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The Moralization Of Work
You can infer what “the moralization of work” means from the words involved — essentially, linking something to a greater common good or moral/ethical calling, even if the “thing” is basically moving around digital widgets. Tech companies have been doing this for about 20 years now, if not longer; for a while almost every Silicon Valley mission statement had something about “changing the world,” even if the business model was basically just another Uber or platform shit-show.
This whole concept of “moralization of work” takes two forms. The first form is around the “essential workers” concept of the pandemic, where we banged pots and pans together for them at night, but basically allowed them to keep being treated like shit for low pay, and then we created the narrative about how “nobody wants to work anymore” and “Great Resignation” and “quiet quitting” and oh man, business journalism is just awful.
Lindsey Cameron at UPenn has studied this, and this section is important:
It’s good that the screenshot acknowledges that “moralization” is a tactic to control workers, because that’s all it is. When I worked at…
