The goods of work (other than money!)i Anca Gheaus and Lisa Herzog forthcoming in the Journal of Social Philosophy 1. Introduction John Rawls famously argued that justice is about the fair distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. In modern societies, one of the main forms of social cooperation is paid work. Most of us have to work in order to make a living, and this takes up a significant amount of our time. The unavoidable and time-intensive nature of paid work implies that there are several ways in which the structure of labour markets is relevant for justice: Most people cannot avoid paid work, therefore it is important to ensure that paid work does not undermine the employees' ability to lead a decent life. And since paid work represents a large part of adult life, an important question of distributive justice is who has access to which benefits available through work. In this paper we argue that the evaluation of labour markets and of particular jobs needs to be sensitive to a plurality of benefits and burdens of work.ii Recent theories of justice have often focused on the most obvious benefit of work, which also motivates many people to work: earning a decent wage, and on the importance of avoiding some of the bads of work: not only health risks but also lack of discretionary time and time flexibility, and oppressive hierarchies in the workplace. Yet, the benefits of work are not one (financial gain), but many. We provide a framework for thinking about benefits that we call "the goods of work" because work is a privileged context for realizing them. We are guided by three considerations in singling out the goods of work that are relevant to distributive justice: First, people find these goods particularly valuable, as indicated by the fact that they often motivate people to workiii, and by reflections on these goods in various traditions of thinking about work. Second, in societies without an unconditional income and in which most people are not independently wealthy and therefore have to engage in paid work, they have few occasions to realize these goods outside their job, simply because of time constraints. Finally, the goods of work are a suitable object of distributive concerns because their distribution is regulated by public institutions. It may be that justice requires fairness in the distribution of the overall package of benefits and burdens each individual gets from paid work. Alternatively, it may be that justice concerns the distribution of each of the goods of work, which we identify as those goods that simultaneously meet certain criteria we specify below. In either case, it is important to be clear about the goods of work, whose distribution is relevant to justice. We therefore hope to make a double contribution: first, to better understand these goods and their analytical – if not always practical – separability; second, to show their relevance for distributive justice. Others have discussed before the importance of "meaningful" work.iv Our account of the goods of work can be read as unpacking the ways in which work can be meaningful. Further analysis would be needed, however, to determine which if any combination of the goods we discuss is necessary or sufficient to render work "meaningful" – analysis in which we cannot engage here. By distilling insights from empirical research in psychology and sociology and from various traditions of thought about work, we believe that we capture most if not all the central goods of work, which, in addition to wages, include: 1) attaining various types of excellence; 2) making a social contribution; 3) experiencing community; and 4) gaining social recognition.v We discuss examples in which one or several of the goods of work cannot be realized to show that they are analytically separable, even if in practice they often are simultaneously realizable. We suggest a conceptual framework for thinking about the goods of work and for broadening the scope of theories of justice in the labour market: The labour markets and particular jobs can be objectionable, above and beyond the charge of being financially inadequate and of exposing people to certain bads, if the opportunities to realize these goods are distributed unjustly. Taking into account other goods of work enhances the relevance of theories of justice to the practical questions raised by contemporary labour markets, for example about working arrangements that isolate certain employees from the community of other employees, or about work that does not give individuals a chance to develop any valuable skills. When resources are scarce, the provision and distribution of income may justifiably be the highest priority, because income represents the universal means for satisfying the most basic needs. But in many societies today we collectively can afford to take into account the broader goods of work.vi It is therefore worth asking how labour markets should be designed such that they do not undermine individuals' ability to enjoy these goods, and afford them sufficient, and fairly distributed, opportunities to realize them. Unregulated labour markets, or labour markets regulated exclusively with an eye on monetary payoffs, can be deficient in offering individuals such opportunities; and inequalities in access to the goods of work are themselves a matter of justice. We advance three claims. The first, and least controversial, is that a multi-dimensionally just labour market requires that all employees can avoid the worst forms of the bads of work – bads that undermine their ability to lead a decent life, for instance by undermining their health, their ability to have a family life, or their standing as equal members of society. The second, central claim is that a multi-dimensionally just labour market should not take away employees' ability to realize the goods of work, either within their jobs or in other contexts. Yet, the most attractive jobs are often those that actually enable employees to realize the goods of work within paid work. The third, and most controversial claim therefore is that the distribution of (opportunities for realizing) the goods of work is itself an issue of justice.vii Several liberal egalitarian theories of distributive justice can accommodate the claims advanced in this paper. They are compatible with a variety of principles of justice distributions (equality, priority and sufficiency) and with most, although perhaps not all, metrics of justice. If individuals are owed a fair distribution of welfare, opportunity to welfare, or capabilities, then the distribution of the benefits and burdens of work identified here is a matter of justice, since they are all plausibly relevant to both welfare and capabilities.viii One kind of resourcism, which exclusively identifies income and wealth as the metric of justice seems incompatible with our claims: If it is just that individuals be given equal – or perhaps sufficient – amounts of money, but distributive justice is indifferent to how these resources are translated into (opportunity to) welfare or capabilities, then it is difficult to see why the distributions of the benefits and burdens of work, in particular, should be subject to a requirement of justice. ix We hope, however, that our analysis provides a pro tanto reason to reject materialist resourcism. Beyond this observation, we do not intend to commit to any view on the correct metric of justice. Instead, we see the goods of work as being part of the set of goods and policies that ought to be distributed in order to realise a fair distribution of the metric of justice (whatever that metric is.)x A main source of resistance to our approach is the belief that free labour markets give people an adequate choice of bundles of goods that can be pursued within one's paid work. For example, John Tomasi's recent defence of free markets implies that in a free market individuals have sufficient opportunity to do the kind of work they would like to do.xi But labour markets often do not give individuals such options, and therefore the institutional framework of labour markets may need to take the "'goods of work"' explicitly into account. These goods are broad and general, and they are part of many different conceptions of the good life; that they are so highly valued is, indeed, a good reason to think that the goods of work contribute to the welfare of