September 4, 2020 - 3:00pm
With the government urging everyone back to their offices, whether they want to or not, and the Chancellor announcing that the furlough scheme 4 million of us relied on will be ending next month, 2020’s Covid Summer is officially at an end, even if the virus itself isn’t.
The necessity of us all going back to work, for the sake of the nation’s economic health, may be unarguable. But at the same time, it’s hard not to feel that a great national opportunity for rebalancing work and life is somehow being missed; that Covid, for all its anxiety and danger, somehow broke the spell of normality, chaining us to Larkin’s hated “toad, work,” and that by rushing too quickly to return to our old ways, we’re squandering the possibility to explore alternatives.
It’s interesting then, that our more industrious continental cousins in Germany are extending their furlough scheme for another year, and doubly interesting that Germany’s also rolling out an experiment with Universal Basic Income, in which 120 people will receive a monthly payment of €1200 to assess the economic and social merits of the utopian idea.
The Basic Income debate “is — on both sides — shaped by clichés,” argues the study’s leader, Jürgen Schupp:
Who can say for sure? Our own government’s furlough scheme was, in some ways, a basic income trial by another name, and a broadly popular one, though by essentially paying people not to work, it surely skewed the results towards mass indolence.
Advocates for UBI argue that, instead of enabling the population to loaf around unproductively, a well-thought-out basic income scheme — funded by cracking down on corporate tax avoidance schemes rather than by taxing wage-earners — would instead create a happier and more productive national workforce, giving people the baseline financial security to start their own small businesses, perhaps by turning passions and hobbies into a source of income.
The German trial will hopefully assess the truth of these claims one way or another. But it’s hard not to think our mixed feelings about returning to the office show a tension within post-liberalism, and the Labour movement generally: between the Weberian Protestant work ethic and belief in the dignity of labour for its own sake on one hand, and the very Anglo-Catholic nostalgia for a prelapsarian Merrie England, whose merriness was largely a result of its abundance of free time.
Now the summer’s over, perhaps there’s some political advantage to be had for any party willing to rejig our work-life balance: we might all be going back to school, but the playing fields outside the classroom window will surely look more tempting than ever before.
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SubscribeThe dignity of labour is not a protestant invention, Labore est orare is a much older, monastic ideal.
Typical medieval labours of the months (as represented in stained glass etc) are:
January – Feasting
February – Sitting by the fire
March – Pruning trees, digging
April – Planting
May – Hawking, courtly love
June – Hay harvest
July – Wheat harvest
August – Wheat threshing
September – Grape harvest
October – Ploughing or sowing
November – Gathering acorns for pigs
December – Killing pigs, baking
Not a bad work/life balance. However for most, medieval life was nasty, brutish and short. A bit like twitter really.
In Shaw’s “Man and Superman” one of the middle-class friends of Jack Tanner says “I am a great believer in the dignity of labour” to which Tanner’s chauffeur replies “that because you have never done any”
Same could be said of Shaw!
“February-Sitting by the fire”.
Beautifully illustrated in the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, where the February illustration shows a snow covered scene, with three peasants warning themselves by a fire, one of them clearly displaying his frozen genitalia.
Yes, two of them in fact. A charming scene
Well spotted. Two of them, a male and female, are indeed warming their genitals. The nearest still wears her undies.
Hence the joy of being a Monk, Cannon, or even a Nun.
The monasteries owned about 13% of England, around 4 million acres, yet monks and cannons represented only about 2% of the adult male population by say, 1530.
Besides living in some of the most beautiful and hygienic buildings in the country, archaeology also suggests they had an excellent and varied diet.
The only conceivable disadvantage was the promise to lead a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Whereas today 1% own 50% of the wealth (that’s global, don’t know about England). Makes the middle ages sound positively egalitarian
Yes, the Middle Ages have been much maligned to succour our conceit.
It did vary hugely. A well endowed monastery was indeed a comfortable place however many were struggling and faced real hardship.
As befits a life of poverty, chastity, and obedience?
Potentially though if every waking moment is spent worrying about the roof or haggling over the last turnip you may not have time for more exalted duties.
The Mendicants certainly seem to have been very poor, but that was to be expected.
Many of the ‘smaller’ houses of the Contemplatives, and those of the Cannons, received scathing reports from the Cromwell’s ‘visitors’, but in most cases the very few ‘religious’ still in residence. Those that were, seen to have lived well, even if the Church itself and the claustral buildings were in a ruinous condition.
Many would also receive a generous, and regular pension, if they acquiesced to the Dissolution.
It seems social cachet played a role, some foundations definitely attracted the gentry and well off merchants who tended to assure their families comfort. I don’t know weather to trust the 1530s commissions- there was certainly a lot to be gained by exaggerating monastic luxury. My guess is that conditions in monasteries were near totally indexed to broader agricultural trends.
I don’t find the arguments for UBI particularly convincing.
The goal of providing those using it with dignity and security, while an admirable intention, requires it set at a level where it is indeed an alternative to work for many, which is likely to make it both very expensive and overall, reduce the number of people opting to work.
That would then raise a question around priorities and whether spending vast sums on UBI is a good use of public funds that would have gone to existing or new public services. UBI will inevitably mean cuts to other public service spending.
Then there’s the question around labour supply and demographic change, that we face a rising level of dependency and potentially a shortage of workers, so schemes to allow them to drop out of the workforce would only exacerbate this issue.
More generally there’s the simple observation that around our communities there remains a huge amount of work to be done; there’s no community that couldn’t be made cleaner, tidier, safer, more pleasant, more services and support for children, the elderly, those with mental health problems. If we’re going to spend money, better to have a job creation scheme to pay people to do something useful to make our country a better place, than pay them for nothing.
I’m no economist (is anybody?) but surely a UBI would simply shift the baseline rather than change anything fundamentally? People would have a little more income, this would be inflationary, rents would rise, everything would equalise and we would be exactly where we started.
Given the looming winter of unemployment I find the vision of Arcadian rustics cavorting amongst the hedgerows very close to gallows humour.
The post-war welfare state had the beginnings of this in that child benefit (or its equivalence) was the actual cost of maintaining a child and rents were kept low also. Unemployment pay also was very much based on what you had been earning. We could easily manage something similar now
I don’t think state dependency is wise.
Let’s hope we all don’t end up running through fields of wheat then! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