The essay Thoughts on Work and Working in the October 2013 issue of The Freeman is the inspiration for this blog post, which will discuss the portrayal of working and jobs on television. In the essay, author Sarah Skwire reviews the book "Working" by Studs Terkel, which contained oral narratives of different types of workers talking about their jobs. The author uses her analysis of the book to argue that the public's view of free market capitalism is influenced by how we view and talk about work. Specifically, if we hate our job and view working for a salary as slavery to the rich then we will hate capitalism, and if we enjoy our job and take pride in doing good work then we are more likely to favor capitalism.
Ms. Skwire cites cases in Mr. Terkel's book which show that this hate-my-job vs. love-my-job dynamic does not line up neatly with poor vs. rich or working class job vs. upper class job. She describes blue collar workers, like cashiers and assembly line workers, who love their work. Here I will elaborate on this point that working class jobs are not exploitation with reference to the portrayal of jobs and working in two TV shows: Shark Tank and Project Runway. Up front I must confess that I watch and enjoy both of these shows, for reasons that should become clear below.
(1) Shark Tank is a show about a group of wealthy venture capitalists called "sharks," including famed Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who hear presentations by small business owners and then decide whether to invest in the business. This show is interesting to a libertarian because the rich investors are not portrayed as exploiting the small businessmen. Although the sharks do often make predatory initial offers, like buying 75% of a business for $10,000, the five sharks compete with each other and if the investment opportunity has merit then they frequently undercut each others' offers in ways that favor the entrepreneur, e.g. the initial offer could become a final offer of $20,000 for 20% of the equity.
The entrepreneurs who pitch ideas to the Sharks are frequently people who started off in a working class job and loved what they did and wanted to start or expand a business where they take their expertise and passion of an area and develop that passion into a brand or product, for which they need capital. Indeed, many of the Sharks themselves, including Mark Cuban, began as small businessmen and then got rich due to hard work and success. Shark Tank depicts in reality what it looks like for capitalism and Wall Street to help small business and create jobs, rather than describing that in disembodied abstract theory as so many libertarian economists have done.
For example, in the last season of Shark Tank a boy in middle school, who happened to be from a town close to where I live in Connecticut, dreamed of making gourmet dog food, and cooked up batches of dog treats in the early morning before school and sold dog treats to his friends and teammates' families at his sports teams' practices. Despite what some Marxists would assert as child labor, his story felt like an ambitious passionate young person wanting to work and make an honest living for himself. He pitched his dog treat business to the sharks and, although four of the sharks did not really take him seriously due to his age, one of the sharks liked his product and gave him a reasonable offer. He decided to take her offer and he did the deal to get her investment capital.
(2) Project Runway is a show, hosted by supermodel Heidi Klum, where a group of fashion designers compete in a series of challenges to win a $500,000 prize. Most of the contestants in this reality shows are poor and/or gay, and many of them have fascinating and eccentric personalities. Although the challenges are grueling and difficult, like sewing and working all day and all night to design a runway-ready evening gown from idea to finished clothing in 24 hours, the show does not depict the contestants as slaves in a sweatshop who are exploited by the $500,000 prize's control over them. The opposite is true: the show depicts the money as a prize for the worthy, not as an evil system of oppression. The contestants are young and ambitious and have a deep love of clothes and they enjoy the work they do despite it being very difficult. Most of them view Project Runway as an opportunity to show the world their talent and be rewarded for all their hard work and skill.
In the most recent season, the show ended in a competition between two designers, Alexandria and Dom, with everyone else having been eliminated by the end. Alexandria ended up losing and was very upset and bitter (despite winning $25,000 as runner up), but Dom, a poor young black woman from Philadelphia, had done what was in my opinion the best collection to show on the runway in the finale, with clothes that were exotic and attention-grabbing, and she worked hard and deserved her prize. Project Runway depicts work as good and something that earns its just reward, not as a necessary evil that we should all complain about and try to abolish.
Television, like Hollywood and the news media, has its fair share of Marxists. But these two shows, and others like them, are getting people to talk about work in ways that are accurate in assessing the values of freedom and capitalism.
