Refined Reflections on Work: The Dehumanization of Necessity and Harrowing Recognition

We find ourselves across all sects of workers, from the mechanic in the sweltering shop to the software developer in the cool cubicle, imposed upon our labor the primary virtue of capitalism: efficiency, or the ability to produce more (products, services) from less (money, time).

It should come as no surprise that businesses, abstract collections of things, strive towards a singular goal: to make profits. Taken to its extreme, driven by that compulsion for 'more', this single-pointed concentration (ekāgratā) is never broken. The guiding star that illuminates the path of this endless journey is efficiency.

Efficiency is all that X which enables the business to generate more profit (output) for less cost (input). Both the replacement of labor, as seen in new and small Amazon Fulfillment Centers, and the aiding of labor, as seen in the advent of AI coding tools or even better hand tools, enable greater efficiency than before. Managers of the business, across all scales of responsibility, find a genuine, heartfelt joy when their laborers become more efficient. Genuine in the way that they are structurally more invested in the success of the business (due to higher perceived self-importance), and heartfelt in the way that their efforts to progress the business forward become visible.

But what returns to the worker when efficiency increases? The mechanic with improved tools finds himself repairing more cars in a single hour. The software developer finds herself completing more tickets in a single sprint. The worker only feels the gained efficiency as more labor; the efficiency gain is consumed by the system through higher expectations, greater throughput, and an intensified pace.

The horror of the worker is not that they must labor more, but it is the fact that they, without choice, are necessitated to arm themselves with whatever is prescribed to increase productivity. In the face of the business, which does not feel emotion, the worker looks up and sees only an obligation to obey its mandate, for the worker has two choices with one obvious decision: comply with the demand, or starve. The worker is rewarded only on their proximity to value, and any autonomy of personhood is crushed through pure obligation. This is dehumanization.

Few can consciously withstand their dehumanization each day; it is simply unbearable. This is observed across all workers who face alienation, that feeling of being reduced from man into thing: the software developer who believes she "should be grateful"; the Amazon worker whose face grows numb and devoid of emotion while packing trucks; the single mother who drinks after work to numb herself from her fractured being. All workers, across all pay ranges, are united through them bearing the mark of a thing, the body that feels this shatter paired with the mind that forbids it so they don't starve.

There are moments of reprieve. At times there are novel problems which can only be fulfilled through the creativity of the worker, and overcoming a problem through human ingenuity inspires unadulterated, ecstatic joy. Consider a software developer who is mandated to use AI coding tools at work. She finds herself obligated to create both a programming language and a parser, a problem which current tools fail to cleanly create. The output of her toil is solely from her and of her, and through days of thinking and hours of implementation she achieves a novel feat. She effectively reclaimed her autonomy and personhood through this breakthrough.

But celebration of this kind does not live for long. The managers close to the business do not see or reward this creation or joy because the business itself cannot recognize either. Only the output, not the process, aligns with the single-pointed goal of the business. And, just a short time later, that same software developer finds herself once again a thing.

The sobering reality of the worker is simply this: as long as she does not consent to being reduced to a thing, she will deeply suffer. The sustained recognition of her dehumanization is too much for her, or anyone, to bear. The struggle then is not merely physical but also existential: if she is nothing but a thing, but she must comply to stay alive, what reprieve ever is there? She must retain some level of functionality, and she must retain some ability to perform alignment with the business.

The only solution for the worker is to consent to the reduction of their being, whether conscious (forever marked by the reduction into a thing) or unconscious (the make-believe idea of agency in a structurally inhuman system).

The ultimate question is this:

Is it possible to survive being consciously reduced into a thing under the force of necessity?