the individuals (at least in cases when they are desired). If a non-optional and time-consuming activity such as paid work disproportionately deprives workers employees of the goods of work that have significant and non-monetary value, this raises a complaint of justice. In the next section we briefly discuss the bads of work and in the subsequent section offer a more detailed discussion of the four broad goods we distinguish: excellence, social contribution, community, and social recognition. We then expand on why the non-monetary goods of work are relevant to justice. The fifth section addresses the two objections mentioned above: that unregulated labour markets can provide individuals with sufficient opportunities to realize these goods, and that state neutrality forbids any interference with labour markets. The conclusion consists of brief reflections on some possible practical implications of our view. 2. The bads of work Before embarking on a discussion of the non-monetary goods of work and their relevance to distributive justice it is important to acknowledge the existence, and relevance to distributive justice, of the bads of work. Some bads of work are merely the absence – or the fall below a threshold – of the goods of work. A subgroup of such bads are financial, or have an important financial dimension: inadequate pay and lack of benefits like pensions, paid holidays, paid parental leaves and health care. Another sub-group of bads of work consist in the absence of the nonmonetary goods of work we identify in this paper (and discuss at large in the next section): excellence, social contribution, community and social respect. Some jobs are extremely dull and repetitive and therefore detrimental to the development of any skill; or not only fail to make a social contribution, but are socially destructive – for example by destroying otherwise viable companies for the sake of short term profits or by engaging in socially destructive financial speculation; other jobs involve working in constant isolation from one's fellow employees; or seriously undermine the employee's social standing. But other non-monetary bads of work are not the mere absence of the (monetary or nonmonetary) goods of work. Rather, they consist in failures to protect other important goods, such as the health of employees, their discretionary time and, in cases in which jobs are structured by oppressive hierarchies, their freedom from non-domination. Our first claim refers to the bads of work. It holds that they should be avoided wherever possible, and where this is not possible, their distribution is relevant to justice. We assume that it is the least controversial of our claims, at least with regard to extreme forms of bads that jeopardize the conditions for a decent life; with regard to other bads – for instance protection from lack of time and hierarchical relationships – it is more controversial, but we here nonetheless assume that it is well-grounded: It is unjust if employees are avoidably and knowingly exposed to serious health risks, including risks for mental health. Similarly, it is objectionable if labour markets or individual jobs undermine important goods such as self-respectxii or personal autonomy,xiii which are basic preconditions for forming and pursuing a conception of the good. A frequent objection to unregulated capitalist labour markets is that they undermine these goods and therefore violate basic standards of justice. Adina Schwartz argued that individuals who are systematically denied meaningful work become incapable of formulating, revising and pursuing their own conception of the good, and so have their autonomy undermined. If she is right, the requirement to avoid the bads of work amounts to the requirement that no job falls below a certain threshold of meaningfulness.xiv In many labour markets employees have legal protection from some of the bads of work. The International Labor Organisation's conventions on decent work summarize these requirements, which are embedded in many countries' legal frameworks. The requirements of justice with regard to the non-monetary bads of work may be plausibly broadened to include the availability of a set of options allowing individuals to realize, outside their paid work, important goods that are a part of many conceptions of the good life. This concerns, for example, people's ability to care for their families. Daniel Engsterxv suggested that it is unjust if people have to make a choice between a decently-paying full-time job that allows them to materially care for their families but does not leave them time for realizing a caring relationship with them, and a low-paying job that gives them enough time for directly caring for family members, but not enough income to sustain them materially. The justice of an economic system, on his account, will in part turn on whether individuals can earn enough to sustain themselves and their dependants by working in jobs that leave them enough time and flexibility to sustain caring relationships with them. Therefore, according to Engster, economic systems should be designed such that jobs give adequate pay to support oneself and one's dependants and enough time to engage in regular and frequent interactions with them. Such requirements of justice justify regulations of the labour market, at least as long as no other, even more basic requirements of justice are violated by them (e.g. everyone's right to subsistence). This might sometimes diminish economic efficiency, especially if efficiency is understood in a narrow monetary sense, but these losses in efficiency are outweighed by the importance of avoiding these bads. Insofar as (some of) the bads of work might be unavoidable, their distribution is also a matter of justice. 3. The central goods of work There is ample empirical evidence that people care about their work as being more than just a way of earning an incomexvi. In this section we present a number of goods of work that matter in addition to the – undeniable and uncontroversial – good of earning an adequate wage. Drawing on empirical research, we identify four categories of such goods: excellence, social contribution, community, and social recognition. All of them have played a role in some philosophical tradition of thinking about work; we here understand them in a broad and thin sense. Usually, the goods we discuss come in degrees. At this level of generality, one can identify the goods of work with sufficient objectivity, at least in the sense that one can objectively agree on extreme cases in which these goods are absent, and often also on cases in which they are more or less present.xvii Excellence Attaining some form of excellence motivates many people to work – indeed, it can sustain motivation for life-long involvement with work. Excellence is a regulative ideal, which is to be understood broadly: as the accomplishment of various things such as knowledge, technological achievements, or beauty. Excellence includes the development of one's skills – for example, good judgement – , but also the accomplishments resulting of the exercise of these skills – for example a good piece of craftsmanship. Thus, excellence refers to the relation between the worker and what he or she does rather than to the relation of either the worker or the product to others. Work is a privileged context for striving for excellence, which typically requires sustained effort and focus and which often, but not necessarily, results in products that are highly valued on the market. The fact that acquiring excellence takes up a lot of time, combined with the fact that most people have to work a significant proportion of their time, means that achieving excellence of some kind can often not be done in one's free time. At least this is the case for individuals who, in addition to their jobs, have responsibilities for dependants and therefore very little disposable time. And excellence obviously cannot be bought with money. Thus, to be able to attain some kind of excellence means, for most people, that they have to find a job in which they can attain it. Philosophy has a long history of recognizing the striving for various forms of excellence . As James Murphy emphasizes,xviii the connection between intellect and practice was an important element in Aristotle's conception of work: it is a unity of conception and execution, which