Speaker 0 00:00:01 Hello and welcome to today's clubhouse chat. Uh, we are waiting for Rob , who is hopefully no longer stuck in a snow storm. And I'll bring Scott up to keep me company. Scott. What part of the country are you from? I'm
Speaker 1 00:00:30 In Orlando.
Speaker 0 00:00:32 Okay. Have you been there for a while or a transplant?
Speaker 1 00:00:38 Um, oh, I moved from Maryland when, uh, with my family when I was nine, uh, grew up here and, uh, just, um, you know, moved away and moved back.
Speaker 0 00:00:50 All right. Well, and I understand you are going to be a pinch hitting for me on Friday, so thank you. And Rob, welcome, Rob you're unmute. So you may
Speaker 2 00:01:06 Want to say that I just figured that
Speaker 0 00:01:08 Out. Okay, great. Well, uh, welcome Rob. Welcome everybody for our Tuesday clubhouse chat. Uh, we are going to be taking audience questions and we're also going to record because we've been getting a ton of downloads, um, for, uh, these conversations in podcast form. So, uh, Rob, why don't you introduce the topic for us? What his work isn't. I was looking forward to this cause I'm the kind of person that it's like. My biggest pet peeve is when people say TGI app, I'm like, if it's TGI F maybe you need to find a better job, I'm a TGI person, so, okay.
Speaker 2 00:01:51 Let's see. I'm, I'm, I'm even worse than that. Uh, uh, Jennifer, I'm a, uh, I'm a Monday through Friday. Doesn't matter person. I've worked in the evenings. I'm working on the weekends whenever I can shove it in. Um, and in fact, I I've, I've worked very hard to avoid the nine to five, Monday to Friday approach to work. Uh, but let's, let's back up a little bit. So it's this about work ism, as opposed now, it's not for those who might have seen this and skimmed over it, not woke ism. That's a different thing. This is work as with an R. So, um, I also want to say, I, sorry for missing last week's clubhouse. We got this giant snow apocalypse here in Virginia, knocked out the power everywhere. But the last thing I managed to do before that hit last week was to publish a, finish the edits and everything on an article.
Speaker 2 00:02:47 Uh, that's very relevant to this. It's in quilt and it's the need for a culture of achievement that was published January 5th. So I guess it went up last Thursday. And, um, uh, this is, we're talking about the it's called the need for a culture of achievement. It's really a response to a very bad piece that they did on iron Rand a couple of weeks earlier. And, uh, this is looking at what Iran has to offer and what she has to offer is I don't put it in those terms of this article, but what she has to offer his work handsome, what she has to offer is the idea that productive work is a source of meaning and value in your life, as opposed to what the alternatives are for sources of meaning of value in your life, in your life. And what I talk about there is there's a study that got a lot of attention a few years ago.
Speaker 2 00:03:37 It's really quite brilliant. A couple of guys did a study. Um, hold on, I'm looking up their names here. Um, it's Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning did a study a few years back. Uh, there's sociologists who did a study, where they described three kinds of cultures. And I've talked about this a bit before on our clubhouses, but this is the first time I've really put this down in print. Um, and it it's the idea that there's a, they said there's a culture of honor. So if you think about, you know, an aristocratic culture, you think about the practice of dueling where you're, you know, if somebody insults your honor, you have to fight them to get your honor back. That's the old aristocratic code, the older Chris' Socratic society, where everything's about honor. Uh, then they said, there's a culture of dignity. And this is very much the 19th century.
Speaker 2 00:04:24 Think of, you know, somebody like Frederick Douglas or, uh, as a late version of that Martin Luther king Jr. Where the pure personal dignity, uh, which really comes from your own view of yourself is what gives meaning and value to your life. And so it, you know, it can't really be taken away of bike, taken away by anyone else. You can be a slave like Frederick Douglas. You could be, you know, the, uh, victim of injustice and you can still maintain your dignity because it's your own internal sense of value. And then they say that what we have today though, is a culture of victim-hood where everybody gets their meaning and value in your life and status in society comes from claiming to be a victim. And that's why you have to go out and find as many microaggressions as you possibly can, even though microaggression is by definition, trivial and marginal.
Speaker 2 00:05:13 Um, so what I've suggested there as the idea of that, what iron Rand offers, and especially, uh, I I've leaned a lot on the Fountainhead. What you offers is the idea of a culture of achievement in which I say a quote in which in, at work innovation and productiveness give life meaning and value. All right. So this is what I argue for in the Quilla piece. And the thing is I knew I did that, knowing that there's a whole line of argument out there, very popular that you hear a lot D uh, that's, it's tackling this as work ism. Now, what is work as well, work as, um, is really just an updated version of the word workaholic, right? So this is the idea that, you know, being a quote unquote, addicted to work, being somebody who spends a lot of time working who works very hard is the equivalent of being an alcoholic.
Speaker 2 00:06:02 It's a self destructive addiction. Now that was sort of obviously a kind of a sphere created years ago, uh, to, to attack the idea of work. Uh, but that's been updated as work as ism and work as them as specifically, the idea that it's attacking the idea work ism is the idea that it is work that gives meaning and value to your life. The work that you do, the career that you choose that gives meaning a value to your life. And they're hacking that idea as destructive. Now, if you look, if you just do a Google search for work ism, like the second link you'll get, I think the first link goes indirectly to this, but the second link, it goes directly to it. And it goes to, uh, an article by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic, uh, from 2019. So it was, uh, not, not quite two years, oh, sorry.
