The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

by Wendell Berry

At work in a factory, workers are only workers, ‘units of production’ expending ‘man-hours’ at a task set for them by strangers. At work in their own communities, on their own farms or in their own households or shops, workers are never only workers, but rather persons, relatives, and neighbors. They work for those they work among and with. Moreover, workers tend to be independent in inverse proportion to the size of the circumstance in which they work. That is, the work of factory workers is ruled by the factory, whereas the work of housewives, small craftsmen, or small farmers is ruled by their own morality, skill, and intelligence. And so, when workers work independently and at home, the society as a whole may lose something in the way of organizational efficiency and economies of scale. But it begins to gain values not so readily quantifiable in the fulfilled humanity of the workers, who then bring to their work not just contracted quantities of ‘man-hours,’ but qualities such as independence, skill, intelligence, judgment, pride, respect, loyalty, love, reverence.