takes time to achieve.xix The importance of excellence for many individuals is supported by the fact that "mastery" is a main motivator for work. Psychological research shows that the right balance between one's abilities and the challenges one encounters in one's work – and thus the opportunity to nurture one's abilities – is an intrinsic motivator for many individuals, often leading to the experience that Csikszentmihalyi has called "flow", in which individuals are completely absorbed in an activity.xx Hackman and Oldham's classic Job Characteristics Model,xxi which has been validated by numerous studies,xxii argues that jobs that show characteristics such as skill variety, task identity (being able to finish one task) and feedback – characteristics that make it possible for individuals to acquire excellence in what they do – are associated with numerous positive variables, such as higher job satisfaction and motivation. The achievement of excellence has a lot to do with temporal dimensions of work: for example, are employees given enough time to acquire solid skills, and do they have the prospects of a career in the course of which they can develop their skills and learn new ones? The separability of excellence from other goods of work can easily be illustrated: Consider, for example, the young Marx, grappling with complicated ideas, but lonely, lacking in social recognition and genuinely uncertain about the chances of making a social contribution. On the other hand, one can realize all other goods – social contribution, community, social recognition, and an income – but not excellence, like someone who has to take up a job that does not correspond to her talents. In addition, the design of jobs can undermine people's ability to achieve excellence in other areas of life; for example if it leaves them too exhausted to have any extended spare time activities. Social contribution People often work because they wish to contribute to their society. While some social contributions are realized through highly trained skills and the pursuit of excellence, these are neither necessary nor sufficient to make a contribution to society; unqualified work, for example collecting garbage, is often the most necessary kind for keeping a society running. Paid work is a natural context in which to realize the good of social contribution because we spend much of our time in it and because it is the typical setting for social encounters aimed at producing utility. Ideally, markets should attach monetary value to the things that are most necessary for the life of a society. In current societies, however, part of what we cover under social contribution, for example care work, is realized through voluntary rather than paid work. Many consider the split between "for profit" and "for purpose" markets an anomaly, but it is hard to see how it could be eliminated within the current theoretical and practical frameworks of labour markets and its focus on their monetary dimension Having conducted a large sociological study on what people from different occupations think about their work, Studs Terkel summarizes his findings by stating that people "search for daily meaning as well as daily bread"xxiii, and for many people, seeing the contribution they make in their work is an essential source of meaning. A recent study found that deriving "meaning and significance" from work has a large impact on the likelihood to stay with an organization, on job satisfaction, and on job engagement.xxiv The good of social contribution can be absent while other goods of work are present, or the other way round. A lonely gravedigger can see that her work makes an important social contribution, while lacking any sense of accomplishing excellence, receiving recognition, or experiencing community. The opposite case is someone who can realizes all of these goods in her work, while doing socially useless or even detrimental work. Some who worked in the financial industry before the 2008 crash might realize that their work made little, if any social contribution, and might in fact have been socially destructive.xxv Community Third, many people are motivated to work by their desire to attain community, understood as the experience of doing things together with people with whom they stand in relatively free and equal relationships. Community is, of course, valued in many contexts. But arguably working together is a specific experience, since it involves being part of a project of collective agency. Community at work can come with the special bonus of joint accomplishments resulting from joint sustained effort. The joint pursuit of hobbies and civic engagement are alternative ways of realizing community, but, as before, in a world where large amounts of people's time are spent in paid work, the latter should not be neglected as a venue for pursuing this good. Psychologists have long analysed the human need for belonging, the "pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quantity of lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships."xxvi It is no surprise that this drive is also active in the workplace. As Cynthia Estlund puts it: "The workplace is the single most important site of cooperative interaction and sociability among adult citizens outside the family."xxvii Psychologists Ashfort and Blake argue that the importance of strong social bonds and a common culture at work play an especially important role for individuals doing "dirty work", in order to jointly construct an "esteem-enhancing social identity".xxviii But the importance of community is not limited to "dirty work"; it plays a role for all kinds of work. Different organizational structures have an impact on how likely it is that employees can realize community at work.xxix Conventional capitalist companies are hierarchically structured, which means that many relations are not egalitarian. These hierarchies are often a mixture of different kinds of authority. Some of them are based on reasons such as the need for coordination or superior expertise; they can be justified, at least in principle, to individuals who see one another as moral equals.xxx But such legitimate forms of authority are often intertwined with forms of inequality that are based on sheer power – typically, because employees depend more on their jobs, which provide them with an income, than companies depend on specific employees. The resulting imbalances of power are much harder to justify, and are, arguably, a serious threat to the experience of community at work. Even those whose "exit options" are better – for example because they possess skills that are highly thought after – are affected by this because the very fact that they rely on the threat of exit in order to defend their position within a company can be inimical to the development of community. In order to realize the good of community, other organizational structures, e.g. worker cooperatives or other forms of workplace democracy, seem preferable. Thus, the increasing interest in, and popularity of, workplace democracy and employee-owned business probably indicates a search for, among other things, the good of community at work.xxxi Formal equality, however, does not necessarily translate into other relevant forms of equality. As Jane Mansbridge found in her empirical work on an urban crisis centre, even in an organization whose members shared a strong commitment to egalitarian values there were inequalities in political power. But in this "unitary" setting – with shared interests and commitments – the employees nonetheless realized principles such as the equal protection of interests, equal respect, and a sense of participation that supported personal growth.xxxii Thus, the relationship between organizational structures and egalitarian social relations can be rather complex. What matters, in addition to formal structures, is a shared egalitarian culture that embeds a commitment to equal respect for all members of a joint undertaking. Thus, worker cooperatives, or other structures that include elements of workplace democracy, are probably the ideal organizational structure from the perspective of community. But this does not mean that community, and a culture in which individuals see one another as moral equals, are impossible to realize in other structures. Justified authority is, arguably, less inimical to community than authority