Speaker 2 00:07:00 About not quite three years old. Uh, and it's called work. Ism is making Americans miserable and the subtitle is for the college educated elite work has morphed into a religious identity, promising transcendence and community, but failing to deliver now, and as begins with this complaint about how, uh, John Maynard Keynes, the great sort of big government economists once predicted, oh, with all mechanization coming in soon, we'll have a 15 hour work week. And the only problem people will have is what to do with all of their leisure time that they have. All right. So, and it points out that this prediction did not come out, turn out to be true. In fact, we know we work as many, we work fewer hours than we did in, um, in the early 20th century, but not a lot fewer. And we work more hours. Uh, then people did people do in most other advanced industrialized company countries, Americans work, work more hours.
Speaker 2 00:08:04 And, uh, uh, the interesting finding here is that if the well-off the wealthier, the more educated workers, the more skilled workers who often work more hours than other workers in the American economy, which is actually different from what it used to be, uh, that if you were a blue collar worker, you were headed to work more hours, but if you were one of the well-off people, you would, you know, have easy days and knock off at five o'clock every day, uh, on the dot. All right? So, but it's this idea of, of, of attacking the idea that we would find meaning and value in work. And specifically here's the specific sort of late 20th century, early 21st century version, which was, they're also attacking the Silicon valley version of this, which is the, do what you love ethos of Silicon valley. The idea that you are is it, uh, the complaint here is that people are reared from their teenage years to make their passion their career.
Speaker 2 00:09:02 And if they don't have a calling told not to yield until they find one. So it's the idea of work as a calling as specifically, not just, you know, not just as a practical necessity, you have to work hard in order to provide for your family. It's the idea that you work because you love your work and you find fulfillment and meaning in your, in your work. Now, obviously the big thing about work is this is a good thing that you would find fulfillment and meaning in your work. But there's a couple of in just a couple of minutes here. I want to unpack a couple of really bad premises in here. So one of them is the idea that why aren't we, uh, with all of this mechanism, mechanization with all the tech, dialogical and economic advances, why are we, uh, enjoying all this tremendous leisure time?
Speaker 2 00:09:51 And I want to point out that, well, you know, John Maynard Keynes was right. You could work a 15 hour week and provide for yourself if you wanted. I think it was 1930 that, uh, John Maynard Keynes made this prediction. So you could have a 15 hour work week and have all this leisure time. If you were content with the standard of living of the average person, American in 1930, right. But this would be without a car without a telephone. In both cases, if you actually go and tick down all the lists of things, even I, I did this recently for a column where I was talking about the 1950s. I think I use 1960 as my base, 1958 or 1960 as my baseline. And I talked about how easy it would be to live at the exact standard of living of, you know, of, of, of ward Cleaver and leave it to beaver.
Speaker 2 00:10:44 Right. Well, imagine going back 30 years before that it would be even easier. You could definitely work 10, 15 hours a week and have, you know, this extremely simple, the strips down lifestyle compared to today, which would be the normal lifestyle of 1930. Now that makes clear though, the reason why we didn't do that, which is this zero sum or static view of the economy, right? If you think that there's just the only goal is to live exactly as you live today and not advance at all and not have more and better things, then you would, you would certainly, you know, the, the technological progress automation, any kind of economic progress would lead to the ability to have enormous amounts of leisure time. Now, we don't do that because we are ambitious because we want more, uh, because we understand the concept of progress. So I think a lot of this attitude of why don't we use all this leisure time comes from this sort of outdated view.
Speaker 2 00:11:46 So think of your, you know, cast your mind back. Let's say it's a thousand years ago or 2000 years ago at that time, economic and technological progress was so slow that it would be natural to think of it in a static way to think that, well, there's just a certain, you know, there's a certain cap there to give. This is the best that anyone can live. The standard of living of, uh, of, of, of an average person at that time is the best that anyone can aspire to live. There's really nothing, any better, because it wouldn't have changed very much in your lifetime or in the lifetime, even of your parents. But of course, we live in a modern technological, industrial society. We live a little over two centuries since the industrial revolution, we have the knowledge that the standard of living we have now can be even better.
Speaker 2 00:12:33 We can have more and we can have cooler gadgets. And so we have this attitude of, you know, we essentially, you, you decide how much you want to work and you work that much and you get, as you know, and as technological progress occurs, rather than cutting back on your hours, you, you boost up your lifestyle. You, you, you buy exciting and fun and exciting and interesting new things. You have more and better, uh, goods and, and more and better leisure opportunities even, right? So that's the, the, um, uh, uh, the ambition that fuels it. Now, the other aspect of it though, which I find interesting is it talks about here about how, you know, in previous societies, uh, in place of work ism, there was the idea. If you, you know, they basically refer to this sort of, I call it the, uh, the Jane Austin sort of lifestyle.
Speaker 2 00:13:30 So think of a Jane Austen novel, or a Jane Austin, a movie, you know, there's been a, uh, a hundred movie adaptations based on Jane Austin, think that the lifestyle of a gentleman, or of a, a, an aristocrat in a Jane Austen novel, where it's all about relationships and marriages and family and leisure activities. And, you know, having to work for a living is considered ignoble. Uh, these are the people always off to the sidelines, into the background of the people who actually work for a living. Uh, they're looked down upon in that society. And that's what really comes out for, especially from this article in the Atlantic, is that the actual alternative to work as a work, as something that gives meaning and value to your life, the actual alternative is at essentially a democratized aristocracy, the idea that we should all live, like people in a Jane Austen novel, or all live like, you know, aristocrats in a previous era where work is looked down upon, it said ignoble necessity of life.
