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Introduction: Does Economics Deal with the Economic Stuff? Or Is the Economic Stuff Explained by Economics? Read chapter Read first chapter

2022 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

6. The Human Person as Worker

Author : Ricardo F. Crespo

Published in: The Nature of the Economy

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The last chapter presented the identity of the economic agent as a real human person with all the pertaining characteristics. The implicit approach to the economic agent in that chapter was as a consumer or an investor, trying to broaden the view of the motivations of her decisions, actions, and reactions. This chapter deals with the economic agent as a worker. A more complete notion of the identity of the economic agent than the standard economics view of it also bears consequences on the economic agent’s desirable characteristics and motivations as a worker. The chapter first explains classical analyses of human action and their consequences for labor. Then, it introduces new psychological notions about the desirable treatment of work. In particular, there are different ways of “living” work, the best being to consider work as a “calling.” Thus, people have a purpose; they feel called upon to perform a task that bears an impact on others and that is part of an enterprise with a greater reach than their individual possibilities. The chapter concludes that economics should re-think its views on work.

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previous chapter The Identity of the Economic Agent
next chapter The Metaphysics of Social Collectives
Footnotes
1
Weber’s theses in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1958) have been heavily debated. However, as Kurt Samuelson asserts (Religion and Economic Action: the Protestant Work Ethic, the Rise of Capitalism and the Abuses of Scholarship, University of Toronto Press, 1993), they have been greatly influential.
 
2
This article contains several sharp views, but it should be noted that its core argument is Marxist, with all the troublesome implications that entails for an approach to labor (see Hannah Arendt (1959), J. Vialatoux, Signification humaine du travail, Les éditions ouvrières, Paris, 1953: 206–210, Rafael Corazón González, Fundamentos para una filosofía del trabajo, Cuadernos de Anuario Filosófico, n. 72, Pamplona, 1999: 9–10 and José Ángel García Cuadrado, Antropología Filosófica, Pamplona, Eunsa, 2001: 206–207). In this section, I draw from Chapter 9 of my 2013 book.
 
3
He cites Metaphysics, IX in, e. g.: I, q. 18, a. 3, ad 1; I–II, q. 3, a.2, ad 3; In IX Metaph, l. 2, n. 1788; l. 8, n. 1864; In VI Eth, l. 3, n. 1151; In I Pol, l. 2, n. 53; De Potentia, q. 3, a. 15c. Cfr. also I, q. 23, a.3 ad 1; I, q. 56, a.1c; I-II, q. 31, a. 5c; In Pol, Prooemium, n. 6, De Potentia, q. 9, a. 9, ad 4; q. 10, a. 1c; In VI Metaph, l. 1, n. 1152; In XI Metaph, l. 7, n. 2253—all works by Marietti, Taurini.
 
4
For a review of the literature on the meaning of the work, see Rosso et al. (2010). Here I draw from Rodríguez, Mesurado and Crespo (2019).
 
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Metadata
Title
The Human Person as Worker
Author
Ricardo F. Crespo
Copyright Year
2022
Book
The Nature of the Economy

Print ISBN: 978-3-031-02452-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-031-02453-5

Copyright Year: 2022

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-02453-5_6