based on sheer power. In most conventional firms there are also employees who are on the same hierarchical level, for whom it may be easier to realize community among themselves. But these forms of community can be undermined by certain forms of hierarchical leadership and the ensuing culture, by excessive competition at the workplace, or by a high degree of micromanagement. For employees who are constantly reminded of their lowly position in the organizational hierarchy, or who are micromanaged and bossed around, it can be very hard, or even impossible, to experience the social relations at heir workplace as a form of community.xxxiii It is clear that community can be present or absent independently of other goods of work. For example, it might be very strong in some forms of low-paid work. A group of semi-industrial workers who produce socially trivial goods such as cheap decoration articles, which is neither challenging nor conductive to much social recognition, can nevertheless realize community among themselves, especially if they have some space for jointly organizing the work process. On the other hand, people in leadership positions in overly hierarchical job conditions can lack community while realizing all other goods. And it is conceivable that having to work in an environment that is inimical to community can be corrosive to one's ability to experience community in other areas of life, if long-time exposure to very competitive or hierarchical relationships undermine individuals' psychological ability to form and sustain egalitarian relationships. Social recognition People also work to receive recognition from others. Incidentally, social recognition is often mediated by other goods of work: achievements, social contribution, and even high salaries can earn individuals the high regard of others. For a majority of people in this day and age paid employment provides by far the most opportunities for gaining social recognition. The importance of recognition has been emphasized by idealist philosophers, in particular Hegelxxxiv, who held that professional identity can be an important avenue for social recognition.xxxv Axel Honneth argued that work is a necessary context for a specific form of social recognition – the recognition for one's achievementsxxxvi Empirical work supports the claim that workers strive for social recognition. Terkel notes that the numerous euphemisms that are used in job descriptions, such as when a janitor is called a "building engineer", indicate people's search for status.xxxvii Yet, social recognition is influenced not only by the kind of work one does, but also by one's position in a job hierarchy. Given the role that work plays in contemporary capitalist societies, its relation to social recognition in current societies is hard to deny. Here are some illustrations of the analytical separability of social recognition from other goods of work: It can be enjoyed by a lonely stand-up comedian who uses sexist jokes that he himself does not find very funny. On the other hand, imagine a team of insurance brokers who develop a new business model that can create genuine value for their customers, replacing exploitative forms of insurance. They are good at their job and develop their skills, see the social contribution of what they do, and enjoy community. But the general bad reputation of the insurance industry, and the complexities of the new business model which are hard to convey to the wider public, deprive them of social recognition. A minimum requirement of justice with regard to social recognition is that one should not have to work in a job that undermines one's ability to receive social recognition. This is relevant for jobs that are socially stigmatized, as in the sex industry or in an abattoir. In some such cases the way to address the problem is by eliminating stigmatization, in other it may be to share the stigmatizing work more equally. 4. Why are the goods of paid work relevant to distributive justice? Much of the debate about distributive justice in the last decades focused on the fairness of distributing benefits, often understood in monetary terms (or not specified in concrete terms at all). It is widely recognized that theorists of justice need to address questions of justice with regard to the distribution and security of income, concerning the relationship between paid work and other forms of work, or concerning wage discrimination between different social groups. But given that paid work is one of the main forms of social cooperation, and one of its most important nonoptional burdens, the issue of justice in the labour market deserves attention beyond the question of monetary outcomes. Justice in the labour market needs to be discussed with regard to the multiplicity of the goods of work. We discussed in the second section a first – and least controversial – claim concerning the bads of work. Our second and third claims concern the non-monetary goods of work. Their requirements are less minimal, and therefore likely to be more controversial. The second claim is that in a society in which most people have to work in order to make a living, the economic system as a whole and individual jobs can be criticized as unjust if they prevent people from realizing goods that meet both of the following two criteria: 1. they have distinctive value because they are very widely desired by individuals as non-substitutable elements of their conception of the good life and 2. they cannot be obtained with money. The first condition is straightforward: Any institutional arrangement that prevents people from enjoying goods that are essential to their (morally innocent) life plans is suspicious, provided the society in case is sufficiently affluent to ensure basic necessities to all its members. This also holds for the institutional arrangements that regulate the distribution of the goods of work, which play a central role in many people's conception of the good life, and often motivate them to work in the first place. The second condition specifies that the complaint holds for cases in which the goods in question cannot be obtained with money. By contrast, it is not necessarily objectionable if goods that can easily be replaced with money, e.g. clothes, get damaged in the process of working, because one can be fully compensated for the loss. But if employees are prevented from realizing the goods of work we describe – because they can neither realize them in their paid jobs nor outside of them – they suffer the distinctive injustice of being unable to pursue their conception of the good, and this cannot be compensated by monetary payments. Of course, the goods of work are not part of every individual's conception of the good life. But most people are likely to include one or another version of at least some of these goods into their life plan. Thus, it is unjust, ceteris paribus, if the labour market or particular jobs are designed in ways that systematically undermine the ability to pursue these goods, as long as alternative designs are possible. One way in which labour markets or individual jobs can prevent employees from realizing the goods of work is by not leaving enough discretionary time to realize these goods in spare-time activities. In such cases, paid work is the only context in which individuals can hope to realize them. Our third claim is that, unless and until the social organization of work will allow for sufficient discretionary time for individuals to realise the goods the above criteria outside their paid job, justice in the labour market requires a fair distribution of opportunities for people to realize them within their paid work. If it is true that the goods of work are central to individuals' flourishing lives, and as long as we live in societies in which their realization is closely tied to the nature of paid employment, the equal concern owed to all individuals implies that their distribution is a matter of justice.xxxviii The questions of workers' discretionary time and of their reliance on paid work in order to make a living are crucial considerations in thinking about justice in the distribution of the goods of work. We would have less, if any, reason, to be concerned with the distribution of the non-monetary goods of work if we were to reform employment such that people spent much less time in paid worked and had more time