Speaker 2 00:14:30 And instead, you know, the real focus of your life should be on your leisure activities. And, you know, the thing to look at too, is the essential emptiness of that kind of life, that it's all leisure and no actual central activity. That's capable of absorbing a person's full focus and attention and requiring their full they're full talents. It's all rest. And if it's all rusted, no work, then the rest is less menial. The, the rest full activities, the leisure activities are less meaningful. So I wanted to talk about this. You know, obviously this is something that, you know, in iron rants novels that the central importance and hunter philosophy, the essential importance of work is so, so dominant that w we are the, you know, this is the philosophy of work ism, uh, if ever there was one. And so I, I think that the positive side of this is that the fact that people are complaining about work ism means that in part, because of Iran's influence the idea that work is meaningful, that you should seek meaningful work. And that it's something that can give purpose and meaning to your life has become widely accepted. And I think that's the positive aspect of this. The fact that people are complaining about it, to some extent means that this outlook, that Iran championed, especially, uh, has actually become widely accepted.
Speaker 0 00:15:56 Well, that is positive indeed. Um, I want to just acknowledge a few people in the room. Uh, we have Jayla pear, who is the chairman of the board of the Atlas society. Uh, and speaking of people who embrace work ism, I see my friend, Vanessa, she's a director of, uh, strategy and outreach for some Ciudad Atlas who always has several jobs going. Um, of course, Dale, Autumn's a supporter of our work and a friend and my creative partner, Patrick reasonable. So, uh, want to encourage those who have a comment, are you a TGF person or a TGIM person, or somewhere in the middle, um, please raise your hand and join our discussion. So, uh, Rob, you know, there's also been this trend in recent years of minimalism, you know, people, uh, giving away their goods or just pairing down, um, to very simple clothes, simple living, uh, accommodations. And is that related?
Speaker 2 00:17:11 Oh, absolutely. It's related. Um, there's a, it's related to another trend, which I've noticed, which is the, um, people giving you advice on how to retire at age 30. And, uh, now usually the, uh, as, from what I can tell that their own plan for how to retire at age 30 is they're going to give seminars and sell books and how to retire at age 30. And then all the other people who want to retire at age 30, we'll pay them money. And then they'll use that for them to be able to retire at age 30, that's their plan. But the, the thing that struck me about retiring at age 30 is, and then what, and did an interesting article. They actually tracked down some of the people who had done this and found that, you know, the biggest problem is the, you know, these people were basically living these sort of purposeless lives, which had no central focus on not really anything to do.
Speaker 2 00:18:04 And many of them got incredibly bored by the re quote unquote, retired lifestyle because, you know, they weren't, now I could see the idea of, you know, go off to wall street or go off to Silicon valley, stick around for the, uh, stick around for your startups, IPO, make a bunch of money and then go work on something else that is more meaningful or more interesting to you. Um, in theory, that works, I've known some people who've done who were going to do that. And then they ended up, you know, they were going to write books about history, but first I'm going to stick around and the company going to have its IPO. Well, then the Cub, the startup doesn't work and then they go do something else and then they never get around to writing the books on history. So that's, that's why I didn't go that route, but, you know, I could see that approach of, you know, go make money early on, get enough money set aside so that you can then focus on the work that, that you choose to do, um, that may not pay as well, but that the whole approach of the retire at age 30 thing is specifically to retire at age 30.
Speaker 2 00:19:07 So you do not have to work at all doing anything. And oftentimes the basic met, uh, the basic, uh, advice for retiring at age 30 is basically get accustomed to living on a whole lot less. So it is this minute it's tech directly tied to that minimalism. And that minimalism is exactly what I just said, which is w or at the beginning, which is if you want it to live like someone in 1930, uh, while working very little or working until you're 30, and then, and then living for the rest of your life on your savings, you can definitely do that, but it involves being extremely unambitious about what you want out of life. It evolves being contented with, I'm going to have a tiny little house, a tiny car, uh, or BB, not a car at all. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to pass up on all the amazing things that capitalism is producing for me. Uh, and, uh, it means basically subjecting yourself to probation in order to avoid the horror of having to work KP.
Speaker 3 00:20:13 So, um, I guess I would love to have give you a antidote of, of how it's been for me and get your opinion from, from your, your objectivist lens. But, um, I had a career that started, uh, working for someone else for an airline in 92. And I was a TGI M full on practitioner of my trade. And that got me places. I went, I went, I at H uh, H 21. I was leaving the life of an executive traveling the world while my peers were studying university. And, um, I came down from that experience in a very hard way when 2001 hit and the airlines went down and that kind of gave me a, um, a lesson in life at the time I believed that it was, and I decided to become far more family oriented and far more spiritual. I embarked in my spiritual crisis on, on rejecting Catholicism, which I was raised under and when to the spiritual route and reading about a lot of things and, and settling finally somewhat on Buddhism, but that Buddhism, um, got me, uh, the best solution as well.
Speaker 3 00:22:01 And I finally became an atheist and I've been happier since, and I've also found a lot of beauty in, um, asking these type of deep questions, which led me to philosophy. And right now I consider myself a TJM person still because I get bored when I don't work on my stuff. I, um, is someone who is constantly working and I get bored with family time. I get bored with many things that I'm used to. Um, I used to think that we're the, also the answer. So I am back to, to being a work list. Uh, but it's, it's, uh, to me it's still a balancing act. So I don't know what your, your, your perspective would be on, on a life led in,
Speaker 0 00:23:05 Um, eager to hear rubs squats, and also, uh, Jayla care who also made a similar, uh, journey in terms of, uh, being raised in the Catholic faith and finally to objectivism. So, Rob,
Speaker 2 00:23:20 Yeah. Well, one of the things I want to point out is that work will not take the place of, um, having an idea of what you want out of life and what your outlook, it won't prevent a spiritual crisis. If you haven't thought about, if you have, um, I think a lot, you know, this sort of the big life crisis phenomenon, right? That people go out and they go to work and they, they set all these big goals and they get around to thinking about those goals 20 years later and saying, wait, what am I, what was I trying to do in life? Which you, you should have now, obviously, if you were out of 21 doing this, you, you were too young to have really given it the deep thought. And so you had that opportunity to say, well, what do I really, what do I really believe?
