Planet Money did an episode on this recently, and I felt like some of what they said was about medieval farmers didn't mesh with what I've read here and some of the comments below the episode pointed out other problems. So that made me curious about the rest of the episode and other problems with the trajectory of the podcast.
Some ideas put forward about the modern job:
Workers have choice in what they do for a wage.
Modern jobs buffer workers from the ups and downs of the market.
Has defined position titles in a hierarchical corporate structure
They end the episode by looking at dupont ledger books from the early 1900's. Because it's still a small family company, they just list names and wages, and they don't need to record their structure. A little later on in the Dupont executive committee meeting minutes for October 11, 1915, their records show people's job titles, their name and salary since they have grown and gone through buy outs...etc.
As historians, how would you define the word job, and go about trying to answer this relatively broad question? Is this a reasonable exercise that brings up interesting social/historic questions, or is defining what the word job means in a modern sense kind of a fools errand because it changes so much over time and varies from place to place?
Your podcast is absolutely right to give some pretty specific details to their definition of ‘a job’. This is one of those slippery topics, which, without a specific definition, cannot easily be discussed. By laying out these specific restrictions they can build their argument as “population X held ‘modern’ jobs” because they met XYZ criteria. They can then lay out specific support for this position and readers who disagree can lay out specific counter arguments.
- Workers have choice in what they do for a wage.
These points ask you to consider the following: Are they a tight enough definition of the modern job? Are they to tight? Does a pre-existing case invalidate some or all of these points by demonstrating too much similarity at an earlier date? Conversely, is there a sufficient change over a specific period that it requires a new definition?
Take the first point as an example. Workers have been paid by wage for much longer that the last two centuries. Marcus Rediker offers an extensive discussion in the shift from paying sailors by shares of the voyage’s profit to paying them by wage in Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. The change he describes takes place largely between 1700 and 1750. Sailors had at least a small choice to live as something another profession (dock worker, rope maker, etc), they were not tied to a piece of land like a serf. Is this sufficient to meet the podcast’s definition of ‘choice in employment’? Or does the choice aspect need to be more widespread in society before ‘workers paid by wage’ needs to be separated from ‘wage work systems offer workers increased mobility’? You, the listener, are invited by the podcast’s own structure to dig up this sort of example and see if the podcast’s argument can withstand a challenge. The podcast’s other two definitions invite similar critical questioning to see if they hold up.
As historians, how would you define the word job, and go about trying to answer this relatively broad question?
A single specific definition of ‘job’ is not really useful because there is extreme variability in time, place, and culture that affect what connotations the word has.
Is this a reasonable exercise that brings up interesting social/historic questions, or is defining what the word job means in a modern sense kind of a fools errand because it changes so much over time and varies from place to place?
This is a much more interesting question. The answer is yes, studying a culture to learn the definition of ‘job’ according to that culture has great value. It is a perfect place to study cultural dynamics at play. It can help you understand many questions about how society was structured such as: Who were the outcasts in this society/who had the fast track to social advancement? Who was considered a productive member of the group? Who would have been considered to not be doing enough? Was there tension between workers operating under difference systems (wage earners vs. those working for shares)? What was considered sufficient to generate a living income; to move into the middle class? Could a good job buy one into the nobility? Are jobs tied to specific initiation rituals or rites of adulthood? I am sure you could come up with many others as well, given just a little research and time.