Lisa Simpson
Sep 4,2009
In: Finance

An Author Meanders Down Time Looking at Society and Economics

Today we are hemmed in by machines, technological wonders and hordes of specialists. The ordinary man pays scant notice to the apparatus that has set up the socio-economic stage in which we are playing our parts. Author Alain de Botton meanders down time in his book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work looking at society and economics.

He argues that previously when travellers reached a new place they would look with wonder at the harbours and workshops just as they would react seeing a chapel wall or a stage. Compared to yesterday the harbours of today should be a bigger draw considering that the ships rolling in are often bigger than a football field. Yet the busy passerby or traveller never pauses to spot the ships. De Botton suggests, “How much we might learn from the men at the end of a pier on the edges of London.”

This was his inspiration behind his penning the book which he dubs as a hymn to the sheer beauty and stark horror of the modern working place. He uses the history of work to contrast with the present world of work everywhere.

In the book a photo essay takes the reader from the point of catching the tuna to the supermarket shelves. It follows ships, power lines, pylons, biscuit factories and peeps into career counseling cubicles. In conclusion he says that we no longer know how the things are done – produced or manufactured starting from scratch. This lack of connectivity leads to a sense of alienation. Those assembling the products become mere cogs in the wheel and nothing more.

Economics however comments that greater wealth is generated by specialization. But the author comments, “However great the economic advantages of segmenting the elements of an afternoon’s work into a range of forty-year-long careers, there was reason to wonder … how meaningful the lives might feel as a result.” This has caused us to wrest “ourselves from an anxious search for the source of the next meal.” Yet strangely enough although we are living in a world of abundance in comparison to our ancestors – most of the people are unhappy.

He goes on to write the chances of finding in work glory have nearly disappeared because of over-specialization. Looking at the wide range of engineers necessary to build a satellite de Botton commented that the days of geniuses have vanished when one man alone rerouted scientific history. By glorifying successful business ordinary life has come to be looked down upon as failure.

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