Speaker 2 00:24:00 What's I really want out of life. And that's actually interesting because, um, I found that objectivism had that impact on myself and a number of people. I know I had a conversation a while back with a couple of good friends who were, uh, we talked and, and who are all, you know, Iran fans and all advocates of the philosophy. And the interesting thing is I sometimes hear from people about how, oh, you know, I ran, I used the ideas to really boost me in my career. And in the case of people I was talking to, it knocked us all, all of us, it knocked us out of our career paths. That basically what it caused us to do was it costs us to have our midlife crisis at age 20, instead of having it at age 45 and what it knocked us out of the career paths that we were probably going to be in at that young age and caused us to rethink, well, what do I really want to do?
Speaker 2 00:24:51 So that, I guess the big difference with iron Rand is she, she promotes a kind of philosophical, or if I may borrow a phrase, a mindful work ism. So it's that the idea that, well, you throw yourself into work, whatever it is that that is that into whatever work you happen to fall into, it's also the idea that you choose the work you want, and you choose it very deliberately by thinking very clearly about your, what you value in life and what you want to do. Now, the reward for that is if you do that, you don't have to have the midlife crisis when you're 50, uh, because you had it early on and you, you make, you, you actually made some very, um, well-considered decisions about what it is you wanted out of life. And in my case, I have to also point out that that also meant choosing a part of the reason I chose the career I did is because of the flexibility.
Speaker 2 00:25:42 It gives me because family is important to me. And, you know, I have two kids now who are, they're getting into their teen years. So there is less time consuming dealing with them, but, uh, you know, it's, it's, uh, I, I enjoy spending a lot of time with them. I like being able to be there for a lot of the things that are happening in their lives. And so part of it is I chose a career that gives me that flexibility. So I'm not, I'm not chained to the nine to the, to the nine to five or to an office. Like you normies out there. Uh, as a writer, I can be working at three o'clock in the morning and then be around three o'clock in the afternoon for events at my kid's school. So it's really a matter of, so se that, that thing about objectivism and about Iran's novels in particular is it's this sort of mindful work ism where you choose a work, not because, well, I have to work or B not because for the sort of Peter Keating, uh, if people know the character, Peter Keating in the Fountainhead where he chooses the job, because it's prestigious or it makes money, your, uh, other people will be oppressed by it.
Speaker 2 00:26:48 You choose a job because it's something that you decide you really want to do that is personally interesting and fulfilling to you. And so, you know, that's why I sort of recoil in horror at the idea of, of, of retiring at age 30, because I'm the sort of person who I'm not going to retire at 65, I'm going to keep, you know, I, I chose a line of work. I liked so much that I'm going to keep doing it for as long as I can do it. And my idea of retirement is simply fewer deadlines, right? That's, that's, you know, a little less pressure, fewer deadlines, but I'm going to keep writing. I'm going to keep doing what I want to do. Uh, and you know, it maybe less pressure as I get older and can't keep up with the schedule, but you know, it's going to be, I keep doing this because this is what I just, this is what I love to do. So it's that sort of very deliberate and full Sophal work ism where it's not just, you know, work gives me the flip side of work gives meaning to your life is that you choose the work. That is something that is meaningful to you to begin with.
Speaker 4 00:28:01 Yep. Thank you, JAG, Rob, this is a great theme. Interested in your assessment. Woke ism and work is kind of a great, you know, but it seems to me tightened the crack from the underlying fundamental here, which is the attack on work, really attack on achievement, because look at which is really where you start and, and is that really act on the nobility of business. So we work as not noble as not noble and that to business and self-interest is not noble other questions, but I'll, I'll leave you with that one.
Speaker 2 00:28:56 Yeah. Interesting thing about the attack of work ism, as I think it is uniquely a product of capitalist prosperity. It's like, what is how you be, anti-capitalist living in a capitalist society that showers you with prosperity, because it's only in those circumstances, you could imagine a life without work, right? Because, uh, you know, you, you didn't have a tax on work as, um, in 1800 while you did actually, you had, uh, at the time though, it was the, the attack on work prior to the industrial revolution prior to capitalism, the attack on work was the aristocratic mindset and Tocqueville Alexis de Tocqueville talks about that when he comes to America was the big thing that struck him. He says in Europe work is still looked down upon as ignoble, because what is it that, that distinguished you as the nobility, as the upper classes in Europe was specifically the fact that you didn't have to work.
Speaker 2 00:29:57 And the fact that you have to work, that you have to go out and, you know, go out in the marketplace to engage in grubby exchange. You know, even if you're doing white collar work, you have to grubby exchange that that was what showed that you weren't noble. Cause you know, if you were a nobleman, you had lands and you had rents and you had this money that poured in with you have to lift a finger. And so that was what was considered noble and good. And he talked about how strange it was in America to have a society where somebody who does work is looked down upon, um, one of my favorites, uh, stories I'm going to try to remember the details of this is from the autobiography autobiography of Ben Franklin, where he talks about how, even as he became a very know, he was one of the richest men in the colonies, even as he became wealthy, he would still have this practice of, uh, going through the streets of Philadelphia, uh, with, I think he was carrying paper or something like that.
Speaker 2 00:30:51 But in a wheel, you know, carrying out housing heavy, you know, wheelbarrow to quote unquote to show that I was not above my business unquote. So in America, even if you were a wealthy, you had to act as if you were still, you know, willing to do visible physical work. Uh, cause otherwise you were looked down upon if you were, you know, the aristocratic lifestyle was looked down upon in America. Uh, so he talks, he talks about that huge difference. And so I think that, you know, the previous attack it'll work was this aristocratic mindset, but it was also clear that aristocracy was a lifestyle that could only be afforded. They could only be lived by a tiny little percentage of the society. And only on the backs of, you know, the vast majority of other people who are out there toiling all day. So when the early Marxists came along, for example, they said he who does not toil shall not eat.
