The paid - and the unpaid

I'm struggling with how I want to respond to the hard facts about what we get paid for - and what we don't get paid for. My last post on 'End unpaid internships' raised some interesting discussion and questions, including the real truth that many of the best opportunities for sustainable development are unpaid (especially when one is relatively new in a field, but not only then). Several people shared their experience that they would not be where they are today had it not been for the hours of unpaid labour they contributed to what they saw as worthy projects that gave them invaluable contacts and experience.

In this lies a challenge. I want to get paid for the work I love to do. Me, and everyone else who has to live in a formalized economy, that is, where I can't survive (at least not that well) without hard cash. And I'm like many others- some of the most valuable things I've ever done, including starting up several for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, have entailed massive amounts of unpaid work. Those ventures never paid off for me financially, but I know I made a difference.

'Free' work isn't just volunteering in cool projects, interning or starting your own business. Most social movements haven't been run simply by paid staff - they've been successful because of people - often working class, often over worked - who put in their time (and often risked their jobs if not their lives) for 'free.' Some of the most valuable services - cooking, shopping, cleaning, washing, caring for my health, caring for sick friends and family, etc. - are things I do because they have to be done, not because I get paid to do them. Yet these things are not valued in financial terms.

Without these non-valued, 'free' things, we have nothing. They are, as feminist economists (and many others) say, the uncounted-for baseline upon which all other services and work rely. They are often called 'womens work', though these tasks are less gendered than they used to be. When these essential services have price tags attached to them (such as health care), that means that those who can not afford the price tags must continue to do it - 'for free'. Which means they are not out earning money, or 'contributing' to the economy. Even if their work enables that larger, formal economy to function.

My own mother is one of a billion examples. When my father fell ill, she (eventually) 'retired early' from a meaningful career to take care of him, because they could not afford a carer. She became a caretaker for years, and when he recovered enough to no longer need her, she found it near impossible to re-enter the job market. She's been doing largely unpaid work since then - volunteering at an animal hospital, working at the municipal level for better public health, growing a beautiful garden, and helping her community to become better gardeners. She contributes in countless ways to the natural and social environment around her. I'd say she works for sustainable development, though she'd probably raise an eyebrow at that. She is also having trouble finding enough money to afford a new roof, now that the old roof is leaking. She'd really, really like to bring in more cash.

Does capitalism work if the most valuable services - cooking, cleaning, care giving - as well as interning, starting up organizations, serving the community, working on social movements, etc., are rarely paid for, and are not accounted for in any national figure? And while I share many JM members' experience that good work often necessitates free work, what if you can't afford to work for free? What should determine what we get paid for? Maybe sustainable development is radical indeed - maybe it requires a fundamental shift in how we think about paid and unpaid work.

One thing I know - whoever said that greed and self-interest is at the heart of human nature is, I believe, wrong. Yes, I am self-seeking, I've got a streak of greed in me, no doubt about it. But I don't think its any more fundamental than other aspects of myself - especially my powerful need to make a contribution, to love others, to be loved in return, to belong, to support future generations, to be engaged in cool projects. More often than not, I say 'yes' to unpaid (or poorly paid) projects, simply because I care. Sometimes it's very unsustainable - and not necessarily developmental. Yet my life - my whole life - is much richer because of it.