flexibilityxxxix. To an even larger extent, the introduction of a universal basic income would diminish the importance of a fair distribution of people's ability to realise the goods within their job. Some economists interested in meaningful work take the importance of meaningful work as a ground for introducing a basic incomexl. And it has been argued that the provision of a basic income would count as giving citizens a reasonable option to engage in meaningful workxli. We do not commit here to any claims concerning the all-things-considered desirabilityxlii of a basic income, nor to its feasibility. But, if desirable and implemented, a basic income would significantly weaken the case for distributing the goods of work in the context of paid jobs, as well as the case for regulating jobs against the bads of work, because people could afford to opt out of the labour market. Reversely, the importance of the goods of work (other than money!) for justice can be a pro tanto argument for an unconditional basic income if it turns out to be difficult to regulate their fair distribution within paid work. Absent a basic income, and given long working hours, the distribution of the non-monetary goods of work within paid employment raises a concern of justice. One way of addressing this concern would be the large-scale introduction of workplace democracyxliii, affording employees considerable freedom in shaping the nature of their jobs. Absent such a radical reform, which we assume will not be enacted in the foreseeable future, questions about the distribution of the goods of work have an impact on the regulations of the labour market. 5. Unregulated labour markets and state neutrality Libertarians, for example Robert Nozick or Tomasi, may respond to our account by claiming that an unregulated labour market can offer people the bundles of goods they desire, and that it is therefore the best arrangement for providing employees with an opportunity to take into account monetary as well as non-monetary goods: For instance, if someone values community at work, she can choose a job that is maybe less well paid but gives her a great experience of community.xliv Some economists, starting with Adam Smith, have argued that the overall attractiveness of jobs is inversely related to the income they earnxlv, because if a job is attractive, it is in higher demand and hence the wage will drop, and vice versa.xlvi Even if this were an adequate description of actual labour markets, it would not mean that labour markets secure access to the goods of work. Some goods of work are inevitably scarce because there is not enough consumer demand. The distribution of scarce desired goods is a matter of justice, and it is by no means obvious that an unregulated labour market best realizes a fair allocation. In addition, there are problems that mar real, in contrast to textbook, labour markets. Anne Phillips has recently pointed out the dangers of taking on board ideal accounts of markets in theories of justice.xlvii This warning is especially pertinent to discussions about labour markets. Not only are individuals' starting bargaining positions extremely different; their bargaining positions within the labour market over time are also likely to be different, even if none of them is in a situation of existential risk.xlviii Consider, for example, the material and non-material costs of losing a job for someone who has to take care of a family, has bought a home and become rooted in a community. This provides employers with considerable market power, which they can use to lower wages or otherwise decrease the quality of the job. The differential in the "exit options" from contracts creates unequal power – a problem that Adam Smith signalled with regard to capital owners and workers,xlix Given the threat of unemployment, many employees (especially those who are least educated, healthy, and those deemed socially unsuitable) enjoy little if any real occupational choice. In fact, the worst paid jobs often tend to be the least attractive in non-material terms as well, failing to provide any of the goods of work discussed here. The option of becoming self-employed, which might be suggested as an alternative, presupposes the availability of capital and of sufficient demand for the services one can offer through self-employment; these conditions are often not fulfilled. The idea that unregulated labour markets could accurately respond to people's preferences, and hence that wages could reflect the value of the bundle of immaterial goods people get from their jobs, is so idealized that it seems hardly justified to apply it as a general principle to real world labour markets. It may apply to some subgroups, e.g. to engineers working in large corporations versus engineers working at research institutions. But even in such contexts, markets are likely to be distorted by many other factors, including sheer luck. For example, research shows that whether one starts one's professional life during an economic downturn or upturn can make a difference for one's income for the rest of one's life.l Another problematic factor are cultural prejudices that lead to lower pay for certain jobs, e.g. jobs that have traditionally be taken up by women.li In sum: labour markets are often not able to give people a smorgasbord of options from which they can choose the bundle that gives them access to even a minimum of the non-monetary goods of work. This holds, in particular, for people in the midst of their professional careers: often, the character of one's job unpredictably changes in ways that would make other jobs more attractive when it is too costly for people to switch jobs. The imperfections and imbalances of power in labour markets mean that individuals can be stuck in jobs with bundles that score low on many relevant goods. Leaving labour markets unregulated with regard to the non-monetary goods of work gives disproportionate bargaining power to individuals who posses certain morally arbitrary characteristics such as health, youth or geographic mobility, while leaving almost no bargaining power to other individuals. A second objection to our account comes from the liberal attachment to state neutrality. Richard Arneson,lii one of the few liberal egalitarians to address the issue of justice in production, initially argued that if the state favoured the provision of jobs with certain characteristics, this would give preferential treatment to some conceptions of the good over others: "implementing the right to meaningful work elevates one particular category of good, intrinsic job satisfaction, and arbitrarily privileges that good and those people who favor it over other equally desirable goods and equally wise fans of those other goods".liii More recently, however, Arneson himself rejected this line of criticism and now thinks that justice can mandate the provision of meaningful work for everyone.liv Like Arneson, we provide reasons for allowing state inference to protect people from the bads of work – or, more controversially, to promote its goods – that do not hinge on any particular conception of the good life.lv We do assume a mild version of perfectionism according to which the goods of work, at least when desired, make an objective contribution to how well individuals' lives go. Therefore, employees whose conceptions of the good life include (some of) these goods should all have at least sufficient opportunities to realise them.lvi Yet, labour markets unregulated with respect to the goods of work do in fact strongly privilege individuals whose conceptions of the good exclude the goods of work discussed here. Labour markets are structured by a set of rules and regulations, however minimal, set and sanctioned by the state. These rules and regulations are likely to make it easier for employees to pursue certain conceptions of the good life and to exclude some from access to the goods of work. The conceptions typically favoured by the rules of labour markets assume one main income earner per family (stemming from the assumptions that employees are free from the most urgent duties of care) and they assume that money is the most important good pursued in work (stemming, maybe, from the influence of economic models based on utility functions that include only money and working hours). They practically exclude a majority of employees from access to (many of) the central goods of work. According to our mildly perfectionist view, this is an injustice that a perfectly neutral state (if such a state is at all possible) seems unable to address. State neutrality or lack thereof does not depend on whether as a matter of fact some citizens' conceptions of the good are privileged by particular institutional set-ups. Rather, it depends on the reasons behind institutional design. A neutral state ought to show equal respect to all its citizens' conception of the good by limiting distributional efforts to all-purpose means. However, as we have argued, the goods of work cannot be obtained in exchange for money and long working schedules make some of them difficult or impossible to obtain outside work. This means that just – as opposed to existing – distributions of resources such as money and income would not go a long way in ensuring everybody's access to the central goods of work, absent further regulation. 