Speaker 2 00:31:48 Right. So the idea that the ideal Marxist society would actually be one in which everybody works and everybody is required to work. Uh, but the work would be spread equally and evenly and there would be no aristocratic class living off of everybody else. But what happens when you have the, you know, extremely the, the extraordinary amounts of wealth produced by a capitalist society, you suddenly get this illusion that no, we can have, I call it democratized aristocracy. The idea that we could all live like aristocrats, basically, maybe not a hundred percent like re like aristocrats, but we can all have, you know, if, think of the European sort of contexts, we could all have six weeks of paid vacation and, uh, a half a year of family leave. If you, you know, even for, you know, for paternity leave, if you have a child that you have this amount of leisure time provided to you by government regulations and by a welfare state, uh, because the, you know, the economy is producing so much wealth that we can, we can afford to do this.
Speaker 2 00:32:51 You can, and you could go back to the, you know, this, uh, John Maynard Keynes ideal of a 15 hour workweek. And so, you know, they, they it's, when you have this enormous productivity made possible by capitalism, that you can have the illusion that, well, maybe nobody has to work or only people only have to work this tiny little bit, and then they can have the vast majority of their, of their, of their lives not working. But that sort of goes back to the question of what is the purpose of life in the first place is the purpose of life to get by on the minimum, with as little work and effort as possible, or is the purpose of life to go out and create things and do things and, and make the w and, and produce wealth and make, uh, invent new products and make the world better and better and better. Uh, so it's, you know, it's, it's really, I think it goes to the metaphysical question of the ambitiousness of wanting to achieve more and basically sort of, you know, propel us off into the science fiction future, uh, and versus wanting to stagnate and get by with the bare minimum and this sort of low effort, anti effort, coasting sort of mentality.
Speaker 4 00:34:04 Yeah. I think Rob, there's so many great points that you've made there. Um, and you know, one of them that I think is really significant is that in so many businesses today, uh, uh, uh, people love their work and that's why they work those hours because they enjoy what they do. They take great pride in what they do. And that seems to me to be a big part of the con, because when we deal with opportunities for the ambitious poor, the, the uneducated, the, the people who are on the earliest wrongs, if, if we can make sure they never get that sense of pride and achievement, then we really can kind of create this political side as well. So there's so many reasons to attack, you know, achieve and prosperity. Uh, but I'll, I'll leave it at that. Cause I'll, I'll end up sort of chasing,
Speaker 5 00:35:00 I think there's enough bearable, or we have to take considerations or relationship between men and work. Hey, you know, does your work define who you are, right. So what's your wine working? Are you working to pay the bill to provide for your family? Or are you working, uh, because you really enjoy what you're doing, whether you're an artist or writer or, you know, even if you're in tech right. Or in science. Right. So we have to ask why someone work, right? What's your relationship? You know, um, one of my favorite films, the good, the bad, the ugly, and one of the characters, uh, Tuco, who's the ugly, he easy to say, uh, what he said, have you worked at, have you worked for a living? Why do you kill yourself working? Right. So how are we in a place when we can say that I love working?
Speaker 5 00:35:51 You know, so now I think we have been accustomed due to the culture that work is more important. Is this just the center of our lives? And then we reach to an age or point in our life and our livelihood where we, we come to a place of enlightenment or awareness and you find out, well, what was the most valuable element? Because I'm exchanging my time, my life in exchange for capital. Now that time itself is so valuable that no one could ever compensate me that time. You can give me, you know, a hundred dollars an hour. You can give me $15,000, you know, per a month. But, but think about it that time that I have, I'm never getting it back. And I don't know how much more I have left in my bank of time. So I think there's just a lot of moving parts.
Speaker 5 00:36:51 You know, especially when I hear people say that people love their work with depends on what filled you in. You know, most people actually hate their work. You know, most people in the end, I'm telling a person I've been a security guard at one point in my life, in our work that ups at one point in my life, you know, I work in construction. I want to point of my life. I died in the finance sector and everyone was like, you love, you love, you love finance. That's why you thrive in it. No, I loved the opportunity of making money to finance my actual passion, which is my community service. So it's important to define. One thing is
Speaker 0 00:37:32 Thank you. That's very interesting perspective. And Rob, it also reminds me of something I've heard Jordan Peterson said, uh, to college students that everyone, you know, uh, aspires to have a career, but that's not necessarily the path for, for everybody. Maybe some people do their career. It's going to be as mother, um, or, you know, they, for whatever reason, um, they, they don't have that privilege of finding something and developing it over the long, the long.
Speaker 3 00:38:08 And I think it's, that idea goes a little bit higher in the sense that, um, any, and it's probably probably something that you only get from actually reading maps of meaning, which is I think his, his Magnolias, uh, where, where he dissects his, all his propositions that he, uh, lands more on, on 12 rules, uh, in saying that the actual, the actual meaning of life is not happiness, but purpose. And, and, and that's one of the things that, uh, we all find in work purpose.
Speaker 2 00:38:49 Yeah. Let, let me, let me take that on. Um, so I think the, the key thing here is that it is true that career and work is a subset of purpose and having purposes is, is central to life. And that's one of Iran's big, um, uh, uh, in her philosophy and her big insights. Uh, in fact, she, uh, defines the three Cardinal values, a reason purpose and self-esteem purpose and agenda productive that she doesn't put business or work. She describes it, defines it as purpose. That's the most abstract category and purpose can be things other than economic activity. Uh, if it's something very substantive, but here's the thing about that, which is that, uh, purpose has to evolve the pursuit of a large goal, a goal tied to the needs of human life. Uh, I mean, you could know you could select anything as some totally meaningless meaningless thing as your purpose in life, but it's going to be a very cramped and sort of, uh, empty purpose if, if it's not tied in some way to some, to the, to the needs and requirements of human life, and that's what provides for purposes.
