Was the division of labour a big mistake? The loss of something important

When it comes to making a difference in our world, caring for those in need, and fulfilling the activities that the market cannot, there are millions of heroes who give their time to work in the community, at home or abroad. These people connect with those around them and make a difference. We need them.

However there is another group of people we need - they are the earners. The companies that sponsor charities, the individuals that provide the cash, and those with the mortgages. I think the last point is one maybe most often overlooked: the way that the non-economic workers depend on the economic workers is not just a matter of cash transactions. When I was in my late teens I travelled to Argentina with a missionary organisation. I funded myself through working. However, I was able to do this because I had a permanent home provided by my parents. I know many people in various different churches, who give their time working for the church, and who lodge with members of the congregation. This wouldn't be possible without the homeowners within the congregation.
 


Connecting with a community in Salta, Argentina

 
So, the economic and the non-economic are dependant on one another, and I could just leave it there, the message being that we should value both and not just assume the romantic bohemian lifestyle as superior to that of the established - it is what you do with your resources that is important. It's an important point to make, and until recently I thought that was it.

However, that is just setting the scene.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in history, but I do know one basic fact. At one point, people learnt how to make enough food to allow some people to not be involved in food production. These people could then specialise. This was the beginning of 'civilisation' and the building of cities. Out of this came the technologists, scientists and artists. The production of specialised goods meant that things were produced for trade - the birth of the market and the 'economic'. It was also the birth of different 'classes' or groups in society.

There's another shift that's happened - I'm told it was during the industrial revolution. Economic activity moved out of the household and into the city. There was a place of home, and community, and a place of work.

I am currently in the economic work domain. Sometimes I feel a little envious of friends that are freer to travel and don't have mortgages to pay and or 9-5 jobs to which to commit, but actually I'm very happy. There is one thing that bothers me, however, and that is that I am often cocooned in the world of the professional and sometimes wish I had more time to get out into the community of the non-economic and connect with others. To be honest, I can find the time and I resolve to, but it's hard.

At work, we 'do CSR'. We actually are entitled to one CSR day a year, which we can take to engage in people-based voluntary work - I'm not sure how many people use it. It's difficult enough fitting holiday in - there's always something coming up. The easiest way for people I work with to engage with charity is to give their money: we have cake sales and dress down days and workplace giving.  Corporately, many companies are wanting to move away from purely giving money, in the form of the traditional philanthropist, and trying to 'do business' in a better way - this is good.  But here I'm talking about the individual.  It is OK for us to just earn money and then pass some of it on, in the manner of the traditional philanthropist, but on a smaller scale?

The thing is, giving money is easy when you're earning a good salary, because at the end of the day you can always make more. I say this in comparison to giving your time, which you will never get back. Time is absolutely finite.

There's another thing with giving your time. When we transfer money, we just send it away to that less fortunate 'other'. We can feel better about ourselves: it's a simple transaction where in return we simply get the knowledge we've helped someone somewhere or a reduction in guilt (in the cases of most, probably a bit of both). But go and actually meet the 'other': suddenly they are not the poor or unfortunate or ill, but people: people who you are no longer judging by their economic or social background, but people who are individuals and who can teach you in return.

And if we can view those we previously merely pitied as individuals, we can view those we previously looked down on as individuals too, not seeing accent, lifestyle, clothing or education, but just men and women and children. Even in my short career in business, I feel like I've come across so much lack of awareness of 'how the other half live', and so many prejudices against those in other parts of society. That is not to say everyone is heartless - but being cocooned in the world of the professional and wealthy doesn't help.

It is at this juncture I find myself in a place of tension. On the one hand, I believe that economy should not be seen in terms of individuals but as households, because that's the way it so often works. And this division of labour goes wider, and society forms groups who provide certain functions, according to the skills they have. Each depends on each other. Of course, even if this is true we do not recognise it. At different points and by different groups, different types of are valued work over others - particularly the economic over the household.

And yet I find myself wishing that every single person could work part-time. How great it would be if I could spend, say, 2/3 of my time in economic production and the other 1/3 in non-economic work. I wonder if this would really work?

Perhaps it is a case of the old 'small is beautiful: if something is wrong, it is too big, as expounded by writers such as E F Schumacher.  Our economic world is simply so big that we can travel such long distances within it and never see the outside. If you live and work in a small community, all parts of society, economic and non-economic, rich and poor, are in reach of each other. Then take my working day when I worked for a client in Canary Wharf: London is so big that it could build a world of wealth all around me, from getting on the train at my local station, to reaching the office, where I never saw anything else except office workers and the occasional wealthy mother with a designer pram when I went out to get some lunch (from Marks & Spencer, of course...).
 

Canary Wharf (Source: The Guardian)

 

So, the real sacrifice is to give our time and our hearts. Arriving at that fact is not rocket science. However, we are embodied people and we feel through our actions and lives, and the logistics of breaking down those barriers is harder than we might think.  In the division of labour, we risk losing empathy.