Work suffering

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Labor pain (or work aversion , English disutility , effort ) is in the economics that in providing the performance emerging effort and workload which a worker feels.

General

The central exchange relationship in a person's life is the exchange of work for wages , whereby the work represents a cost factor from the employee's point of view , which is called work suffering. In utilitarian terms, work is defined as work suffering to which one undergoes for the purpose of generating income , while leisure time is defined as a good with an original use . Work is therefore performed when the benefits of the work (wages, security , prestige , social status , power ) outweigh work suffering. Work suffering is therefore defined as the sum of the “actual” work suffering (that is, the loss of benefit directly linked to the work) and the loss of leisure time.

Suffering from work is associated with the exertion of physical or mental work and the lack of free time. The mental and physical work performance is physiologically a process of consumption that initially depletes the energy reserves of the organs involved , but at the same time also affects the entire organism ; with the energy consumption, the work curve decreases and work suffering increases. The way to work (especially for commuters ) also contributes to the work suffering; it has more effects on physical and mental health than one would expect from a similarly long activity.

In industrial and work sociology , the negative experiences of workers in the work process due to physical exertion, psychological stress and social lack of freedom are considered work suffering.

history

From the youngest to the oldest language level, the word “work” always stood for “hardship”, “plague”, “need”, “complaint”. The Old Testament already combined labor with effort. “Cursed be the field for your sake. With hardship you shall nourish yourself from him all your life ”( Genesis 3:17  EU ). “He will comfort us in our work and the toil of our hands in the field which the Lord has cursed” ( Genesis 5:29  EU ). The ancient Greeks despised hard work ( Greek πόνος , pónos ; "work", "hardship", "punishment") and therefore left it to the slaves or pack animals . Aristotle equated this hard work with slave labor in his Nicomachean Ethics . Not this work, but appropriate activity ( Greek πρᾶξις , praxis ) characterized the citizen. The Roman mythology knew a counterpart for painful work ( Latin labor ), their origin is suspected in the sway of the slaves under their heavy load. In Virgil's didactic poem Georgica , written in 37 BC, the motto “hard work wins over everything” can be found ( Latin labor omnia vincit ). Even today, hardship can be found in French in its original Latin form ( French labeur ). Correspondingly, there was a disdain for work in antiquity, which found its concrete expression through the coercive nature of the working conditions up to and including massive slavery.

The English economist Adam Smith spoke in his basic work The Prosperity of Nations (March 1776) of work suffering as the effort and trouble ( English toil and trouble ) that would have to be expended to acquire a good. The recreational use resulting from enjoying leisure time leads to the fact that work does not create any direct benefit for the employee , but on the contrary causes work suffering ( English disutility , "social worthlessness", "disuse").

The Austrian school predominantly assumed that people experience work suffering: as early as 1911, Arthur Salz classified wages as compensation for the work suffering suffered in the production of goods. In 1927, the economist Friedrich Lenz started from the basic assumption of “natural inertia” ( Latin vis inertiae ), which can only be overcome by external impulses and turn into social activity. “From a certain amount of work on, pleasure turns into displeasure”, although only a critical amount of work leads to work suffering. Ludwig von Mises believed in 1940 that one could escape greater suffering in work and suffering from work because “one works to forget”.

In 1961, the industrial sociologist Wilhelm Baldamus also assumed conflicting interests with regard to work suffering: "Since wages mean personnel costs for employers and the deprivations associated with work suffering also represent costs for employees, the interests of employers and employees are diametrically opposed."

The principal-agent problem led in 1978 on the side of "agents" ( workers a) the work suffering. His actions mean for him efforts that cause him loss of benefit and which he therefore shuns. The theory assumed in the LEN model developed in 1987 that the employer (“principal”) expects a high level of effort from the employee (“agent”), while the employee only prefers a low level of effort. The higher the effort, the less the employee wants to work. The exertion is a burden to him, which reduces his leisure time. This so-called work suffering is a function that depends on the level of exertion . It can be interpreted as the cost of his effort:

The agent's suffering from work increases disproportionately with increasing effort, since the function is squared . In order to choose the higher level of effort preferred by the employer, the agent must be compensated accordingly for the work suffering. Thus both make an agreement in which the agent commits to a certain decision and the principal commits to a compensation payment. The agent's net wage for his work is thus the principal's remuneration minus the work suffering:

The work sociologist Christian von Ferber received his doctorate in 1955 on the subject of “Joy at work, interest in work and job satisfaction. A contribution to the sociology of work in industrial society ”. He subsequently wrote numerous articles on work suffering, for example in 1959 when he criticized the narrow interpretation of the term work in social science . In 1964 he understood work suffering as the "relative refusal of desires and goals ... that our affluent situation sets itself".

economic aspects

In addition to the loss of leisure time, work suffering represents a negative component associated with gainful employment; However, subjective differences in the intensity of work suffering cannot be measured. The longer the commute , the more work volume per unit of time and the longer the target working time is extended ( overtime ), the greater the work suffering. The labor pain corresponds in Applied Physiology , the workload , including anger , frustration , monotony , stress or discomfort belong.