Speaker 2 00:40:07 And a lot of those purposes are going to be work-related now I've worked at jobs that I hated. And one of the things I did is I got out of those jobs. Uh, and sometimes you work at a job because, okay, I have to make money to pay the bills in order to get me to where I really want to be. But the approach there is to say, you know, you want to switch out a job that, uh, pays the bills, but what you don't enjoy for a job that pays the bills in which you do enjoy. And the fundamental thing here is again, the needs and requirements of human life needs requirements of human life mean that, that things new things need to be created and produced. You know, for you specifically as an individual, you need to be out there producing goods to provide for the things that you need in your life, but also for mankind in general, for us society, uh, the primary function, the primary business of life is going to be producing all the things that people need to live, be producing food, clothing, shelter, housing, and not just producing it at this basic level.
Speaker 2 00:41:14 And this is sort of the thing I'm really against with, with, um, John Maynard Keynes of, you know, we can all live the way we, we, we, people lived in 1930, we could live on that, that way with a lot less work today, given the advances in technology and production. But at the same time, we believe limiting ourselves and our lives would be a lot less, uh, um, a lot less pleasant, a lot less interesting. There'd be a lot less for us to do because we'd be limiting ourselves to only what people could accomplish, you know, 80 years ago, or actually that's 90 years ago now. Um, so, or gosh, 90, as 88 years ago, my it's 2022 now. So, you know, with the limiting ourselves to basically the lifestyle of a century ago, when there's so much more, that's possible to us so much more, that can be achieved and created.
Speaker 2 00:42:08 Um, and you can see that in the way that the industrial revolution has led to, uh, advances in longevity, advances in health, um, advances in, uh, uh, education and productivity of it all, all across the board, human life is better. And it's because we've been working our tails off to create the things and invent the things and come up with the new ideas that have made it better. So I wanna sort of rail against the unambitious onus of the idea that, well, you don't really need to work, uh, that that's something other than work is important. The main substance of human life is the creation of, of the creation of more and better things. Now, things, things, I mean, goods and services and products and ideas.
Speaker 0 00:42:58 Alright. Um, Allen?
Speaker 6 00:43:02 Yeah. Hi Jennifer. Hi, Rob. Yeah. I just want to start by saying my, my father is 91 and he's still working. So hopefully some of that has rubbed off on me. I'm not sure the jury is still out on that one. Um,
Speaker 2 00:43:21 And he
Speaker 6 00:43:22 Do, he is, well, he, he is an interior designer, but, um, mostly he has done corporate installations. So businesses, hospitals, um, the corporate offices, things like that. So, and he still has clients that he and, uh, architectural firms that he still works with. And when I was growing up, he worked a lot and he still works a lot and he loves working know. So, um, but I was going to say two things, you know, I wish when you were talking about achievement and the values of that and work, I wish everyone could have the experience of in their education of being a musician, because everything you're talking about and all the lessons that a person learns from that one gets from being a musician, because there was both the communal aspect where you're playing in groups, but there's also the individual aspect where what you get out of it is directly tied to how much you invest in it and how much you practice.
Speaker 6 00:44:46 So, so, well, a lot of what you're talking about in a lot of these discussions that are going on now in relation to work as him or meritocracy and all of that, I just, I find the fact that it's even an issue kind of amusing coming from the background I came from. But the question I wanted to ask you having said all that is when you were talking about technology and advancements in technology, the idea struck me that maybe we as a society or as a group mistake advancements in technology as being able to provide satisfaction or happiness, when all it's really meant to do is to provide a greater sense of security. And then from that one may find happiness and fulfillment and all of those things. So, uh, you know, that, that's what I was thinking. Maybe you have some, you could come and then we're going to get to,
Speaker 2 00:46:02 Okay, well first, uh, I'll take the issue of vast as the technology now, but I experienced it, maybe adult differently. Most people, I experiencing experience advances in technology very directly as tools that allow me to do more and do things that I could never have done otherwise. So it's not just more security. It's, this is a set of tools that allow me to do things that would be impossible. Otherwise, like the fact that I'm sitting here on my couch, talking to people, uh, out, across the country or across the world, uh, about important ideas, the fact that I'm able to do that while sitting on my couch in the middle of a rural area in central Virginia, um, you know, it would have been utterly impossible, uh, without the fact that I'm sitting here talking to a cell phone and then the internet connection and all, you know, all the, all this technology that's been made possible.
Speaker 2 00:46:58 So as a writer, you know, I have a very clear sense of what my life would have been like a hundred years ago. I would have had to live in New York, or maybe in Washington with live in a big city. You know, you work in an office, you have, uh, a very limited audience. You could reach because of this technology at the time and, and a very limited geographic range of what you can have, where you can live and how you can live because of the technology. Do you need to communicate with people? And so I view the advances in as here's the set of tools that allow me to do these amazing things and live a totally different lifestyle. And one that I like a lot better than I would have had to live, uh, PRI you know, even 30, 40 years ago. Right.
