I am writing this column on the morning of Labor Day. In the liturgical calendar of the Church, today is also the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. The secular celebration actually predates the liturgical feast, which was established by Pope Pius XII on May 1, 1955, during a gathering of the Italian Catholic Workers’ Association.
Thus, my thoughts now linger on the meaning of human work, and how it is viewed differently through different traditions.
Work as Punishment?
The first idea worth mentioning is that work is a form of punishment. This idea is based on a simplistic interpretation of the Book of Genesis. According to this view, Adam and Eve were not originally meant to perform labor. Human work is a consequence of their rebellion against God when they ate the prohibited fruit. That this interpretation goes beyond what the text says is clear when we take into account that even before the fall, it is written the human being is commanded to “subdue the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Moreover, it is said that “God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to fill and keep it,” (Genesis 2:15). It would appear that work was already part of the divine plan. Strictly speaking, it was not Adam who was cursed but the ground where he will work on, “Cursed is the ground because of you…” (Gen. 3:17). The same verse continues, “In toil you shall eat of it.” But this could refer to a continuation of the work given to him before the fall, but this time under more difficult circumstances.
It is important to point out that Pope (now Saint) John Paul II, in his encyclical Laborem Exercens, rejects the notion that work is punitive. He calls human work a fundamental dimension of human existence. It is a participation in the creative act of God and has a redemptive value. Moreover, he affirms that the dignity of labor does not rest on the kind of work but on the very fact that “the one doing it is a person.”
Work as Prayer
The second view I want to emphasize is to see work much more positively as a form of prayer. Ora et labora is a Benedictine motto based on the Rule of Saint Benedict. The idea is to have a balanced life centered on work and prayer. Today, some would tweak the traditional motto to “Laborare est Orare,” which means “to work is to pray.”
Work Under Capitalism: Karl Marx’s Critique
But the person who gave a profound critique of how labor functions in a capitalist system is Karl Marx. In a work published posthumously and often given the title Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, this philosopher from Trier, Germany theorizes that work is supposedly a manifestation of the personality of the worker and a way of shaping the world. But this idea is distorted in a capitalist system. In the capitalist system—which is the system in almost all over the world—work is now a commodity and is done for survival. There is now an alienation between the end product of work and the laborer. Instead of work as a form of solidarity between fellow workers, work has become a source of competition.
If you ask me, a Christian can share the same critique against capitalism as it is now structured. Unbridled capitalism has made the capitalist and the laborer dialectical opposites. This should not be the case. Indeed, even Christians can learn much from an atheist philosopher.
