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This chapter sets up the argument of the book by disentangling three prominent themes on the meaning and value of work: the work ethic, independence, and citizenship. Existing analyses of these narratives do not supply an exhaustive account of the political dimensions and normative force of paid work in contemporary society. In particular, they fail to show how work structures our social order as a whole. Chapter two takes up this argument further. Chapter one also discusses denaturalization and critique as the method and goal of the book, before setting out four primary ways in which the ideology and practices of work constrain freedom. It concludes with an overview of the remaining chapters.

America is an outlier nation in terms of its (a) impersonal approach to work, (b) valorization of work as an end-unto-itself, and (c) ethic of individual merit, all of which reflect the imprint left by the founding Protestant communities. The American approach to workplace professionalism is organized around an interwoven and mutually reinforcing set of cultural politely impersonal workplace interactions. Also, in sharp contrast to many societies in which work serves a utilitarian function (e.g., earning money to support one’s family), American culture valorizes working beyond material reasons. Finally, America is an outlier in its commitment to individualism and faith in meritocracy, which reflects itself in both moral judgments and human resource policies. These highly distinctive orientations toward work hold important implications for the functioning of cross-cultural groups.

Chapter 2 argues that American officials and their Scout Handbook significantly modified the original British program and its Scout Laws and Scout Oath. American leaders replaced British Scouting’s nineteenth century emphasis on self-made manhood and militarism with a modern character development system for adolescent boys that emphasized urban-industrial values such as scientific efficiency and cooperative loyalty to expert managers. American Boy Scout programming maintained some continuity with Victorian manhood’s productive work ethic, modesty, and self-discipline with its Laws on being thrifty and cheerful as well as its merit-based rank and badge tests and advancement program. Scout Laws on being courteous and helpful taught boy members to lead society through serving the community, while Laws on being clean and brave attempted to quarantine Boy Scouts from any demoralizing influences in a rapidly modernizing society.

This chapter describes the intellectual history of full employment. It shows how the left of today has inherited its preoccupation with labor from Hegel. It shows how Americans continue to cling to the Protestant Work Ethic.

This chapter discusses Max Weber’s approach to the influence of Christian beliefs and practices on economic behavior, and ties it to the sort of comparison of forms of ‘spirituality’ offered by the French philosopher Michel Foucault in his Collège de France lectures. The chapter explores the general characteristics of finance-dominated capitalism, especially with reference to derivatives and financial markets. It discusses how finance disciplines other economic organizations, such as states through the issuance of public debt, and non-financial corporations through the priority given to shareholder value. The culture of finance-dominated capitalism is also talked about as a specific form of work ethic. Finally, the chapter outlines the basic shape of the larger argument of the book, concerning the potential for Christianity to counteract contemporary capitalist modes of control.

In this chapter, Tronto and Fisher's inclusion of ‘the environment’ within the web of care is considered. It has potentially very broad implications, encompassing our relationships with the micro environments in which we live, and the global level and the relationship of humanity to the planet on which we live. In addressing the relevance of care ethics to the relationships people have with the environments in which they live and work three different contexts are considered: a) Older people's relationships with the places in which they live – both their ‘own homes’ and the ‘homes’ to which they may move if they can no longer care for their own home. b) The design and maintenance of public spaces, whether these provide evidence of public bodies caring for their citizens and whether those using such spaces can care for others within them. c) The way in which work is organised and its impact on people's experience of being cared for and being able to care for others. – The argument is based in an understanding of space as relational.

Vincenzo Ruggiero questions the centrality of Wacquant's account of the symbolic functions of punishment and argues that what is feared about the poor is less their criminal capacity than their indolence. The claim is that it is not primarily a question of the criminality of the poor that leads to their criminalisation but their implicit challenge – just by being there – to the work ethic and exposure of the failure of capitalism to produce secure employment for all. Ruggiero refers to traditions of urban social theory - Walter Benjamin, and Henri Lefebvre on the design of the city to render invisible the ‘socially useless’. He also considers the role of disorder and resistance in the structuring of the city