On Working In Vain

We often engage in what Ludwig von Mises called “introversive labour” – instances when work, which should be a “disutility,” gives us pleasure on its own. Like watering the garden every day.

However, there are many people for whom all work is “introversive.” The best example is Ludwig von Mises himself, who only worked for the total mastery of his sphere of knowledge, without any worldly concerns. He told his wife, “I will write a lot about money, but never earn much of it myself.”

But there are many other examples of such “work” – like the guy who pursues a 10 dan black belt in karate, or the mountain climber.

However, for the majority, work is “extroversive labour,” performed to enable exchanges in the market. We work to obtain the means to buy things, to consume. There is a vital catallactic element to all this work.

Thus, it makes no sense to live in a country whose foreign trade policy is dictated by Kamal Nutt and his political masters. For those who live in such a country, unable to freely trade with foreigners, all work is introversive. They are forced to work for the sake of the work itself. Their ability to freely exchange the proceeds of that work is blocked by high tariff walls, enforced with the guns of the customs department.

Indeed, looking back at the 60s, 70s and 80s, all work in India was introversive – by government fiat.

Even the trade union elite waited 10 years to get a Bajaj scooter. The shop shelves were bare. There were “smuggler’s markets” in all the port cities. Smart people migrated to the greener pastures of the capitalist West only in order to enjoy consumption of the very same “consumer goods” we are still being denied. And boy, did people “work.” They still do.

And socialists are supposed to “represent workers”!

See the harm bad philosophies can do.

Essential reading: Ludwig von Mises’ Human Action, Chapter 21, “Work and Wages.” Free pdf download here.

Carefully study the whole book if you can, especially if you are a student or teacher of Economics. The book ends with these words:

The body of economic knowledge is an essential element in the structure of human civilization; it is the foundation upon which modern industrialism and all the moral, intellectual, technological, and therapeutical achievements of the last centuries have been built. It rests with men whether they will make the proper use of the rich treasure with which this knowledge provides them or whether they will leave it unused. But if they fail to take the best advantage of it and disregard its teachings and warnings, they will not annul economics; they will stamp out society and the human race.