Employers and employees can choose whether the work suffering should be financially compensated by wages and / or mitigated by the design of the work content , workplace , work environment or working hours . The wages are therefore not only the consideration for a certain work performance, but also compensation for the “ labor pain suffered during the production process ”. Work suffering is the (psychological) reaction of the working person to the value of work. If real wages rise, so does the supply of labor , because the opportunity costs of consuming leisure time rise.

With unemployment there is no work suffering. The state transfer payment ( unemployment benefit ) paid more or less prevents the unemployed from looking for work (see Moral Hazard ). From the point of view of the unemployed, the job search represents a loss of benefit from lost leisure time. Therefore, the offered wages must on the one hand compensate for the lost unemployment benefits and on the other hand compensate for the work suffering expected with the job , the amount of which, however, is lower than the (unconditional) expected value of the Work suffering.

In pursuing the goal of maximizing utility, private households have to choose between working time and leisure time, because every household has a budget of time that it has to divide between work and leisure time. For every hour of working time, he incurs opportunity costs equal to the benefit of the lost free time; these costs are called work suffering. According to Gossen's First Law , with decreasing free time (increasing work), the benefit of the remaining time increases, so that the price of free time increases and thus the increase in work suffering per additional work unit (“borderline suffering of work”) increases. The borderline suffering of work indicates for all activities in monetary units which work suffering or which work joy is associated with having to or be allowed to take on a certain activity.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Heinrich, Medienökonomie , Volume 2, 2002, p. 345
  2. ↑ Jürgen Heinrich, Medienökonomie , Volume 2, 2002, p. 345
  3. ↑ Eugen Dick, Investigations of some basic problems of welfare economics , 1973, p. 154
  4. ↑ Oswald Passkönig / Wilhelm Max Wundt, Die Psychologie Wilhelm Wundt: A summary of the individual, animal and ethnic psychology , Part 1, 1912, p. 90
  5. ↑ Juliane Kemen, Mobility and Health , 2016, p. 10
  6. ↑ Werner Fuchs-Heinritz, Lexikon zur Sociology , 1973, p. 52
  7. ↑ Helmut König / Bodo von Greiff / Helmut Schauer (eds.), Social Philosophy of Industrial Work , 1990, p. 4 f.
  8. ↑ Josef Perger, Instantwissen, Bricolage, Tacit Knowledge: a study book on forms of knowledge in Western media culture , 2003, p. 95
  9. ↑ Manfred Füllsack, work , 2009, p. 9
  10. ^ Virgil, Georgica , first book / first main part, 37 BC. BC, verse 145
  11. ↑ Traugott Jähnichen, Social Protestantism and Modern Economic Culture , Volume 7, 1998, p. 102
  12. ^ Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations , 1776/1986, p. 133
  13. ↑ Arthur Salz, On Labor Value and Labor Suffering. A value-critical study , in: Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung, Volume 20, 1911, p. 292
  14. ↑ Friedrich Lenz, Aufriss der Politik Ökonomie , 1927, p. 11
  15. ↑ Umberto Ricci, Die Arbeit in der Individualwirtschaft , in: Hans Mayer (Ed.), Die Wirtschaftstheorie der Gegenwart, Volume 3, 1928, pp. 114 ff.
  16. ↑ Ludwig Von Mises, Economics , Theory of Action and Economics , 1940, p. 533
  17. ^ Wilhelm Baldamus, Efficiency and Effort , 1961, p. 76
  18. ↑ Milton Harris / Artur Raviv, Incentive Contracts , 1978, p. 20
  19. ↑ Christian von Ferber, Joy of Work: Reality and Ideology , 1959, p. 72 f.
  20. ^ Christian von Ferber, Arbeitsleid in der Wohlstandsgesellschaft , in: Soziale Welt, Volume 15, 1964, p. 289
  21. ^ Heinz Haller , The Taxes: Basic Lines of a Rational System of Public Taxes , 1964, p. 46
  22. ↑ Hermann May / Claudia Wiepcke (eds.), Lexicon of Economic Education , 2012, p. 33
  23. ↑ Jochen Hundsdoerfer, The income tax delimitation of income generation and consumption , 2002, p. 325
  24. ^ Arthur Salz, Principles of a theory of wages , in: Hans Mayer (Ed.), Die Wirtschaftstheorie der Gegenwart, Volume 3, 1928, p. 55
  25. ^ Arthur Salz, Principles of a theory of wages , in: Hans Mayer (Ed.), Die Wirtschaftstheorie der Gegenwart, Volume 3, 1928, p. 56
  26. ↑ Werner Stuhlmeier / Gregor Blauermel, A rbeitsmarkttheorien , 1998, p. 49
  27. ^ Ronnie Schöb, Tax Reform and Profit Participation , 2000, p. 52
  28. ^ Andreas Bley, Determinants of Work Fluctuation and Unemployment , 1999, p. 95
  29. ↑ Eberhart Ketzel / Hartmut Schmidt / Stefan Prigge (eds.), Wolfgang Stützel: modern concepts for financial markets, employment and economic constitution , 2001, p. 439