Speaker 2 00:47:43 So the other thing I do want also second, the thing about music, because I'm an amateur musician, I'm a piano, so I it's the individual stuff. Uh, but that's a really interesting, uh, the performance, the, the, the kind of, I want to put the Headspace, you have to get into as a performer. I found to be very interesting because it's something I've really learned in the last five years is how to be at this point where you're fully focused on the execution of, uh, you know, playing a piece of music. You're fully focused on the practical requirements of where your fingers have to be. And, you know, if you lose focus, you lose, you lose your place in the, in the piece, and it's all gonna fall apart. But at the same time, also having that, that, uh, the other part of your mentality of also being immersed in the meaning and the emotional experience of the music and being able to combine those two at the same time, that's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2 00:48:39 I think in, in a way, you know, the idea that you're, you're, you're, we're on the one hand you're working on the practicalities of the performance, but at the same time, it's not really going to be a good performance, unless you're also experiencing the emotional meaning and reward of the performance, because now I'm an amateur musician. I play only for myself really, um, uh, and, you know, I play for my own enjoyment. So the ability to combine those two, and I think it provides kind of an ideal that you should be looking for in any kind of work that you do, to some extent it's going to be like that, that on the one hand, if you really want to this promise of finding meaning and fulfillment to work means finding a work and learning how to do it in a way so that you are focused on the practical requirements of the work, and how do I do this and how do I create this, but also are able to enjoy the process itself and enjoy what that, the, the meaning and, and, and, and, uh, value of the process.
Speaker 2 00:49:41 And I think that's true of any kind of work now as a writer, you know, my work is more intellectual. So it has that something that I think is very similar to music where when I'm writing an article, I, I, I really get into the groove and come up with a great way of putting something in it. And the words are flowing out nicely. There's this incredible euphoria that can come with that. Uh, you know, writing can be hard work and you curse it sometimes. And then sometimes you get those experiences where it's euphoric, uh, the process, the creative process has a euphoria to it. Um, but I think that's also true in our, I don't want to say that can't be true. You know, we sort of looked at this from this white collar perspective. I know people who have blue collar jobs and, you know, do construction work or, um, uh, who are, you know, craftsmen who have a similar experience in a different way that, you know, what they're doing is they're physically creating something with their hands, but the enjoyment of knowing what you're doing, knowing how you use the tools, knowing how to put something together, watching it come together, that is also that form of enjoyment that you get.
Speaker 2 00:50:46 And I think it all comes down to the form of enjoyment. You get from act from purposeful action that produces a result that makes human life better. That's the way I would sum it up. And that's the value that you're trying to get out of work. And that's why it gives meaning a value. You're not just arbitrarily imposing that meaning and value on work. What gives it meaning value is that you were engaged in purposeful action that has the beneficial results.
Speaker 0 00:51:15 Yeah, no, I think it's interesting to the point that Rudy had been making before about some of the other jobs that he'd had and what was meaningful and what wasn't, and ultimately finding a meaning and purpose in his volunteer work. I think part of it is also your story that you tell yourself, your narrative about what your work means to you. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you might not have another job, but, um, I'd look at people who are security guards, and they don't necessarily see it as a, as a menial job at all day. They see themselves protecting people, this case, me and filling a gap where government services have failed, uh, being highly trained, even people who are house cleaners, you know, making things beautiful, making them, um, having a sense of accomplishment. So I think it's, it's also not just what others say about your line of work, but what you believe in the value that you see it as having
Speaker 7 00:52:25 Hello there? Well, listen, um, I, you know, we're not touching on something important, which is the, um, I believe the, the economic, um, and disincentives to, you know, pursuing meaning through work. You know, you look at, you know, I, I think some of the people that are in the retire at 30 community, maybe this is some of their thought process, is that, you know, you start using all your free stuff. You know, when you start working, you lose your, you know, all the, all the stuff that the government gives you. Then as you work up scale with higher income, you lose all your stuff. Studies, you get, you don't get, you, you don't get your child credits you, uh, Bama care becomes extremely expensive because you're not getting a subsidy. Um, and, and then above that, and you have the progressive tax code, which just sort of like hammers you from on your marginal, uh, effort. And it just seems like that, that we need to recognize
Speaker 2 00:53:25 Really, really great point, Rob. Well, I think it comes from, that comes from the anti workers, some attitude that we have a society, um, that, uh, disincentivizes work because it's viewed as ignoble at the same time. The interesting thing about the welfare state and all the, the progressive taxes and all that sort of thing is this also based, and this is something that Iran wrote about a lot in Atlas. Shrugged is basically, this is the, you'll do something, Mr. Riordan attitude. It's based on taking it for granted that there's always some sucker out there who's going to want to work. It takes advantage of the fact that there are always people who are ambitious, who loved their work, who want to do more. And therefore we're going to split those suckers at a tax that tax the bejesus out of them in order to provide for those of us who don't want to, for those who don't want to work.
Speaker 2 00:54:17 I think the, this goes back to what Jay said earlier, that I think the, this disincentive to work actually functions more strongly on these days. I think especially more, it functions more strongly on the low end of economic, low economic end, that if you're in a white collar job, yes, the marginal tax rates are, are egregious, but at the same time, it's not as likely to dissuade you from doing some kind of work. You know, you might decide to go into, go into doing something that is more personally rewarding and doesn't pay as much because you know that you're not getting as much of the extra money that you would make, uh, that would maybe influence your decision. Although the interesting thing about this article I'm work as, um, as it points out that it's the people who make the most, who are actually the most likely to be working a lot of hours, because they're most likely to be too, too fat to find meaning and value and personal fulfillment in what they're doing.
Speaker 2 00:55:18 You know, they they've risen to the top of their profession. They have a lot of other non-economic rewards in addition to the money they're making. Um, but I think it's really what Jay was saying is when you knock people off the first rung of the ladder by basically punishing them and disincentivizing them to work. And so they basically, you know, the, you encourage people to do nothing and live on the Dole and here I'd recommend the work of a guy. He goes, it's a 10 name is theater Dalrymple. He said, oh, he's a terrible, I, I have a lot of disagreements with his own views. He's a conservative, uh, and not, not one of the better kinds of conservatives in my viewpoint, but he has a really interesting, uh, he wrote a book called life at the bottom, and it was based on his experiences as a psychiatrist in Britain, uh, often dealing with people from the sort of the, the underclass as he calls it, uh, dealing with people who are basically living off of and, or within the welfare, the British welfare state.
