on free labor
Music: Gillian Welch: Time (the Revelator) (2001)
Growing up I sometimes accompanied my dad to "work." Although he is now retired and still takes jobs, he was a professional photographer. He made most of his living doing photography---and later video---for companies and couples. I remember, mostly, the couples, the large southern weddings with dozens of family and friends variously arranged on some churchy dias, or scattered about under large trees in a park setting. I carried his "camera bags." I liked the time with my dad, although I worried (as did my mother) about how hard he worked (and how demanding some folks were and how poorly they would treat him) and . . . frankly, it was often boring to me as an onlooker.
Although I was off to college by the time the digital revolution hit, I noticed during the 1990s the gradual decline of the photography industry. Digital cameras got cheaper and cheaper and, soon, Uncle Bob could take thousands of photographs and at least have a dozen or so that were, by shear chance, of a professional quality. To compete, my dad shifted his business to focus on video and video editing (at this time, the most lucrative work in the professional photography business, however, that too is weaning). He also started charging just for the photography and the monies paid by companies and happy couples were for burned discs or USB drives with images instead of "prints."
One would think that the steady march of DYI photography would have led to a revaluing of the photographer's art, as more and more people came to appreciate the skill with which it takes to compose (and now edit) a good shot. Instead, however, what happened was a thickening of an attitude among the general population about artistic endeavor: that it is easy and that it is, more or less, "inspired," that the creativity of the artist somehow springs from the head of Zeus and appears, like magic, on the page, screen, or stage. Musicians are keenly aware of this attitude and have been critical of it since the birth of the music industry since the turn of the 20th century, and it has really been at the center of the discussion of (Internet) piracy as of late.
The relatively recent emergence of "intellectual property," spurred onward by innovations in design by high-tech companies, has made us more aware of the problem. Still, it persists, and we see the attitude toward intellectual endeavor percolating in the debates over higher education too, particularly in discussions concerning "teacher accountability" and "education reform." Although the discussion has mostly been couched in terms of the well-known and well-documented failures of our educational system at all levels, primary, secondary, and higher, I think the root of the problem is still the generally shared attitude that mental exertion, thinking, is effortless, like magic.
Karl Marx recognized this attitude even way back during the emergence of industrialization, when sweat-labor ran the machines. In the first volume of Capital, when he describes "labor," he is always careful to discuss human productive capacity in terms of muscles and brains. I suspect, in part, he always included the life of the mind as a significant form of labor because, as is well known, he wrote for a living and did not make a very good living writing (his children sometimes didn't get to eat). Marx's predicament is echoed by humorist David Thorne, whose exchange with a businessperson about his "design" labor is as hilarious as it is depressing (my thanks to Shaun Treat for passing along this nugget of guffaws).
Today, mental labor---creative or intellectual, as if you can disentangle them---is devalued and its devaluation is at the core of the now familiar cultural critiques of teachers and the professoriate. You see it in the high-stakes discussions of public education, in which teachers are chastised for not producing enough students that score well on exams, and yet these same teachers have "long breaks off" (which is not, of course, the reality of most teachers). You see it in the popular, cultural representation of the college professor, reclining in his or her leather reading chair in a lavish, book-lined office pontificating to a curious, respectful student sitting anxiously at his or her knee. You see it in television commercials by various "for-profit" universities, such as the so-called University of Phoenix, who feature "professors" with "real world, practical experience" promising personal relationships with students across the Internet via computer screens ("real world, practical experience" is code for a certain brand of market-driven anti-intellectualism, of course).
And I want to say you see this attitude toward the supposed non-labor of intellectual work in the requests of non-academics for expertise. The attitude is most stark in mainstream media requests for opinions and statements about this or that cultural event or thing: reporters asking for opinions about this political candidate, or television producers asking for a sound-bite about, oh, the historical links between the Ancient Mysteries and Freemasonry (note: there are none). In recent years I have declined a number of "interviews" from journalists about this or that popular culture event, or to appear on this or that television program, because of the expectation I would drop everything to take an hour-long phone conversation or take a day off to tape a show or assist with a workshop, without compensation. The appeal is usually that doing this or that gig is "good publicity" or a nice line to add to my resume.
There is value to offering one's expertise for the good of a community or a welcome cause, I cannot deny this. And I also recognize the importance of publicity for one's work or a larger, important project. But even so, whence the expectation that offering explanation or opinion or expectation is not work?
I've thought about this in recent years---even discussed it with my shrink. My therapist, recognizing the way in which academics are "trained" to work for free, made me sit-down and figure out what my base-line fee should be for all speaking engagements; she's held me to this figure and, so far, I have too. I confess that when I am approached by someone for a speaking engagement---especially if it is a friend---I sometimes feel guilty saying, "I'd love to, but I do have a minimum speaking fee . . . ." I'm trying to get over that sense of guilt, and I have a feeling a lot of folks in cognate fields---especially artists---really struggle with it, trying to balance the need for publicity for their "art" or intellectual labor with the actual expense of one's time.
So where does this expectation of free intellectual/creative labor come from? In part, of course, we can explain it in reference to the way capitalism works and the basic logic of the wage Marx explained over a century ago. But what is the ideology and its fantastic face? I can only conclude it has to do with that soul-deep conviction in something called "inspiration," the recesses of the unconscious and the ways in which insight does often "spring forth" or "come out" in ways that, in retrospect, seems like possession. It's almost as if labor or work is not supposed to be enjoyable, and to the extent that creative or intellectual labor is transportative or fun---like a good teaching day, when the whole classroom seems alive with curiosity---one is supposed to accept it as a "gift," something for nothing. Why should one be compensated for something that is enjoyable?
Well, yes: If work is enjoyable or unenjoyable, it is still work. Labor is labor.
One thing my father taught me as I was growing up---and I suspect he doesn't know this---is that you cannot give away your labor, however inspired, for free. He would sometimes do jobs for a good cause, or do portraits for free, just because of his generosity. As I watched his business develop and grow, I noticed him doing this less and less. I remember him saying, once, that the "free job" seemed like a good idea, but increasingly it created expectations that were undoing the business itself. Eventually, and painfully, I remember he came to the decision to stop photographing family events for free, or honoring requests by family members for free portraits. Well, not entirely. He still does this. But he did eventually come to the realization that he could not do it so much.
It's a hard reckoning, to be sure, but: love is money too.
Such sentiments are sung better by Gillian Welch better than me:
Everything is free now That's what they say Everything I ever done Gonna give it away. Someone hit the big score They figured it out They were gonna do it anyway Even if doesn't pay.
I can get a tip jar Gas up the car Try to make a little change Down at the bar. Or I can get a straight job I've done it before Never minded working hard It's who I'm working for.
Everything is free now That's what they say Everything I ever done Gotta give it away. Someone hit the big score They figured it out They were gonna do it anyway Even if doesn't pay.
Every day I wake up Humming a song But I don't need to run around I just stay home. Sing a little love song My love and myself If there's something that you want to hear You can sing it yourself.
'Cause everything is free now That's what I said No one's got to listen to The words in my head. Someone hit the big score And I figured it out That I'm gonna do it anyway Even if doesn't pay.
Oh, and then there's this delightful essay about the song and the way in which the issue of labor refers to loving, too.