| The Dream | 2 0 0 9 |
Nov 12 |
I’d rather be a maker than an employee.
I’d rather craft products than nurse a job.
And I’d rather be a customer than a boss.
Comments
Many have expressed concern on “servant” as a word choice. Most of us are, have been, or will be employees, so perhaps it’s interpreted as a personal insult.
Those epithets (servant, mercenary, artisan) are meant to give a more “earthy” traditional name to the modern terms for each mode of work. I asked myself, because the concept of maker is so new in a way, how could I convey the essence of each mode of work to people hundreds or even thousands of years ago?
Servant is a most politically incorrect word these days but there’s dignity in it to me. As a kid, I could feel the social awkwardness of referring to the domestic helper as a “servant” (“sirvienta” in Spanish”) but wading around the word was even more awkward to me. Service to others is something to be proud of and to be done with dignity and full awareness, “One is glad to be of service.” is a memorable phrase because it embodies that. Mercenary is also not often a positive word but I’m a fan of how Milton Friedman rehabilitated the term. Artisan is now generally positive but somewhat precious.
I’m open to suggestions for better epithets. I agree that the current choice represents a biased perspective in favor of makers but I also believe that it’s a true choice, that the perspective is a true one. Romance and myth are fundamentally subjective outlooks but they must have truth in them to resonate.
Japan has a fascinating, different perspective of what being an employee could be like: super-legitimacy.
I see where you’re going with this and I understand that the use of the terms servant, mercenary, and artisan isn’t really the point. But…
I’m a freelancer but I don’t feel much like a mercenary. In fact, I’d venture that freelancers are more like servants than are employees because – in my experience – clients are more likely than bosses to make unreasonable requests. So maybe ‘child’ would be better than ‘servant’ for the job-worker.
Fantastic. Servant captures perfectly the dynamics of the relationship. Unfortunately in American English it is often equated with “slave” but my advice is stand your ground—it’s well said.
I would possibly prefer Craftsman to Artisan due to the different connotations in the dialect, but that’s a minor quibble.
Thanks for the thoughtful work. (found you by way of YCombinator)
I agree with stephane that there is another one, an owner.
Owner > Struggle > Your Own Boss > (and back again)
I believe that the best artists I know have a complete lack of business acumen and getting from their product to their customers is the ultimate battle. Representation is getting easier with etsy and other types of online marketplaces.
I actually agree with your model. Folks are put off by the honesty your statement. “The truth hurts” so to speak. Because we have so much technology and complexity its harder to see the commonality between a serf/servant/employee. We look down on the past in a way. We may live in an open system but people still willingly follow the patterns of indentured servitude. Car payments and Mortgages come to mind.
To me its systemic and cyclical. Serfdom made way for the cities and the original artisan. Traditional employment can may way for thousands of teams and startups making there own freedom. Hopefully we all shake off the debt monster and see it for what it always has been, servitude.
stephane: Actually, within this framework, an independent investor is to me something very interesting, the mode of work that’s even more independent and abstract than a maker. In diagram terms, you, independent investor, are connected through your money, information and predictions to market abstractions like the price of a currency or a stock or a commodity like gold or pork. It’s a fascinating, even more modern developement in the broad sphere of work.
Charles Frith: Exactly! That was just what I was aiming for in those subtitles: robust language. Thanks for providing just the right word! :)
@japherwocky: Ah, that’s an interesting way to look at it, to look at the bigger organizations interacted with. So an employee would be a soldier, a freelancer a mercenary, but then what’s a maker? A serial killer? #_#
Steven: Thanks for the note. Please try your best at being an artisan!
JonT: Thanks for your thoughtful comment yourself! The connotation of slave I was very aware, slave being in fact my first choice. I was also torn between craftsman & artisan, both are equally good choices.
racy_rick: In terms of this diagram, an owner is described by who he answers to ultimately. So he can be either a “freelancer” if his business is as supplier to a few suppliers, or a “maker, if his business serves a myriad customers.
I completely agree with the importance of etsy and other online marketplaces. They’re making it easier for many (not just geeks) to be makers.
Michael: Thanks for your comment, it’s a bit too radical for me but I sympathize from where you’re coming from ;)
chemito: One of the big things that I miss out with my simple diagram is the distinction between domestic workers, factory workers and service workers (teachers, doctors, but also, say, waiters). Historically, servants were mostly domestic workers which is one of the reasons why the word has such negative connotations among the other two, more modern kind of workers, which want to distance themselves from them.
What a cool phrase like “We may serve them, but we are not their servants” means in practical terms is that a modern worker—any worker, but that phrase comes specially from service workers—have more independence from any particular patron or boss than any worker of the past (“servant”) used to have. And it’s true within the context of employees alone. What this diagram tries to ilustrate is how new kinds of independence are being discovered in a broader conception of work.
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Thanks everyone for the interesting comments!
Bit late to this post.
And you’re exactly right in the way you lay out the above.
But you forget the pilot’s conundrum – the other reason people tell themselves they like jobs – http://rtbc.tumblr.com/post/245872374/merlin-waxandmilk-kurt-vonneguts-letter-to (Pilot’s Conundrum is at the bottom of the post, after the letter by Kurt Vonnegut to his father)