One of the core concept underlying modern life is the idea of hard work. We work hard, we say, and that means we deserve certain things. You will rise to the top as long as you work hard. Everyone values a hard worker. We work hard for our money. And so on.

This concept underlies a lot of our beliefs about work and its role in society, and hence, our role in society as well. After all, if there is one thing that unites people, it’s that the vast majority of people have jobs. Even in tough economic times, no more than ten percent or so of the population is unemployed. The rest have jobs, bosses, responsibilities, stress, and the daily hurdle of convincing yourself to get up, get ready, and go to work when it’s the last thing in the world you feel like doing.

So the idea of hard work is key to the entire social machinery that society relies upon to function by putting what people do with most of their days on most days in some sort of meaningful context. Being a hard worker is a good thing. We want to be hard workers. So we get up and go to work.

But the fact is, modern life has made this concept practically meaningless, and it’s high time that we examined the concept and learned, for ourselves, what a leaky ship this tired old idea has become.

Hey, I work hard, right?

It’s something that nearly everyone says at one point. They work hard for their money. They work hard period. Generally, it’s said either defensively, or as a preface to their claim of some sort of entitlement, privilege, or special consideration from society.

But when you think about it, it’s a meaningless statement. Honestly, can you imagine a single person with an actual job who could say this and you would disagree to their face? You might think, naively, that their job doesn’t sound all that hard compared to yours, or that you are glad you don’t have that job because it sounds like it sucks hot rocks, but is there anyone with a job to whom you would say “Bull muffins, you don’t work hard for your money!”

Of course not. It would be extraordinarily rude and invite a lot of bitter comparisons and ill will. But if absolutely anybody who works for a living can make the exact same claim and have it go unchallenged, what does it really mean?

Basically, when you say “I work hard for a living”, all you are really saying is “I am employed.” It does nothing to distinguish you from anyone else with a job. Everyone who has a job works hard because everyone who has a job would rather not have to work for a living. It’s a meaningless distinction.

Work hard, and you’ll make it to the top!

It amazes me that some people still think this is true.

Think of your job. Now think of your boss. Do you really think he or she got where they are by working harder than everyone else?

That idiot? Not a chance. They just sucked up to the right people, made the right friends, and had less dignity and honor and self-respect than you. Them work hard? Hah.

Well, what makes you think it will be any different for you, or for everyone? The skills of your job and the skills that will actually get you promoted are not just entirely different, sometimes they are totally at odds with one another. Hard work barely makes the list.

And even if your boss is qualified and competent, do you really think it’s hard work which got them there? Imagine you are a boss with several employees. One of them is an amazingly hard worker who is more productive than two average employees. The other is an average worker, but everyone knows him and likes him, and he seems to be good at motivating people to work.

Who are you going to promote? One way, you lose all that productivity for your department and thrust someone who has never shown the slightest sign that they would make a good manager into a management position, and the other…. makes sense.

Hard work does not get you ahead. Social skills, maybe.

Society rewards hard workers

Society rewards work, in that our society works on a money-for-labour economy. But after that, hard work is one of the last things it rewards.

Think about it. Do you think someone who makes twice as much money as you do works twice as hard as you do? Are you paid less because you are just too lazy to work as hard at them?

Like hell, right? They just do different work than you. They are probably one of those middle-management suckups who don’t contribute anything to the bottom line and just serve to make sure the people at the top never have to talk to the people at the bottom and risk getting exposed to actual work.

Or even if they aren’t… why does a doctor make so much more than a McDonald’s employee? Is it because they work that much harder? Really? When a doctor can make more in four hours than the french fry chef at McDonald’s does in a month? We begin to suspect that there is something a little more than hardness of work at play here.

The answer, of course, is that the doctor makes more because he can get more. Society sees the job of doctor as more valuable and difficult as french fry cook, and so doctors can ask for a lot more money and get it. It’s a higher status job, and therefore gets paid more dollars. It’s that simple.

Doctors often argue that they get paid so much because they have people’s lives in their hands. And it’s true, they do. But so do a lot of other jobs that don’t get paid nearly as much. If a tow truck driver doesn’t attach that chain correctly, they could cause a huge traffic accident and kill dozens of people. If the cleaning staff skimps a little when cleaning a restaurant’s kitchen, the food could become contaminated and make hundreds of people very ill. Even that french fry cook could wreck people’s days by doing his job wrong and getting away with it.

But these jobs are not paid nearly as well, because in society, dirty, manual, labour-filled jobs are considered low-status and hence not paid very well. It doesn’t matter how hard our french fry cook works, he could be doing the work of three people and putting in eighty hours a week, doesn’t matter. The doctor is still going to make a hell of a lot more than him.

And how about those fatcat CEOs who make millions of dollars even if the company is in the red? Do you really think they work millions of times harder than you do? Or are they just raiding the piggy bank?

Hard workers are better citizens

Not so much better that we pay them more, of course. That would be silly.

But a lot of people seem to think that their stalwart claim that they are hard workers somehow makes them better than other people, and that means society should recognize and value and reward them above others.

But as we have already seen, it’s a meaningless distinction. Anyone can claim it, and nobody will challenge them, and so all you are really saying is “I have a job!”

And the strangest part is, the people making these claims are often conservatives. The self-same conservatives, mind you, who are so ready to defend social Darwinism, the law of the jungle, the market, and so on… and now they are saying that society should think they are special for being a good little worker and doing what they are told? And that this somehow makes them special?

What a bunch of collectivist bullcrap. Why should I care, Comrade, how good a worker you are? It doesn’t make my life any easier, nor does it put more money in my pocket. Unless I work with you directly and your quality of work (or lack of it) directly influences how much work I have to do, or how much stress I have to put up with, why should I give a crap how hard you work?

Admit it, you think you contribute more to society and therefore society should treat you nicer and make you feel all special. But unless you are willing to endorse the rest of the collectivist ideology that says we have a responsibility to help one another that supersedes our individual desires sometimes, like for instance our desire to make obscene amounts of money regardless of consequences… you might want to rethink just how proud you are for being better than the tiny proportion of people in society without jobs.

Hard work is a joke

So as you can see, despite the deep roots that the phrase “hard work” has in our culture, it’s really a joke. Society does not value or reward people based on how hard they worker, anyone can claim to be a hard worker and it doesn’t mean anything, and the idea of how wonderful it is to be a “hard worker” is a sham that serves the powers that be by making sure they get qas much labour for as little money as possible. You want to be a good person, right? So work harder for the same amount of money! Suits them just fine.

It’s really all about who has better social skills, who has a higher status job, and who has the power to vote themselves a raise. Hard work is barely a blip on the radar.

Enjoy your drive to work!