In the Society: From Economics to Politics

The Domains of the Value of Work

The issues on work and value are not confined to a economic aspect; work and its value had better be studied in three domains:

1-The Purely Economic Domain: Economists deal with the observable effects of work, its usefulness, demand, production, etc. Man and human values and principles seldom show up in economists' discussions. Some economic schools of thought, like the physiocrats, consider issues concerning work as purely economic, and ignore human beings who do no work at all. They see economic effects similar to other physical issues; they even let the powerful to do as they please – with the excuse of enforcing social order – which actually allows them to also break any law they like, too. 

2-The Socio-economic Domain: Here, dealing with issues on work and its value is more difficult, for the social factors of work, production and distribution and the need to prevent inflation and unemployment have a great influence on work and labor. In this domain, work and its value find a humane aspect, and profiteering tendencies are decreased. However, some intellectuals interpret the society in a way to pay less attention to the value of man; they see the society as a set of individuals who are absolutely free, and should only be careful not to disturb others. From such a viewpoint, social laws only serve to provide mutual coexistence. These thinkers do not realize that man's selfish, advantage-seeking nature cannot be corrected with mere social laws; the highest of human values and supernatural principles must dominate man's life in order to control his selfishness.

3-The Human-economic Domain: This domain is related to intelligible life – that is, the type of life based on divine principles and values. Man's mental and physical forces are not at the service of the power-greedy and the selfish, who tend to use them as buyers of their cleverly advertised – but in fact harmful and intoxicating – goods and increase their own riches. In this domain, work and economic endeavor does not move toward stupefying people and adding to the wealth of the minority of the selfish.  Rather, it serves to fulfill man's real needs and uphold social justice. 

Various Kinds and Aspects of Human Work

A preliminary classification of human work can be:

a)Mental efforts and positive mental work

b) Physical work

Mental work can be classified into these groups:

1-Purely mental work: such as mathematical, logical or philosophical thoughts. Purely mental efforts may lead to physically observable results. However, one out of every thousand mental endeavors may lead to such effects only. 

2-Mental work as a preliminary for physically observable work: Such mental efforts serve as the preliminary to administer things like designing or engineering activities.

3-Mental work in order to continue with the natural flow of an issue: For example, thoughts on medicine in order to diagnose an illness or cure a disease, or legal mental effort aiming to destroy atrocity and help the oppressed, which may all lead to social justice. 

4-Mental work serving to elevate man's individual life and build a desirable social life: Actions taken with educational aims are examples of this category. Such forms of work help human potentials and talents flourish.

5-Artistic mental work: Some forms of artistic work are imitative, and can be regarded as professions. Others, which are innovative, are exploratory, mental activities. Mental artistic work can be categorized into three groups:

a)Artistic work materialized upon useful material which makes the material look beautiful. The artistic work both fulfills the individual's needs and saturates his aesthetic tendencies. 

b)Artistic work that motivates man to achieve intelligible life: A beautiful painting or an exquisitely meaningful poem can activate man's feelings to gain an intelligible life.

c)Artistic work that merely shows the artist's brainchild: This form of work depicts the pinnacle of the artist's imagination, like abstract works of art that are irrelevant to reality. 

6-Political mental effort: This kind of work involves a series of logical thoughts aiming to make social intelligible life go on. 

7-Exploratory mental effort: The six forms mentioned above follow logical rules, but this form of work goes far beyond logic. This is why most discoverers are not professional logic scholars. Edison was not an expert on logic, and neither were Mendeleyev or Roentgen. Some forms of mental work may serve merely to satisfy our curiosity, whereas they possess great value to economy and standard of living.

From a humanistic/economic point of view, work is highly significant, for it relates to man's intelligible life.

Physical work: Let us further elaborate physical work by considering it from three aspects:

1-The internal aspect: Any muscular work is accompanied by a series of internal factors, some of which are the causes for the work, some others occur tat he same time as the piece of work is produced, and some others occur after the final product is created. The factors that serve as the cause for the work and begin functioning prior to the work are:

●The necessary information for the work

●The willingness, determination and will power to do the work

●The will power to receive and understand parts of the work

In kinds of work that are created by free will, the dominance of the character upon positive and negative poles and the quality and characteristics are also important, for they manage the internal factors. 

The factors mentioned above are related to these four issues:

a)The information and experience about the work

b)The eagerness, reluctance, force or emergency to do the work

c)The quality of managing the factors and internal phenomena concerning the work

d)The ideological viewpoints concerning the work

Many kinds of work – mental and physical – have been carried out by means of ideological motives throughout history. 

The internal factors that are simultaneous with the work are using mental and muscular energy, continuous awareness about doing the work and readiness to prevent inhibiting factors. 

Some of the mental and spiritual phenomena that occur subsequent to the work are: new experiences, the joy of having completed the work, or the feeling of sadness or frustration of having done something we are forced to do, or we do reluctantly.

2-The external aspect: Man's muscular movement in order to carry out the work. 

3-The aspect of picturing work in the material: Here, by picturing we mean the various shapes and qualities that materialize upon the materials used as a result of the work, and a product is made. 

 

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