Speaker 2 00:56:20 And he talks about the horrible confusion and, um, purple purposelessness in their lives. That's created by the incentives, the incentives against work that are in the welfare state. Uh, so the idea that, you know, they have, they're basically live wise with no purpose or meaning. And he also talks about the it's underrated, psychological corrosive effects of boredom that because they don't have work to give purpose to their lives. They create basically they live in their own. They have it extended to create their own personal soap opera, and create all sorts of, um, meaningless drama and petty, petty, interpersonal conflicts, as a way to fill their lives with some semblance of meat. Something that, that seems like it's important. It seems like it has meaning because there's a lack of purpose that comes from not having school or work or something more, a more substantive purpose that gives meaning a direction to their lives. Uh, so I'd really recommend that book in particular, it's called life at the bottom. The guy's, uh, his real name is something else, but he goes by the pen named theater Dalrymple.
Speaker 0 00:57:34 Okay. Patrick, ask your question or comment or wrap us up.
Speaker 8 00:57:43 Yeah. Um, well, I, haven't an unwrapping Rob. I kind of want to challenge us a little bit like, so to me, uh, the idea that aristocrats that work is not really true. I mean, you know, if we go back into the middle ages, they were night. So they were involved in defense and war. If we move forward into the Scottish enlightenment, and even the foundation of the industrial revolution, we have Lord Kelvin and many other aristocrats who, you know, did engage in productive activity much of which was like studying the world and learning, which is actually what you do. I mean, I don't know you that well, but I sounds like you're on a country of state with your children in central Virginia and you're writing and going and doing philosophical things. And that's your passion. And if you found a way to make money at it, that's great.
Speaker 8 00:58:39 But, uh, I think, I mean, the idea of attaching work ism or your work, which to me, I sort of look at as well. I work for money. Uh, I actually have a lot of other purposes that I work, meaning I engage in productive activity to learn guitar or paint or whatever. I take pride from the work or the time and effort that I put into it. But, you know, and I gain pride from it, but like, uh, I sort of, it doesn't feel like work, right? It's sorta, it's not the same thing as being like, I work at Goldman Sachs and work until late until evening building Excel models, 14 hours a day, you know, that's for money. Maybe some people like it, but I would imagine 90% of them don't, uh, you know, so, so, so I just wonder, like, when we're looking at this distinction of like, well, we're going to stand on the side of work ism.
Speaker 8 00:59:38 Uh, is that really the place to be, or is the place to be where we really stand on the side of having a purpose and engaging in productive activity that gives you personal gratification and happiness and pride. And it's really not necessarily associated with, uh, you know, revenue. You need to have revenue to be responsible for yourself and, you know, and, and, you know, it'd be able to do what you want and live the life that you want with your family. But, you know, you really should be kind of following the steps of, of Rob and figuring out how to craft a life in which you can do your passion and thing that you love.
Speaker 2 01:00:20 Yeah. Oh, so we add a cup of tea. We have very little time, less, many to make to our RC grow over time. There'll be maybe two observations and we'll wrap up one is I am not an aristocrat. So, um, I, I do live this sort of style of, you know, I'm off here on the, on the 10 acre estate. Uh, it's not that big of a state, but the 10 acres, uh, and I'm, I'm engaging in the philosophical things, but at the same time, the fact that I don't have a guaranteed income coming from somewhere else means that I have to do a lot of work. I have to hit deadlines. I have to do clubhouses. I have to, you know, I have all this list of things that fill my day. And I think that's actually made me way more productive intellectually than some other people I know who have these sort of safe signup, cures at a university or something like that who, you know, the less they have to work, the less they actually accomplish intellectually.
Speaker 2 01:01:08 So I think it does give, um, impetus to do more and accomplish more intellectually. But the bigger thing I would say also is work some of what you said in there sort of implies that for some people, I think work implies drudgery, work implies necessarily something that's unpleasant. And I think we need to expand the concept of work, uh, to mean that work can be something that you love doing. It can work is anything that's effortful, purposeful activity that has, you know, that has a productive outcome. And that can be things that we love doing, you know, being a musician can be work. What yo-yo ma does is definitely work, right? Yeah. You mentioned about a practice time. It takes to do, to achieve that level of skill, but at the same time, it can also be, you know, uh, transcendental experience, spiritual experience. So that's the big thing I want to argue for here, which is the broadening of definition of work to mean not just drudgery, but productive, purposeful activity, which can be extremely fulfilling and rewarding in many ways that are, that are not just economic. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 0 01:02:19 Yes, we are just a couple minutes over time. Um, we are going to be back actually. Roger May him, I think his handle is Roger Merck tog as organized a in three hours, uh, on capitalism. And that's going to be a big room as opposed to this intimate. Rob's going to be there as well as David Kelly, our founder, Richard Salzman, another senior scholar at the Atlas society. And then on Friday, we will be back with, uh, professor Jason Hill. Um, and that is going to be a lively, asked me anything did want to keep off of Rob's last point about clubhouses and, and the other work that we do at the society. Uh, I want to acknowledge some of the donors, um, that are here in the room. We appreciate your support, your investment in our work we strive to provide.
Speaker 0 01:03:24 You might get from other organizations. And so I want to encourage those who are getting a lot of value out of these conversations. We have big focus this year on increasing the number of small donations. They are valuable, but they're also valuable in terms of, um, leveraging some of those bigger donations to show that this is an organization that is funded by, you know, the rank and file. Um, and, uh, that we have a community of people that not just engage with us and value our work, but that actually financially support it. So if you're interested in doing that, please check out our
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