Just Work

by Russell Muirhead

Overview

This elegant essay on the justice of work focuses on the fit between who we are and the kind of work we do. Russell Muirhead shows how the common hope for work that fulfills us involves more than personal interest; it also points to larger understandings of a just society. We are defined in part by the jobs we hold, and Muirhead has something important to say about the partial satisfactions of the working life, and the increasingly urgent need to balance the claims of work against those of family and community.

Against the tendency to think of work exclusively in contractual terms, Muirhead focuses on the importance of work to our sense of a life well lived. Our notions of freedom and fairness are incomplete, he argues, without due consideration of how we fit the work we do.

Muirhead weaves his argument out of sociological, economic, and philosophical analysis. He shows, among other things, how modern feminism's effort to reform domestic work and extend the promise of careers has contributed to more democratic understandings of what it means to have work that fits. His account of individual and social fit as twin standards of assessment is original and convincing—it points both to the unavoidable problem of distributing bad work in society and to the personal importance of finding fulfilling work. These themes are pursued through a wide-ranging discussion that engages thinkers from Plato to John Stuart Mill to Betty Friedan. Just Work shows what it would mean for work to make good on the high promise so often invested in it and suggests what we—both as a society and as individuals—might do when it falls short.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674024083
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2007
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Russell Muirhead is Robert Clements Associate Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Democracy and the Value of Work

2. Fitting Work in the Contemporary Economy

3. The Justice of Fit

4. The Strains of Service

5. The Work Ethic and Callings

6. The Promise of Fulfillment

7. Friedan's Careerism

8. Work as a Practice

Conclusion: The Place of Work

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

What People are Saying About This

In this original and provocative book, Muirhead argues that justice in work is more than a matter of fair wages and decent working conditions; it is also a matter of fit--between the work we do and the persons we are. With a clear and distinctive voice, Muirhead revives work as a subject for political theory and illuminates the ethics of everyday life.

Richard Sennett

Muirhead makes a contribution to both the scholarship and the general public understanding of what's happening to work in modern society. He writes well, and has something important to say about the partial satisfactions of working life, and the balances between work, family, and community.
— Richard Sennett, author of Respect in a World of Inequality

Michael Sandel

In this original and provocative book, Muirhead argues that justice in work is more than a matter of fair wages and decent working conditions; it is also a matter of fit--between the work we do and the persons we are. With a clear and distinctive voice, Muirhead revives work as a subject for political theory and illuminates the ethics of everyday life.
— Michael Sandel, author of Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy

Editorial Reviews

Muirhead makes a contribution to both the scholarship and the general public understanding of what's happening to work in modern society. He writes well, and has something important to say about the partial satisfactions of working life, and the balances between work, family, and community.

Richard Sennett

Muirhead blends sociological, economic, and philosophical perspectives into a comprehensive analysis of the purpose and importance of work as part of life. He carefully considers the importance of person-job fit and emphasizes the personal value to individuals of finding fulfilling work and how the absence of meaningful work can negatively impact social justice...Well written and interesting.

Choice - T. Gutteridge

Muirhead's clearly and concisely written book is well worth reading for what it has to say about the nature of work in modern America, and the prospects for improving our relationship to it.

Labor History - David L. Stebenne

In this original and provocative book, Muirhead argues that justice in work is more than a matter of fair wages and decent working conditions; it is also a matter of fit—between the work we do and the persons we are. With a clear and distinctive voice, Muirhead revives work as a subject for political theory and illuminates the ethics of everyday life.

Michael Sandel

Muirhead's clearly and concisely written book is well worth reading for what it has to say about the nature of work in modern America, and the prospects for improving our relationship to it.
— David L. Stebenne

Labor History

Muirhead blends sociological, economic, and philosophical perspectives into a comprehensive analysis of the purpose and importance of work as part of life. He carefully considers the importance of person-job fit and emphasizes the personal value to individuals of finding fulfilling work and how the absence of meaningful work can negatively impact social justice...Well written and interesting.
— T. Gutteridge

Choice

Offering much more of a practical survey than the sort of academic criticism that typifies manifestos on workers and labor, Harvard government professor Muirhead confronts often contradictory elements of the modern working life, from the frustration of slaving away in order to merely survive in a meaningless consumerist cycle to the questionable justice of outsourcing labor that pays foreign workers pennies. In focusing on a consideration of "fit," the author's uniquely comprehensive bit of moral vocabulary that encompasses a concern for "work that fits" and "fitting work," Muirhead reveals that the question of just work, even in our modern capitalist society, is still very much aligned with the ancient question of "the good." Much of the book shows that the debates throughout history over varieties of the social, material, intrinsic and personal good are mirrored in philosophical observations on labor. Drawing from a historical study of perspectives on work from Plato and Aristotle, Marx and Mill, and modern thinkers like Rawls and Friedan, the book lends a powerful perspective on how human history comes to define what is important about work. This relationship is revealed in the story of slavery, domestic servitude and women as unpaid household laborers within American history. Muirhead's deft sketch is as much a sort of therapeutic exploration of the working life as it is hopeful social theorizing. (Oct.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Many people view work as simply a means to an end, but Muirhead (government, Harvard Univ.) strongly dissents, seeing it as a key aspect of a meaningful life. For work to fulfill this exalted function, it must reflect both an individual's freedom of choice and proper fit. By fit, Muirhead means the relation between one's abilities and one's job, as well as between the job and the wider social needs. Following the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, he emphasizes the goods that are internal to particular practices of work. Against the objection that work is a matter of necessity that offers little scope for these ambitious social goals, Muirhead replies that we often have more choice in such matters than we think, providing concrete suggestions like dividing the burdens of undesirable assembly-line work among large groups. Muirhead offers valuable discussions of ancient and modern authors on work, including Plato, Bernard de Mandeville, Max Weber, John Stuart Mill, and Betty Friedan. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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