Sometimes the world seems to send me subtle or not so subtle signs about what I’m supposed to be writing about. That happened to me this week.
I’ve been reading Erik Baker’s “Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America” for about a month. It’s a “thick” book, dense with history and ideas, and I found myself needing to sit with each chapter a bit to let it sink in before moving on. Thankfully, as dense as it is in terms of the content and ideas, it’s also accessible, and even elegant in its presentation and prose. It’s a pleasure to read.
I was happy to keep meandering along, maybe never even writing about it publicly, but then on social media, I saw a post discussing the new educational standards for the state of Pennsylvania. They had mapped out a sequence for teaching the young citizens of their state the principles and practices of entrepreneurialism starting in kindergarten.
Clearly, this book is not just a work of history, and more people should be aware of it as we consider the systems we live within.
For Baker, entrepreneurialism is many things. It is a philosophy, a cog in a larger economic system, and in some cases even something that may approach a kind of secular religion. Entrepreneurialism is a tool that offers a promise of wealth and independence, while putting the onus of achieving those things on the individual, with any individual’s failure being their own fault, rather than a shortcoming of society.
I write all this from the perspective of a reluctant entrepreneur who would much rather have a secure job teaching young people to write, but lives in a world where I could not get paid a reasonable wage for this work. Instead, I hustle as an army of one, writing, speaking, consulting on the subjects (reading/writing) I’m passionate about. It is deeply fulfilling, but it is also often exhausting, and I worry that it could go poof at any moment.
Baker argues that entrepreneurialism replaced the previously dominant ethos of “industriousness,” and has yet to be supplanted. Industriousness posited that diligence, and hard work would ultimately be rewarded, or failing that was literally its own reward. But as industrialization took hold, kicking a full capitalist economy predicated on growth into gear, labor industriousness in the service of enriching capital was not going to hold.
Enter, entrepreneurialism, an ethos and mindset that, according to its boosters, can make anyone rich should they embrace it hard enough. This ethos has morphed from era to era, manifesting in different ways, whether it be Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” which promised a way to leverage interpersonal skills to riches, to the more recent “gig economy” that privileges how willing you are to hustle.
As the subtitle indicates, Baker’s book is a critical look at how this idea of entrepreneurialism has been used as a tool to alternatively discipline or distract workers from the ever-increasing concentration of wealth. If it wasn’t clear already, Baker’s critique is rooted in a pro-labor political left, an orientation that I share, so take of that what you will.
But I would argue for even those who are true believers in the power of entrepreneurialism to make things happen, that we do not have a society where large swaths of the public feel economically secure. Interestingly, some of those people who are secure still don’t feel that way, and this ethos may be playing a role.
John Warner is the author of books including “More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.” You can find him at biblioracle.com.
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides
2. “Twenty-One Stories” by Graham Greene
3. “James” by Percival Everett
4. “The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership” by Martin Gutmann
5. “Destiny of the Republic — A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President” by Candice Millard
— Jim B., Crystal Lake
For Jim, I’m recommending Patrick Radden Keefe’s penetrating history, “Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.”
1. “Love” by Toni Morrison
2. “The Stone Diaries” by Carol Shields
3. “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout
4. “Tom Lake” Ann Patchett
5. “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
— Mickey T., Chicago
I think Anne Tyler feels like a nice fit with this list, “A Spool of Blue Thread.”
1. “A Time to Kill” by John Grisham
2. “Solito” by Javier Zamora
3. “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz
4. “James” by Percival Everett
5. “The Women” Kristin Hannah
— Fiona L., Milwaukee
“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin should be a compelling read for Fiona.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.