Wilhelm Reich on Work

“Work is the basis of man’s social existence. This is stressed by every social theory. In this respect, however, the problem is not that work is the basis of human existence. The problem relates to the nature of work: Is it in opposition to or in harmony with the biologic needs of masses of people? Marx’s economic theory proved that everything that is produced in the way of economic values comes about through the expenditure of man’s living working power, and not through the expenditure of dead material.”

“Only when one is objectively and intimately related to one’s work is one capable of comprehending just how destructive the dictatorial and formal democratic forms of work are, not only for work itself but also for the pleasure of work. When a man takes pleasure in his work, we call his relationship to it ‘libidinous’. Since work and sexuality (in both the strict and broad senses of the word) are intimately interwoven, man’s relationship to work is also a question of the sex-economy of masses of people. The hygiene of the work process is dependent upon the way masses of people use and gratify their biologic energy. Work and sexuality derive from the same biologic energy.”

“It is clear that mechanistic, biologically unsatisfying work is a product of the widespread mechanistic view of life and the machine civilization. Can the biologic function of work be reconciled with the social function of work? This is possible, but firmly entrenched ideas and institutions must be radically corrected first. The craftsman of the nineteenth century still had a full relationship to the product of his work. But when, as in a Ford factory, a worker has to perform one and the same manipulation year in and year out, always working on one detail and never the product as a whole, it is out of the question to speak of satisfying work. The specialized and mechanized division of labour, together with the system of paid labour in general, produce the effect that the working man has no relationship to the machine.”

“The working men and women who think and act in a work-democratic way do not come out against the politician. It is not his fault or his intention that the practical result of his work exposes the illusionary and irrational character of politics. Those who are engaged in practical work, regardless what field they are in, are intensely concerned with practical tasks in the improvement of life. Those who are engaged in practical work are not against one thing or another. It is only the politician who, having no practical tasks is always against and never for something. Politics in general is characterized by this ‘being against’ one thing or another. That which is productive in a practical way is not accomplished by politicians, but by working men and women, whether it is in accord with the politicians’ ideologies or not.”

“The relationship between the worker’s sexual life and the performance of his work is of decisive importance. It is not as if work diverted sexual energy from gratification, so that the more one worked the less need one would have for sexual gratification. The opposite of this is the case: The more gratifying one’s sexual life is, the more fulfilling and pleasurable is one ’s work, if all external conditions are fulfilled. Gratified sexual energy is spontaneously converted into an interest in work and an urge for activity. In contrast to this, one’s work is disturbed in various ways if one’s sexual need is not gratified and is suppressed. Hence, a basic principle of the work hygiene of a work-democratic society is: It is necessary to establish not only the best external conditions of work, but also to create the inner biologic preconditions to allow the fullest unfolding of the biologic urge for activity. Hence, the safeguarding of a completely satisfying sexual life for the working masses is the most important precondition of pleasurable work. In any society the degree to which work kills the joy of life, the degree to which it is represented as a duty (whether to a ‘fatherland’, the ‘proletariat’, the ‘nation’ or whatever other names these illusions may have), is a sure yardstick on which to measure the anti-democratic character of the ruling class of this society.”

“For centuries on end it has been precisely vitally necessary work that the political ideology of the ruling but nonworking classes has depreciated. On the other hand, it has represented non-work as a sign of noble blood. All socialist ideologies reacted to this appraisal with a mechanistic and rigid reversal of valuations. The socialists conceived of ‘work’ as relating solely to those activities that had been looked down upon in feudalism, i.e., essentially to manual labour; whereas the activity of the ruling classes was represented as non-work. To be sure, this mechanical reversal of ideologic valuations was wholly in keeping with the political concept of the two economically and personally sharply demarcated social classes, the ruling and the ruled. From a purely economic point of view, society could indeed be divided into ‘those who possessed capital’ and ‘those who possessed the commodity, working power’ . From the point of view of bio-sociology, however, there could be no clear-cut division between one class and another, neither ideologically nor psychologically, and certainly not on the basis of work. The discovery of the fact that the ideology of a group of people does not necessarily have to coincide with its economic situation, indeed, that economic and ideologic situation are often sharply opposed to one another, enabled us to understand the fascist movement, which had remained uncomprehended until then. In 1930 it became dear that there is a ‘cleavage’ between ideology and economy, and that the ideology of a certain class can develop into a social force, a social force that is not confined to that one class.”