For The Money

When it comes to professional work, the kind of work done for compensation, there is only one central reason why anyone needs to work and why many workers would want to have a job even if they despise the need for a career.  That reason is because they need money to satisfy other needs or wants within the structure of American society.  Attempts to make someone feel guilty about working to earn money, as if they should want to work for free, for low pay, in spite of workplace oppression, or in spite of physical or mental health issues are oppressive rather than truly having the morally upright, anti-greed bent they might be presented as having.  Money or other benefits substituted for monetary pay are still the sole reasons why so many people need and want jobs, and the nature of this is not a morally negative thing in itself.

This in no way excuses the egoism or emotionalism of greed, as it instead follows that any other reason for expecting one person to work in a professional sense for another--not as a friend helping a friend or a humanitarian laboring for the sake of others, but as an employee working for an employer or as a skilled individual performing a difficult or highly technical service for a recipient--is irrational.  No, it is not that wanting or enjoying money is rational or irrational in itself in spite of this fact.  There is simply no moral (as far as any actual evidence suggests), practical, personal, or other kind of philosophical reason to work for others in any formal capacity except for the money.  Work of this sort is otherwise a kind of slavery without the provision of wealth or similar benefits.

Again, greed on the part of employers and employees alike is irrationalistic and dangerous in addition to the arrogance and selfishness that compound its immorality.  I am in no way saying that employees need to be motivated by greed any more than employers, which is to say not at all (and simply wanting financial/material security for survival or psychological peace is not greed, nor even wanting greater wealth with which to obtain more material possessions as long as it is gained by morally legitimate means).  The core truth I am focusing on is that it is irrational and exploitative to intend to make someone feel as if they are in philosophical error for only working because they need money to have the resources to access food, water, shelter, medical care, insurance, or just peace about their financial standing.

To work solely for these things is not the same as being motivated by the egoistic pointlessness and superficiality of greed.  While there is not necessarily anything irrational about wanting to engage in professional work just to work, given the chance to have a stable, safe life without forfeiting the ability to use transportation, eat, or meet with friends in contexts where one must spend money, many people would probably not work at all.  Even then, working "just to work" is really still about the more foundational goal of alleviating boredom, feeling personally accomplished or useful, or trying to fit into arbitrary social norms, the last of these being an absolutely asinine motivation to orient something that takes as much time and effort as professional work around.  Professional work is never strictly or ultimately about work itself without any sort of worldview or personal desire behind it.  There would be no business in the first place if it was not for ideological or personal reasons.

Why else would or should anyone devote their energy, free time, and even their financial resources (for to drive to a job or to cary out the tasks of many jobs, one must do or use something that money has already provided) to a job, much less for 40 hours every week or more, if there was not a financial incentive for them to do so?  There can be more to appreciate about certain individual jobs than just the monetary aspects, but no one or almost no one would work if it was not for the money.  This is not because money is in any way the most metaphysically, epistemologically, morally, personally, or relationally deepest part of reality.  Only utter irrationalists would ever be so stupid as to believe a falsehood like this.  It is because to work professionally without pay is to be exploited or to give so much more than one receives from the time spent in work.  Except as a sign of personal affection for specific individuals or as an expression of moralistic love for humanity, laboring on another person's behalf is not some grand moral good even on the Christian worldview.