Work, Human Value, and Burnout

Part 02

"Jobs are not big enough for people's spirits." – Studs Terkel

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This is part 2 of a 3 part series. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, it will be helpful to start there.

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PART TWO – 1960s to the 1990s; Human Capital

In a Fortune magazine article published in 1962 by the US textile company Indian Head Mills, the ‘corporation-as-machine’ nailed its manifesto to the door for all to see.

"The objective of our company is to increase the intrinsic value of our common stock. We are not in business to grow bigger for the sake of size, not to become more diversified, not to make the most or best of anything, not to provide jobs, have the most modern plants, the happiest customers, lead in new product development, or to achieve any other status which has no relation to the economic use of capital. Any or all of these may be, from time to time, a means to our objective, but means and ends must never be confused. We are in business solely to improve the inherent value of the common stockholders' equity in the company."

This sparked a significant shift in the social understanding of corporate teleology. In 1970 the economist Milton Friedman famously published an essay in the New York Times titled “A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits". In it, he argued that “a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; it’s only responsibility is to its shareholders.” The Friedman doctrine was widely adopted in the 1970s, and further amplified after the publication of an influential 1976 business paper by finance professors Michael C. Jensen and William Meckling, titled "Theory of the Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure", which provided a quantitative economic rationale for maximizing shareholder value. The Friedman doctrine flew in the face of the John Maynard Keynes who had been the architect our economy in the 30s and 40s. But there was an appetite for his flavor of economics, especially in the 70s, due to stagnation and inflation. Friedman ultimately went on to be a top economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, who's “Reaganomics” dismantled many of the tax policies that had created and maintained the middle class in the post war years.

Globalization also began to shape the corporate environment as labor was outsourced and unions began to have less influence on corporate operations. On top of this, the idea of "temp work" blew up, becoming a popular way for corporations to evade their obligations to full time employees. It was in this social and economic environment that ‘the organization man’ loss whatever remaining semblance of personhood they had and were branded as "human capital." Intentionally or not, The Indian Head Mills manifesto had spearheaded the mass adoption of a new corporate doctrine: financial maximization.

While the tenants of financial maximization were being galvanized in boardrooms across the country, a new generation of young people were being raised in this new economically competitive environment. Boomer parents, born between 1946 and 1964, grew up with unprecedented middle class prosperity and security, but without the pressures of a global war, didn't share a sense of collectivism as their greatest generation parents did. Yet middle class security isn’t something parents can just hand down to their children. It must be cultivated by every generation. Boomers and their children subsequently set their eyes on the job that would ensure they could live the American dream, and getting that job meant getting the right degree. Socially, culturally, and economically, going to college was the ticket to personal prosperity. Between 1960 and 1980, the percentage of the American population that graduated college more than doubled, going from just 7.7% to 16.2%. Between the 1970s and the early 80s, the number of english majors declined by nearly 50%, as did those majoring in social sciences, while during the same period business majors doubled. For those who didn’t make it to college, the emerging “yuppie” class made an impression that wouldn’t be forgotten, and the lesson would be passed onto the next generation –especially millennials.

Born into the early 80s, Millennial children were raised through the 90s and early 2000s on a steady diet of middle-class maxims that orbited one central tenant – ‘go to college.’

This is where part 3 begins.