> lifetime employment doing what you love should only go to those who are supremely dedicated
Should people give their lives for a profession? That seems prone to create unhealthy societies prone to conflict and cheating. In my experience self described meritocratic societies usually are just cynic nepotist societies. The children of the poor have to work their asses off to get much less that what the children of the rich get without effort.
Homo economicus is dead, and it is time to update the world views on work and economy.
I have recently begun to appreciate how much (in the US) we structure our entire existence around our jobs, and how we earn money. The puritan work ethic, extrapolated out across BS jobs encourages so many of us to identify as our jobs, and make that our sense of self.
The puritans wouldn't have advocated holding off getting married or having children to work for a megacorp 80 hours a week. They wouldn't be impressed you are the "assistant to the senior vice president" or whatever. I don't think we can blame modern "hussle culture" on the puritans, it's more of a neoliberal thing to get let yourself get consumed by a job and hire out all your basic needs (take out, daycare, housekeepers) like we do today.
It's not just the Puritan work ethic. The dearth of support and extreme scarcity of housing play a huge role.
If you won't center your entire life around work, there's a long line of people who will, and your employer would happily hire one of them and throw you into the proverbial wood chipper of being unemploymed in the US.
Should people give their lives for a profession? That seems prone to create unhealthy societies prone to conflict and cheating. In my experience self described meritocratic societies usually are just cynic nepotist societies. The children of the poor have to work their asses off to get much less that what the children of the rich get without effort.
Homo economicus is dead, and it is time to update the world views on work and economy.