The Right to Work vs. the Right to a Job

Wait, Aren't Those the Same Thing?

Today is May Day, an international observance of gains made by workers in industrialized societies. In some Christian circles, it’s the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker (I wrote more about Joseph’s virtues in my Substack post for Apr. 17).

A portion of Gerard van Honthorst’s painting, ‘Childhood of Christ’ (~1620), showing the child Jesus with Joseph in the workshop. Image is in the public domain, shared from Wikimedia Commons.

So, let’s talk about work and jobs!

I remember a junior-high-school teacher asking me if I thought the government owed people a job. I answered affirmatively, “If they expect me to pay taxes, then they should find me a job so I can pay.”

My logic was OK, but my principles were off.

Since then, I’ve learned plenty. My logic is even more sound, but more importantly, my ethics and ability to frame an issue have improved, since I understand natural human rights. From my very first Substack:

[N]atural human rights: valid claims that any person can make, pre-politically, simply by virtue of being human.

What valid claims can people make, pre-politically?

• A claim to one’s own person (life).

• A claim to one’s intentional actions and consent-based, voluntary interactions with others (liberty).

• A claim to cultivated and duly obtained material goods not already validly claimed by another person (property).

How does this inform the questions of work and jobs?

AI-generated image by Naturfaka, available on Pixabay.

Work and Job aren’t exactly the same

It’s vital for people to participate in their own survival and potential prosperity. We call this, “work.”

And since not all of us can be the sole providers of everything we need and want, we arrive at the division of labor and trade: the commitment to a defined, limited set of tasks, the fruits of which can be exchanged with others for their products.

What we commonly know as a “job” is the combination of targeted, structured work with an expectation of a pre-defined compensation for our time and effort. And since we have no natural right to a preferred result — especially if someone else is expected to provide it to us — we have no natural right to a job.

But we do have the natural human right to our self-directed attempt to better our condition through a combination of liberty and property: work.

People who homestead are engaged in very real work, but don’t have the guarantees associated with jobs. Many entrepreneurs face this risky reality, too. And people who leave employment (whether by their own choice or their employers’) often find themselves engaging in open-ended work — perhaps in the “gig economy” — while looking for the next structured job (or maybe they find that they prefer the open-ended work and don’t look for that next job!).

My own story shows Work vs. Job

My first career was in newspapers, but the industry was dying; I left before downsizing hit my old newsroom.

I then spent many years as an independent contractor in music, live events, writing and publishing, some temp work, and teaching. My work had little in the way of regularity and long-term guarantees; no real job.

Freelancing in engineering and operations at a television network turned into a full-time role, but my position was eliminated in late 2020 (blamed on the “pandemic,” as many things were).

A woman works with electronic components in an engineering lab. Photo by This_is_Engineering, available on Pixabay.

This led me to a coding/software bootcamp and a job as an entry-level development engineer at a large online retailer. Management changes and a wave of headcount reorganization and downsizing struck, and I was let go in 2022 along with many others in the industry (and several other juniors at the same company).

At no time did I have a right to those specific jobs; I was employed based on an agreement, not based on some innate claim.

But I’ve always had the right to work: to contribute to my own continued existence.

My book Good Neighbor, Bad Citizen (available at Amazon, B&N, Lulu) and this Substack are the latest examples of me taking risks and trying something, without an employer guaranteeing me a paycheck. Plenty of others are in similar situations, especially in an employment market that’s not nearly as strong as government officials pretend: Full-time jobs fell during the past 12 months — and jobs for non-immigrants have been essentially flat since 2018 — while part-time and government jobs provide all the alleged job gains.

Will any of my ventures succeed enough to pay my bills? Will I land another job working for a company? I don’t know. There are no guarantees, and I’m not entitled to any.

But I do have the right to work, so I keep myself busy and try to participate in my own surviving and thriving.

As I pray every day during my brief wake-up meditation, with respect to my work/job situation: “I need to stay alert and pay attention, fulfill my responsibilities and let other people fulfill their responsibilities. Patience and action.”

Did this ‘work’, or do I need to do a better ‘job’? Let me know!

What’s been your experience as a worker? Do you like being employed by a company? Do you like being your own boss?

If you’ve had jobless stretches, how did you keep busy? Did your self-directed work lead to some surprises for you?

Anything else interest you about the themes in this post?

Share your thoughts in the Comments …