5. Conclusion s In a just society, workers should have real, rather than merely formal, options with regard to the bundle of goods they want to realize in their work; this claim supplements, but goes further than, claims about the avoidance of the bads of work. Because there are several goods of work, inequality with regard to work is multidimensional. At the very least, the working life of individuals should be such that the realization of these goods in other parts of their lives is not undermined. But given how much time most individuals have to spend at work, stronger claims can be made about the realisability of these goods within paid work, and the distribution of access to these goods within paid work. Many current labour markets fail to live up to this ideal, often as a result of unequal bargaining power between employers and employees. This results in some jobs being well-paid, interesting, interactive, challenging and well-regarded, while other jobs score low on many or all of these counts. This leaves many employees little opportunity to realise the goods of work discussed here. What does our account amount to in practice? We can here provide only some general suggestions. Part of the challenge will consist in operationalising the conceptual framework offered in this paper: it may be difficult to measure the goods of work and evaluate their distribution, especially since different kinds of work may score higher or lower for different individuals with different talents and interests. This difficulty may count as a reason not to try to regulate labour markets directly, but rather to deem a basic income, or workplace democracy, or both, as the most appropriate reforms for a fair distribution of the goods of work. But direct regulation may be a more feasible option, and the problems of operationalization may be surmountable if one focuses on preventing extreme cases that concern jobs that fall below minimal threshold with regard to one or several goods of work. The practical applications of our approach are likely to be most relevant for employees who are neither qualified, young, healthy, nor geographically mobile – in short, those for whom it is most costly to leave a job in which they cannot realize goods that are important to their conception of the good life. The most obvious applications concern cases in which the degree to which individuals can realize the goods of work falls below some critical threshold, or there is no opportunity at all. A concrete policy area in this context is the way in which employment agencies ought to treat individuals who need to find a job on pain of having their unemployment benefits terminated. Rather than helping individuals find any kind of job that lets them earn an income, they should be somewhat sensitive to the individuals' preferences for the goods of work they want to realize. This, of course can only be part of the solution, since it does not as such solve the problem of whether such jobs are actually available and within reach. A more detailed discussion of applications would have to take into account not only concrete social circumstances, but also questions of feasibility – e.g. trade-offs with economic efficiency – and the importance of other values such as gender justice or ecological sustainability. Labour market policies that take our second and third claim seriously could look radically different from the ones we have at the moment. While the examples we suggest are steps that could easily be realized in the current situation, a consistent application of our principles could lead to much more radical changes. One can distinguish two categories of practical implications, which lead to different, but compatible, strategies for improving the current situation. The first concerns the question of how states can support individuals who are not able to realize important goods of work in the context of paid work. The second concerns the availability of a broad array of jobs with different characteristics, which unfolds into two subcategories: regulations of labour markets that concern their non-monetary dimensions, and the provision and character of public employment. The first strategy concerns steps that a society can take in order to support individuals who cannot realize the central goods of work in their jobs, but would like to realize them elsewhere. Here, an important issue is the balance between time spent at work and discretionary time. For example, different Western countries have different rules about how many days of holiday employees standardly have. More holidays may or may not come at the cost of economic efficiency, but arguably not at the cost of realizing a more just society, given the fact that many jobs do not allow for an adequate realization of some, or all, of the goods of work. In a society with more holidays, individuals have better opportunities to realize their conception of the good, because they have more access to some of the goods of work outside paid work. The same holds for societies in which it is possible to earn a wage with lesser rather than more hours per week. The distribution of discretionary time is itself a matter of justicelvii; arguably, it is of particular importance for those who are unable to realize the goods of work in their jobs. Another element of the first strategy concerns individuals who want to leave jobs that score very low with regard to the goods of work, or even undermine the ability to realize these goods. For example, being a sex worker can undermine one's opportunities for social recognition not only on the job, but also in other social spheres. Given how grave the lack of social recognition for some jobs can be, the state should give workers the practical means to leave such jobs. It is justified to use tax money to offer them exit options and training in other jobs, even if workers in these jobs can avoid other bads of work, such as threats to their physical or mental health. In some cases, however, if the low social status of some jobs is unjustified, states ought to take measures to counteract the prejudices held against them. With regard to the second strategy our account implies, at the most general level, that a society should consider its labour market as a multidimensional space of just and unjust arrangements, and this should be reflected in the ways in which it is regulated. Indeed, many existing debates about labour markets can only be understood under the assumptions of a variety of goods of work. For example, debates about the regulation of temporary work that takes place alongside regular employment invoke not only monetary questions, but also questions about the social standing of the temporary workers and about lack of social inclusion. Debates about different management styles raise questions about how much competitive and hierarchical ethos is justifiable; as we noted, competition and lack of autonomy are often antagonistic to the experience of community These debates show that societies do not only have to make choices about the degree of material inequality. They also have to make choices about how different non-monetary goods are balanced against income and wealth, for example with regard to the character of available jobs. By providing good public education, states may shift from an equilibrium with many low-qualified jobs towards an equilibrium with many more demanding jobs in which individuals can experience