June 12, 2006
Will Wilkinson does a just if labored fisk of Anya Kamenetz' assumptions in her NYTimes objection to unpaid internships.
Apparently the neo-Marxist view of labor is outraged by gratitude for a sought-after job opportunity. [Ed. query: are employers allowed to be grateful to labor? Or is the concept itself suspect?]
A lot of the discussion comes down to the difference between a student who can support herself for three months of an instructive and door-opening internship, and one in financial straits. The advantage of planning, saving, pure good luck, of student or parents. A looong discussion could follow, on whether a world that erased those things would be a good world, with equality flourishing.
Intrinsic in this constellation of thought is a horror of contentment and gratitude, as well as excellence. A certain view of labor and capital sees no subtleties in exchange except maximum money for minimum work. Whether that feeds the soul of the employee is a decision for each to make. More practically, whether that policy can be sustained is another question. Psychologically, it deifies the employer, like the view of an emotionally stunted child who thinks the parent can control everything and that tantrums will endlessly extract desired concessions. And that the extorted toy will bring happiness.
The Marxist investment can only leverage with anger, unhappiness, and discontent as motivators of the objects of the message. More creative and satisfying conjunctions, and the injustice collectors are out of a job. With a worldview that is getting thinner with every meal, marooned on the side of the road.
P.S. Any student who could have qualified for an unpaid internship slot with a substantial enterprise such as the ones Kamenetz mentions, and who because of lack of family funds must take a paying job instead, is hereby offered 3 months of free professional lifecoaching on turning the non-glamor job into a the equivalent of a door-opening internship.
Applications to LifeCoach Austin by e-mail.
Anyone?
psssst. Submit something for Thursday's psych carnival
Posted by: IndianCowboy | June 12, 2006 at 06:08 PM
I'll match you, Dilys. Were it not for the non-glamour jobs and messy twists of turns of my life, I wouldn't be so well qualified for the perfect work I do now. I wouldn't trade a minute of my disadvantaged past for an eternity of flatland equality.
Posted by: Molly Gordon, MCC | June 17, 2006 at 11:35 PM