The New Yorker:

New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it.

By Erik Baker

There’s a line in one of my favorite songs that’s been tripping me up recently. “We Take Care of Our Own” kicks off Bruce Springsteen’s 2012 album, “Wrecking Ball,” a late-career masterpiece that sifts through the rubble of the Great Recession. After a few verses lamenting the American political system’s abandonment of the working class, “from Chicago to New Orleans,” Springsteen launches into the bridge. “Where’re the eyes, the eyes with the will to see?” he thunders. “Where’re the hearts that run over with mercy? / Where’s the love that has not forsaken me?” And then the stumbling block: “Where’s the work that’ll set my hands, my soul free?”

I’m not sure when this line first began to bother me—certainly not in 2012. Unemployment averaged just more than eight per cent that year, and the urgency of putting people back to work seemed evident to me, like it did to many. And we got our wish: unemployment plummeted in the course of the twenty-tens, bottoming out below four per cent on the eve of the pandemic. I suppose that’s when the trouble started. As the economic recovery from covid progressed, the nation went back to work, and all the familiar complaints still held true: the pay was bad, the hours were long, the bosses were abusive. Neither hands nor soul were set free––and, come to think of it, wasn’t the idea of work setting people free a little, well, ominous?

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