Substantive commitments

Reconciling work ethics and the welfare state in Norway

Bibliographic Data

ID2048985
AuthorsKelly Mckowen (0000-0001-7800-1941, Southern Methodist University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume7
Issue1
Pages120-133
Publication date2020-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2330-4847 • E-ISSN: 2330-4847
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sea2.12169
OpenAlexW2996724053
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited56

Among some policymakers and elites, it is common sense that human behavior is rational and guided by material self-interest. In turn, this view underpins the idea that cash transfers and social services, if made too generous, risk distorting economic incentives, diminishing the "work ethic" and fostering a "culture of dependency." The Nordic countries, however, pose a significant empirical challenge to this common sense, as they feature both comprehensive welfare systems and high rates of employment, labor force participation, and surveyed "employment commitment." What remains unclear is the nature of this commitment, how it is cultivated at the level of everyday life, and what its broader scholarly and policy implications might be. This article, based on sixteen months of fieldwork among the unemployed in Oslo, Norway, argues that the country's distinctive "social democratic" welfare regime endows formal wage labor-as opposed to the labor process itself-with meanings and values that make having a job central to shared ideas of social personhood and moral life. This "employment ethic" is affirmed, my unemployed interlocutors show, by experiences of worklessness. The article concludes by suggesting that a focus on the moral dimensions of contemporary welfare regimes points the way toward a generative, "neosubstantivist" economic anthropology

Economics · Incentive · Market economy · Personhood · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Sociology · Welfare · Welfare state · Employment and Welfare Studies · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Youth Education and Societal Dynamics

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