The Nature of Work; R. LeFevre

Normally, we don't refer to actions of this kind as work. When we talk about work, we usually mean that a goal has been established and means are being employed toward the attainment of that goal. How ever, a ,man who is engaged in a sport activity is ((working" at it. A man who has become destructive and is trying to rob a bank or a filling station is ttworking." In common usage, we reserve the word work for our constructive goals. So, 370 Robert LeFevre ifthe goal is not constructive, we say that the man is playing or loafing. And if he is robbing a bank, we say that he is engaged in robbery and we don't dignify that action by calling it work. Begin thinking of your child as a worker. Certainly, he is going to play and day-dream and waste a good deal of time. This is only to be expected of any individual who doesn't really know what to do and hence doesn't know which means to adopt in order to employ his ener gies. The more quickly your child accepts certain goals as his own, the more quickly you can help him learn the proper means for the ac complishment of those goals. Work, as used· here, will be limited to goal-oriented procedures of a con structive nature.

THE NATURE OF WORK 371 Interestingly enough, the child may resist the idea of working at the outset. This is usually because he doesn't understand what he is to do or why he is to do it. Children really enjoy being busy. And it is no hard ship for them to be busy construc tively. Actually, they are going to be uworking" one way or another, in that they will certainly be engaged in expending their energies. The child who understands reality and how he fits into it, will have an enormous advantage over the child who doesn't. The former will very soon fmd things that he wants to do. Because he is motivated by what he wants to do, he will be eager to discover the ways and means to pro ceed in the direction he wishes to go. The Joy of Working How important is it that a person work? Most people stress economic necessity, indicating that if you don't work, you won't earn the money by means ofwhich you can be self-supporting. This is true enough, but it is only part of the story. Fac tually, you and your child are going to be engaged in expending your energies. And the happiest and most successful people are those who work and work hard.

To begin with, the work of your child is going to be concentrated to a large degree in various learning processes. Make no mistake about it, that, too, is work. It takes discipline, Mr. LeFevre founded and for years presided over the Freedom School in Colorado and has written extensively in behalf of freedom and the market. This article is a chapter, re printed by permission, from his latest book, Raising Chil dren for Fun and Profit, a home-study course to equip the parent to instill in his prog eny the necessary knowl edge and values, including character, integrity, self responsibility, and self esteem, by means of which the child can deal with the facts of life, both in school and beyond school. The book is available at $10.00 from P. K. Slocum, 7333 Corey Street, Downey, California 90242. concentration, self-control, and commitment to be either a good stu dent or a good teacher. But the whole purpose of education is to assist the individual in putting his know ledge to work. To know some thing for the sake of knowing it may be fine. But to know something that can be used constructively is what we all desire.

Viewing humanity as a whole gives us another insight into the business of work. All men are con372 THE FREEMAN June sumers and their wants and desires are insatiable. We all want more and more things to consume. There is no mystery about it. If those things are going to exist, they will have to be produced. Somebody is going to have to do the work that makes production possible. Man, by his nature, is a consumer. Educated, mature man is also a producer. We begin life as consumers and we will continue to consume until we die. Production is a learned skill. We don't come into the world prepared to work and to produce and distrib ute and serve. Children are little, animated appetites and they de mand goods and services inces. santly. Look at it this way. An individual will consume during his entire life. But how much of his life will be spent in production? Usually, only the middle portion. When a man is yet a child, he does not produce, as a rule. And when he becomes truly elderly or possibly when he becomes ill or decrepit, he will not be able to produce. So the work span of man is much shorter than his consumption span. What does that mean?

It means that for human life as we know it to continue to exist, and hopefully to be a better life with more opportunities for joy and ful fillment, those of us who are en gaged in producing are going to have to produce a great deal. We are going to have to produce enough in our productive years to bridge the much longer time in which we won't be producing. The Importance of SaVing Human survival is based upon the ability to create surpluses. If we consumed today everything we pro duced today, we would begin each day in a situation of unbearable want, deprivation, and starvation. Properly, the parents are productive enough so that while they are rais ing their children they are produc ing enough to take care of their own wants and also to invest in the wants of the children. Hopefully, when that is accomplished the par ents will continue to produce so they can create sufficient surpluses to tide them over their later years when they will not be able to pro duce enough, or possibly when they cannot produce at all.

There is still another reason why surpluses are important. Every act of production is preceded by an in vestment of one kind or another. Investments are only possible where surpluses exist. So the more we can produce, the larger our surpluses can become. The larger our surpluses, the more we can invest. The more we can invest, the higher our standard of living and the more constructive our employment. The more constructive our employment, the greater our degree of security and wellbeing. In short, the more 1979 THE NATUR~ OF WORK 373 and the better we work, the better for us all. Interestingly, most of us have been conditioned in our earlier life to look forward to our vacations and our time off from work rather than to our work. This is a complete de parture from reality. Vacation times are not necessarily happy times. They may be necessary, just as sleep is necessary. But if a person is cor rectly educated, he will find work that he will enjoy and he will look forward to it because he can do it well and he gets all kinds of rewards for doing it.

