(Not) escaping alienation

Laurie Penny wants people to crowd-fund her work. This highlights problems with the labour market, some old and some new.

By most standards, Ms Penny is in a strong position. Whatever you think of her talents ��� not that it matters because journalism isn���t a meritocracy - she has 157,000 Twitter followers. And yet she can���t parlay these into a fulfilling career in mainstream journalism.

In one sense, she faces a longstanding problem most of us have had ��� that capitalism thwarts self-actualization. Most of us have had to compromise our ideals and aspirations to some extent to earn a living. As a great man put it, ���they sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within.���

We���ve all had different solutions to this dilemma. I really admire Ms Penny���s desire to find one that doesn���t entail retreating into dull trade journalism or writing fascist lies for billionaires. I would caution her, though, that alienated work has its compensations: it doesn���t hurt so much when you fail.

It���s long been the case that radical journalism doesn���t pay. Even in the mid-20th century when top journalists were relatively well-paid, there were others who, in Orwell���s words, would hear ���the heavy boots of his creditors clumping up and down the stairs���.

This problem, though, has become more acute recently. Ms Penny���s claim that ���journalism is an industry in trouble��� echoes Nick Cohen: ���Jobs are disappearing everywhere, and every journalist views the future with alarm.��� We see this in the decline of resource-intensive journalism such as investigative reporters and foreign correspondents and the rise of clickbait, churnalism and being expected to work for nothing.

But here���s the problem. It���s not just in journalism that we���re seeing a decline in erstwhile "middle class" jobs. Academics are struggling with casualisation and oppressive managerialism, and even bankers and lawyers face soul-destroyingly long hours doing what is often tedious work. As Holmes and Mayhew have said (pdf):

Many apparently good non-routine occupations���appear closer to mid-range jobs than top jobs.

Herein, though, lies a question to which I don���t know the answer and which I fear is neglected: could it be that class differences in job satisfaction have narrowed in recent years?

What I mean is that it���s possible that ���middle class��� jobs have deteriorated relative to ���working class��� ones. Yes, call centres and warehouses can be horrible, but I���m not sure they���re worse than factory lines and mines: no miner wanted his son to go down the pit. The factory workers in Corrie seem happier in their work than, say, Arthur Seaton was. I don���t have much empirical evidence on this, but I can point to work by Alex Bryson and George MacKerron who have found that the less well-paid are actually happier at work than the better-paid ��� though they���re all quite unhappy.

You can read that finding in one of two ways. One is that it suggests you can���t escape from unsatisfactory work by finding ���better��� jobs. This might vindicate Ms Penny���s decision to partially opt out. Another is that equality, in one under-rated dimension, might have increased in recent years.