excellence. With an educated workforce, it becomes possible to start high-tech companies, and better educated employees are also more likely to be able to run jointly-owned enterprises, in which they have higher chances to enjoy the goods of community and social contribution. Another aspect of this issue is the kind of jobs offered in public service. These can be tailored differently from the jobs typically available in the private economy, so that the variety of jobs overall is increased. Furthermore, the facility with which people can be dismissed has an impact on the possibility of building communities at the workplace – if people know that there is a higher likelihood of staying in a job for longer, it is more worthwhile to put one's energies into creating and maintaining community bonds. Thus, employment protection has not only a monetary dimension, but also an impact on the social ties at work. Arguments along these lines are periodically made in political struggles about labour market regulations, but it is hard to articulate them as long as the mainstream discourse on work concentrates on the fairness of pay, at the exclusion of other goods of work. We hope to have taken a step towards connecting theories of justice with these on-going political struggles by sketching an account of the central goods of work and arguing for their relevance for a just labour market. Whether or not the violations of justice in this context are sufficiently large to justify coercive regulation, or whether non-coercive means – for example nudging – might be preferred, has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In any case, jobs that fall below a certain threshold with regard to one or several of the goods of work should stand under special scrutiny – even if they do not impose severe bads of work, such as health risks, on employees – to make sure that employees have really chosen them voluntarily. Although some cases are likely to be controversial, extreme cases are easy to recognize and to agree on. Justice with regard to the labour market requires that we think about the goods of work (other than money!). i For helpful comments on this paper we would like to thank John Baker, Sandrine Blanc, Daniel Engster, Jean-Sébastian Gharbi, Graham Long, Anne Newman, Tom Parr, Mark Reiff, Ingrid Robeyns, Andrew Walton, two anoymous referees of JSP and audiences at Université Aix-Marseille and Newcastle University. ii We use a common-sense concept of work and assume that it covers the bulk of cases we discuss. iii This research includes psychology, sociology, and behavioural economics; references are given below. Interestingly, much research on work is undertaken with a focus on how employees can be made more productive. There are far fewer studies on what employees themselves want, or on what justice requires that they receive. While the aim of this paper is philosophical, it might also help to develop new agendas for critical social sciences that explore work. iv One prominent example is Richard Arneson, "Meaningful Work and Market Socialism", Ethics 97(3), 1987, 517-545. Some have argued that meaningful work is a distributive good. See for instance Adrian Walsh, "Meaningful Work as a Distributive Good", Southern Journal of Philosophy, 32(2),1994, 233-50. Recently, Ruth Yeoman argued that meaningful work is a fundamental need which conditions access to freedom, autonomy and dignity. "Conceptualising Meaningful Work as a Fundamental Human Need", Journal of Business Ethics 2013, 10.1007/s10551-013-1894-9. v As it will become clear below, other "goods" of work that have been adduced in the literature, for example autonomy, are of a more general type of goods that should not be undermined by work. But they lack the specific connection to the motivation to work that we discuss below. vi These goods might contribute to happiness and life satisfaction more than an ever-rising monetary income. There has been much controversy about the empirical relations between income and happiness or life satisfaction, which we cannot summarize here. We find it plausible that beyond a certain threshold additional income does not result in increased levels of happiness or life satisfaction, but our arguments do not hinge on this claim. vii This third claim is not restricted to a world like ours, where most individuals have to engage in paid work. Even in a society with an unconditional basic income, the distribution of opportunities to pursue these goods via work would be a matter of justice. For example, some jobs are likely to be more conductive to realizing excellence than others, and intrinsically enjoyable and socially respected positions in the voluntary sector may be scarce. viii An exception are holist egalitarians, who believe in the substitutability of different categories of advantage, such that one inequality can permissibly be offset or compensated for by another inequality. We assume a pluralism about values that, if correct, makes holism less plausible. ix But note that a non-materialist form of resourcism may be compatible with our view if nonmaterial goods, too, are understood as resources. For example, Richard Arneson notes that relationships can be understood as resources. See "Luck Egalitarianism and Prioritarianism", Ethics 110(2) (2000), pp.339-349 at p. 339. x The distinction between the metric of justice and the set of goods and policies that ought to be distributed in order to realise a fair distribution of the metric of justice is not very common, but one of us has developed it at length in Anca Gheaus, "Luck egalitarianism, democratic equality and the distribuenda of justice", Journal of Applied Philosophy, forthcoming. xi John Tomasi, Free Market Fairness, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, 66, 78 (where he discusses the example of an entrepreneur starting a pet shop.) xii Cf. e.g. Rawls on the social bases of self-respect as a "primary good" in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, E. Kelly (ed.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001, 58f. On the relation between self-respect and meaningful work see Jeffrey Moriarty, "Rawls, self-respect, and the opportunity for meaningful work", Social Theory and Practice 35(3), 2009, 441-459. xiii On a minimalist understanding, as a precondition of rational and moral agency, see also Beate Rösler, „Sinnvolle Arbeit und Autonomie", Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 60(4), 2012, 513534 and Russel Keat "Marktökonomien als moralische Ökonomien", Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 60(4), 2012, 535-556. xiv Adina Schwartz, "Meaningful Work", Ethics 92 (4) (1982): 634-646. xv The Heart of Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, chapter 4. xviThis general claim has been substantiated by various studies in qualitative sociology. See for example Schultheis, Franz / Vogel, Berthold / Gemperle, Michael (eds.): Ein halbes Leben: biografische Zeugnisse aus einer Arbeitswelt im Umbruch. Konstanz: UVK, 2010, or Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, New York: The New Press, 1972. xvii In discussions about "meaningful work", a focus of debate is the "fit" between individuals and jobs (see e.g. Russell Muirhead, Just Work (Cambridge, MA / London: Harvard University Press, 2004), esp. ch. 3. As we are interested in institutional arrangements, we do not discuss this issue here, except in the indirect sense of holding that individuals should have sufficient opportunities to find a job that is a good "fit".. xviii James Bernard Murphy, The moral economy of labor: Aristotelian themes in economic theory, Yale University Press, 1993. As he admits, he reads Aristotle against his own intentions, because Aristotle despised work (at least work of some kind). Murphy refers mainly to Met. 1032b15, and takes over the terms of "conception" (noesis) and "execution" (poiesis). xix Other modern Aristotelians who have emphasized the importance of excellence in work include Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), chap. 14) and Robert C. Solomon (Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)). It is worth emphasizing that the way in which such "Aristotelian" ideas (which may seem an anathema for modern liberals) enter our argument is by arguing that many people hold such views and strive for such ideals; in this way they can also be endorsed from a