities: work. But if that’s part of our true nature, why does our society give so many people the idea that work is irksome?

Real-World Economics Review Blog

Climbing the shoulders of a giant, Veblen edition
Merijn Knibbe

Should be that exploitive work is irksome. A few years ago a couple living across the street from a friend won the lottery that netted them about 20 million, which they choose to take in a lump sum. The wife, who was employed as a nurse, quit immediately using profuse expletives. The husband, a tradesman who loved his work and working with his buddies, kept his job. He did buy a bit fancier boat for fishing on weekends, but that was the extent of what changed visibly. They are still living in the same modest house.

Similarly, I was in Iowa in the Eighties during the massive switch from the family farm to agribusiness. The small farmers that were displaced, many of whom had to move to cities to take work, were devastated. They worked hard on the land and they loved the life and the land as well. Some small farmers survived by adapting, switching from corn and soybeans to some high-value low-yield production that needed more tending than was worth it at the time for agribusiness to mess with.