Job, jobs, jobs: no political party can talk of much else. But the concept of the ‘job’ and the ‘wage’ emerges out of the Industrial Revolution. What of worlds where ‘jobs’ did not exist? The Greek didactic poet Hesiod (c. 680 BC) has a most instructive take on the matter.
Hesiod was a peasant farmer, i.e. he farmed land primarily for survival, as a way of life, not as a business to make a profit. In his rather rambling Works and Days, Hesiod describes how his wretched brother Perses bribed his way into getting a larger share of a disputed inheritance than he did, but (presumably) wasted it and now lives in idleness and beggary. Serves him right, says Hesiod; that is not the way ahead. It is a life of honest work that makes a man.
Get the job done, says Hesiod: ‘Do not put things off till tomorrow and the next day.
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