non-Aristotelian perspective. xxMihalyi Csikzentmihalyi, Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play, 25th anniversary edition (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000). See also Dan Pink, Drive. The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead Books, 2011) chap. 5 for a summary of different strands of research on "mastery" as a source of motivation. Arneson mentions one element of meaningful work that is similar to our good of excellence: the right degree of difficulty, "midway on a continuum between boring and overwhelmingly difficult" ("Meaningful Work and Market Socialism", 522). xxiJ.R. Hackman, G.R. Oldham, "Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey", Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 1975, 159-170. xxii For an overview see Yitzhak Fried & Gerald R. Ferris, "The validity of the job characteristics model: A review and meta-analysis", Personnel Psychology 40 (1987), 287–322. xxiii Terkel, Working, xi. xxiv Tony Schwartz and Christian Porath, "Why You Hate Work", The New York Times, SR1, June 1, 2014. It is worth noting that this is "employer driven" research, conducted for the sake of improving productivity. Nonetheless, many of the variables in this study reflect the goods and bads of work we discuss. xxvConsider the following testimony of a former hedge-fund employee: "So, when you first go to a hedge fund, you might suspect--if you are really naive--that a hedge fund is actually supposed to find the correct price for the market. That we actually provide a service, and the reason we make so much money is that we are providing a service [...] Or, we're helping--another thing that you hear is we're helping- [...]--we're helping money where it should go. [...] In the two years I spent at the hedge fund I don't think I ever heard someone say: Let's allocate this capital better. It was all about: let's anticipate what dumb people are going to do so that we can make money off of them." (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2013/02/cathy_oneil_on.html). Recently, David Graeber wrote an essay on "bullshit jobs": jobs which, in the eyes of those who hold them, "should not really exist" (http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/). This claim refers mainly to their questionable social contribution, although elements of excellence might also be involved. Graeber's thesis that many jobs are such "bullshit jobs" seems to have resonated with many readers; unfortunately it is not backed up by scientific evidence. But one does not have to endorse his thesis in order to defend the claim that being able to make a social contribution is a good of work, as understood here. xxvi Roy F. Baumeister, Mark R. Leary, "The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation," Psychological Bulletin 117(3), 1995, 497–529, 497. xxvii Cynthia Estlund, Working Together. How Workplace Bonds Strengthen a Diverse Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, at 7. xxviii Blake E. Ashforth, Glen E. Kreiner, "'How Can You Do It?': Dirty Work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity", Academy of Management Review 99(24), 1999, 413-434. xxixWe are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing us to clarify this point. xxx For a discussion see e.g. Christopher MacMahon, Authority and Democracy. A General Theory of Government and Management. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994, part II. MacMahon ends up arguing for workplace democracy (esp. chap. 9). xxxiOn a very recent account, community so understood is necessary for meaningful work: Ruth Yeoman, Meaningful Work and Workplace Democracy: A Philosophy of Work and a Politics of Meaningfulness, Palgrave, 2014. xxxii Jane Mansbridge, Beyond Adversary Democracy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983, Part III. xxxiii To be sure, there can also be forms of community that grow out of resistance against oppression. But even those can only develop if there is some space for social contact among those who share the experience of oppression. Companies with oppressive styles of leadership often also try to undermine such developments, for example by firing employees who speak up for others. xxxiv See especially the passages on Master and Slave in the Phenomenology of Spirit (Translated by A.V. Miller with analysis of the text and foreword by J. N. Findlay. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), #187ff. xxxv For a discussion see e.g. Lisa Herzog, Inventing the Market. Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013, ch. IV. xxxvi Axel Honneth, Freedom's Right: The Social Foundations of Democratic Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), part III.2.c xxxvii Terkel, Working, xvi f. xxxviii This does not mean that individuals have a claim of justice to a specific job, with a specific combination of instances of the goods of work; in particular, no one can have a claim of justice to getting a job for which he or she lacks essential qualifications if this imposes risks on others. xxxix We owe this observation to an anonymous referee of this paper. xl Guy Standing, The Precariat. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. xliNien-He Hsieh, "Survey Article: Justice in Production", The Journal of Political Philosophy 16(1), 2008, 72-100). xlii It is interesting to note that lack of flexibility at work, and more generally of time, is important to gender justice: flexibility is necessary to make it possible for both women and men to engage in a fair combination of work and caring. This is one of the feminist reasons in favour of basic income. Yet, other feminists worry that a basic income might entrench gender norms. Anca Gheaus, "Basic income, gender justice and the costs of gender-symmetrical Lifestyles", Basic Income Studies, 3(3), 2008. xliii Yeoman, Meaningful Work and Workplace Democracy. xliv Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974), 248. Tomasi (Free Market Fairness) argues that economic liberty helps citizens to live meaningful lives, thereby implying that unregulated, or minimally regulated, labour markets also give them sufficient opportunities to find meaningful work, but he holds that on the whole, individuals care more about growth than about "meaningful work" (see esp. 180-191). xlv An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, D.D. Raphael and A. L. Macfied (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976, book I, ch. X. xlvi Note that this argument presupposes that the other goods in question are commensurable with money. We have argued above that central goods of work cannot be bought with money, but this does not imply incommensurability. It seems likely that the goods of work that we discuss are not even commensurable with money, but for the claims we make we do not have to take a stance on this question. xlvii"Egalitarians and the Market: Dangerous Ideals", Social Theory and Practice, 34(3), 2008: 439– 462. xlviiiThe last qualification is not true for many people in many countries of the world. xlix Wealth of Nations, book I, ch. VIII, para 12. l Schoar, Antoinette and Zuo, Luo, Shaped by Booms and Busts: How the Economy Impacts CEO Careers and Management Styles (September 4, 2012) http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1955612 li Cf e.g. Nancy Fraser, in Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition?: A Political-Philosophical Exchange (London: Verso, 2003), 140ff. For such cases, the argument about the inverse relation between job attractiveness and wages can be ideologically abused for justifying low wages by pointing out that they are highly desired by some individuals. lii Arneson, "Meaningful Work and Market Socialism". liii Ibid., 524f. liv "Meaningful Work and Market Socialism Revisited", Analyse & Kritik 01/2009,139-151. lv Arneson's are prioritarian reasons having to do with the improvement of the situation of unskilled workers. lvi See similarly Muirhead, Just Work, 21-6, who defends "meaningful work" as a "regulative ideal" in liberal societies. lvii See Robert Goodin, 2010, "Temporal Justice" Journal of Social Policy, 39(1), 2010, 1-16. For an argument on why time is not substitutable with money see Julie L. Rose, "Money Does Not Guarantee Time: Discretionary Time as a Distinct Object of Distributive Justice", Journal of Political Philosophy, 2013, doi: 10.1111/jopp.12021.