The Invention of Work-as-Identity

Modern capitalism did not invent work, but it did moralise it. Max Weber traced this ethic to the Protestant Reformation, where labour became not just economic activity but spiritual discipline. Hard work signalled not only success, but divine favour. This theology seeped into capitalism, where diligence and productivity became markers of virtue—even identity.

In this view, your job is not what you do—it’s who you are. The “What do you do?” question at parties is shorthand for worth. A high-status job implies intellect, ambition, value. A menial one, the opposite. This logic is so embedded that to be unemployed or underemployed often feels not just inconvenient, but shameful.

But what happens when the system that equates work with meaning delivers only burnout, precarity, or meaningless tasks? The result is not just economic insecurity, but spiritual malaise.

Alienation in the Algorithmic Workplace

Karl Marx called it alienation. Under capitalism, he argued, workers become estranged from their labour. They do not own the product they create. They have little control over the process. And in the end, they feel disconnected from themselves.

This critique echoes powerfully today. In the gig economy, workers are managed not by bosses but by algorithms. Tasks are piecemeal, precarious, and often invisible. In white-collar settings, meetings multiply and emails proliferate, but the sense of purpose erodes. Remote work brings flexibility, but also isolation. The workplace becomes both everywhere and nowhere.

Even well-paid roles are not immune. “Bullshit jobs,” as anthropologist David Graeber termed them, are jobs that even those doing them secretly believe shouldn’t exist. They expose a cruel irony: that one can work hard, earn well, and still feel useless.

Alienation, then, is not just about exploitation. It is about disconnection—between effort and impact, identity and labour, presence and purpose.

Value Beyond Productivity

If capitalism ties human worth to productivity, the path to liberation may begin with untangling the two. Not all value is measurable. Care work—raising children, looking after the elderly—remains economically undervalued, yet socially essential. Artistic expression, civic engagement, even leisure—all contribute to human flourishing without fitting neatly on a spreadsheet.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Hannah Arendt saw contemplation, creativity, and public action as central to the good life. Work was a means, not an end. The elevation of labour to the pinnacle of purpose is a modern invention—and, perhaps, a temporary one.

Movements advocating for shorter workweeks, universal basic income, or degrowth economics are not just economic proposals. They are moral reimaginings. They ask: what if a meaningful life didn’t depend on a job title? What if rest, not hustle, was the foundation of dignity?

Toward a Post-Work Ethic

This is not a call to abolish work. Labour can still be dignified, creative, even joyful. But its moral primacy should be questioned. A society that measures worth solely by output will always devalue those who cannot—or choose not to—conform.

The future may not be jobless, but it must be broader in its vision of purpose. We need a cultural shift: from careerism to care, from efficiency to empathy, from the grind to the good life. Only then can we reclaim work—not as a burden or idol, but as one element in a life well lived.