The person who is yearning for vacation and for sleep and for time to loll under a tree as his main interest in life is, to a degree, long ing for death. He wants to discon nect from the reality of this world, hoping to find surcease from pain and effort, one way or another. If children are proPerly educated, they will long to work; they will find great fulfillment in work; and they will work very hard and very long in the attainment of their goals. The happy man is not he who has nothing to do. Examine the records covering men who retire once they reach the age of sixty-five, either because they are compelled to retire or because they choose to do so. Unless they can find hobbies or some other kind of work that will engross them, their life expectancy is reduced rapidly. Living really means working (Le., constructively employing one's energies). These are some of the reasons why work is important.

Three Types of Work Work could be classified in vari ous categories and at several levels. Remember, we are considering only constructive, goal-oriented en deavors. There is physical work. This is the employment of our ener gies, in doing simple tasks where our muscles and bones are employed directly. There is always some mea sure of skill entailed in any kind of work, even very simple work. A man who digs a ditch, runs a hand lawn-mower, or loads a freight car is using some skills, but the principal demand on him is in the expenditure of his own physical energy. The next classification would be called skilled labor. The skilled worker has learned to deal with machines or mechanisms or power or electronic tools which, in them selves, do most of the work. A typist is a skilled worker. So is a man who drives a tractor, a truck, or a bulldozer, or who operates a linotype machine, a lathe, a drill press, or an electronic calculator. Most of the ac tual work in such cases is done by the machine. However, very skillful management of those machines is required to keep them doing their best. A skilled worker can work just as hard as a physical \vorker. But he 374 THE FREEMAN June uses a relatively smaller amount of his own physical energy, concentrat ing usually on how he moves his fingers, or possibly his arms and legs. Frequently, the skilled worker can sit down as he works, although that is not always possible, depend ing on the tool he uses.

Then there is the mental worker. He employs his brains in the ac complishment of some objective. Mental workers would include both teachers and students, as well as lawyers, writers, analysts, re searchers, and inventors. Almost al ways there is a certain amount of skilled labor that accompanies men tal labor. The teacher must study, and that means getting books and turning pages, and taking trips to see things and possibly experimenting with various tools and substances. And then the teacher must com municate. An architect is a mental worker, but he also employs the tools of the artist in his craftsman ship. The lawyer must be able to prepare a brief and to argue the case of his client. A writer must not only think what he wants to say, he must do the skillful work of selecting the right words and putting them down on paper. You can think of scores of examples in each of these three cat egories.

Because mental work is the most difficult, and also the least visible, we often feel that mental workers are somehow superior. This is probably as it should be. To become a competent user of the· mind takes some extraordinary skills. Further, in this world we tend to reward mental workers at a rather high rate of pay. So there is a kind of prestige that attaches to mental work, including the advantage of more dollars. However, this does not mean that there is anything wrong or demean ing about other kinds of work. All kinds of jobs need doing. House wives do a lot of physical work re quiring only modest skills. Also, they do other kinds of work requir ing a much higher degree of skill, as when they cook and prepare and plan meals. Additionally, when a housewife becomes a teacher, she is really engaged at the mental level. We demand a very great deal from the housewife. Rare Skills Rewarded The businessman and the investor also works very hard in a variety of ways. He has certain very rare skills if he is to succeed. And this will require physical, skilled, and men tal energy.

Sometimes, in our economy, we pay the very highest wages, not to those with the best mental ability, but to those with very rare skills. Professional athletes draw salaries that are sometimes two and three times more than heads of giant cor porations. Yet all they do is carry a 1979 THE NATURE OF WORK 375 ball very well, or possibly they can knock a ball over a fence better than anyone else. Still others perform in the art world or the theater with its many phases. Men and women who are skillful in the arts can earn fantastic pay. But the demands upon them are sometimes staggering. In teaching your child about work it is important that you find out where his motivations and his abilities take him. Naturally, you will want him to advance as far as he can toward his chosen goals. And it might be well to realize that the higher the goal (higher in the sense of the limited numbers of persons able to perform), the more different types of knowledge and skill that will be demanded.

Many parents refrain from giving their children physical chores around the house, feeling that such chores are beneath the child, since he has rather conspicuous talents of a more advanced nature. This may actually stunt the child's develop ment. Few people work any harder physically than a ballet· dancer, an opera singer, a housewife, or even a good writer. It takes discipline and untold hours of dedicated practice and commitment to become compe tent in these fields. They can begin learning muscular coordination, which is always important, by run ning errands, dusting, sweeping, mowing grass, and carrying pack ages. If the proper attitude is developed toward work, you will usu ally find little difficulty in getting your child to do chores around the house. Perhaps the child feels that his parents are imposing upon him and taking away his freedom when he is asked to help. But this is probably because he wasn't asked in the right way.

A Goal to Achieve Your child needs to be goal oriented. He will have greater hap piness and greater self-assurance if he is active in moving toward some thing he wishes to accomplish. Ac tivity for your child is not exclu sively physical. If the mind of the child is active, and especially when the mind and the body can be active in harmony aimed at an ac complishment, the tendency to feel imposed upon will be reduced or will disappear. Parents must take care that they don't harm the child by keeping the chores away from him. Also, they should not impose. The important item to bear in mind isn't the amount of work the child does, but his motivation in connection with the work. Curiously the child who busies himself with chores is usually the child who gets more done in other areas, too. Busy people get more done of their own choosing than people who loaf. When the child gets into the habit of loafing, 376 THE FREEMAN June he not only will not help but he probably won't even help·himself.

The child who is thought of as important, not only in what he does but in what he thinks, is usually well adjusted. He feels that he is part of the team, that the team wouldn't function quite as well without him. He will begin taking pride in the things he does and he will find ampIe time to pursue his own development as he begins set ting major goals for himself. Of overarching importance is the child's mental·and moral outlook. If the child becomes convinced, as a result of his early training, that one of the most important things he can do is to become self-supporting so that he ~~hurts no man," including his parents, and if, at the same time, his parents trust him and consult him and listen seriously and even gravely to his observations, even though he will reveal his lack of experience, that child will probably be happy. And the groundwork will have been laid to make him success ful.

The Appropriate Attitude In our present situation, work is looked down upon as an evil. It is viewed, of course, as necessary. But it is a necessary evil. If you will go to work to eliminate this kind of think ing in your home and certainly with your child, the rewards to you will be substantial. No child will be happy if his par ent sneers at him as a result of the work he does. Sometimes parents unintentionally begin to nag their children, feeling that their offspring could do so much more and so much better than they are doing. So they keep prodding with little remarks dropped from time to time to indi cate a lack of satisfaction in their children's behavior. Usually, this will not have the result the parents desire. When a child embarks upon a task and doesn't do a good job, the parent should exhibit a good sense of pro portion and humor. And he should focus his attention upon the job, not upon the child, if the work is done badly. Instead of saying: ~tMary, you can do better than that," it would be better to say: ttMary, I think it is possible for that job to be done bet ter." Then, don't scold or find fault with the person. Stick with the real ity of the job requirements.

Possibly the reason the task was poorly performed was that Mary didn't quite understand how to do it. Perhaps you have already shown her. But remember, her mind may have been engaged elsewhere and she only partially understood. You must exhibit the same degree of pa tience on such an occasion as you would want from your employer if you turned in a poor performance. Be sure that your child understands the nature of the task. Equally im1979 THE NATURE OF WORK 377 portant, be sure the child knows why the task must be performed. Al though it may seem obvious to you, remember, your child knows a great deal less about reality than you do. He may not have understood why the floors have to be kept clean. Be sure the child learns as much about it as you know. Also, be careful not to insist on the performance of chores simply on the basis of your authority. ((Mary, I told you to do the dishes."

((Why, Mommy?" ((Because I told you to." This is no answer insofar as the child's curiosity is concerned. Her busy mind, in this case, may be considering the advisability of hav ing each person clean up his own dishes. Or possibly the desirability F. A. Harper of never cleaning any of them might occur. What harm would it be if everyone just got his own dirty dishes back again? Don't laugh at the child, laugh at the task. This makes the burden lighter. Explain the consequences of not doing the dishes. If the child seems willful, some times an example can be provided. Get all the dishes done except Mary's and let her have her own dirty dishes back again, at the next meal. When Mary begins taking pride in her accomplishments and when she sees that they are important and make her a respected and valued member of the family team, you'll be well on your way toward instilling the value of work. i) IDEAS ON UBERTY INTELLECTUAL and moral guidance, voluntarily accepted by the follower, is no violation of liberty; it is, in fact, a main purpose of liberty so that the blind are free to follow th.ose who can see. The danger is that in the absence of liberty the blind may become authorized to lead those who can see-by a chain around their necks!

The terrific urge to prevent another person from making a ~~mistake" must be resisted if liberty is to be preserved. The ~~protective spirit" that leads a fond parent to prohibit his child from acquiring mature judg ments, as he substitutes his own opinions for those of the child, leads the dictator to act as he does in llprotecting" his political children. There is no possible way to allow a person to be right without also allowing him to be wrong. The only way to avoid responsibility for another's mistakes is to allow him the full glory and reward of being right, as well as the full dishonor and penalty of being wrong. Only in this way can one person isolate himself from the mistakes of another, whether it be a Stalin or a neighbor.