Dignity of labour

The dignity of labour or the dignity of work is the philosophical holding that all types of jobs are respected equally, and no occupation is considered superior and none of the jobs should be discriminated on any basis. This view holds that all types of work (jobs) are necessary in a society and it is absolutely wrong to consider any work good or bad: the work itself is a dignity.

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle has been cited as "the first to espouse the 'dignity of work'". In Past and Present (1843), he wrote:

Former U.S. President Joe Biden made restoring "the dignity of work" a central tenet of his 2020 campaign and administration.

Social reformers such as Basava and his contemporary Sharanas, as well as Mahatma Gandhi, were prominent advocates of the dignity of labour.

The dignity of labour is one of the major themes in Christian ethics, and as such, it is upheld by the Anglican Communion, in Catholic social teaching, in Methodist principles, and in Reformed theology.

In Roman Catholicism, usually titled "The dignity of work and the rights of workers" the affirmation of the dignity of human labour is found in several papal encyclicals, most notably Pope John Paul II's Laborem Exercens, published 15 September 1981.

In his 2021 book The Tyranny of Merit, philosopher Michael Sandel says that a spiritual revolution that celebrates the dignity of labour rather than meritocracy is the way to rectify the loss of faith in institutions evidenced in populism.

• Critique of work
• Decent work

Books

• Hodson, Randy (2001). Dignity at Work. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-77812-1.
• Lamont, Michèle (2009). The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03988-9.
• Gomez, Napoleon (2013). Collapse of Dignity: The Story of a Mining Tragedy and the Fight Against Greed and Corruption in Mexico. BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1-939529-26-8.
• Bal, Matthijs (2017). Dignity in the Workplace: New Theoretical Perspectives. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-55245-3.
• Willen, Sarah S. (2019). Fighting for Dignity: Migrant Lives at Israel's Margins. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-5134-0.

Journals

• Spencer, T (13 January 1844). "Dignity of Labour". Chambers's Edinburgh Journal (2) – via 32-32.
• Devas, C S (October 1887). "The Rights and Dignity of Labour". The Dublin Review. 18 (2): 467–469.
• Sarkar, Santanu (2007). "The Struggle to be a Part: Story of Dignity of Indian Labour". The Indian Journal of Labour Economics. 50 (2) – via ResearchGate.
• King, Barry (2010). "On the new dignity of labour". Ephemera Journal. 10 (3/4): 285–302.
• Nkosi, Lethiwe (2011). "Kenneth Kaunda : the dignity of labour". African Yearbook of Rhetoric. 2 (3): 61–66. hdl:10520/EJC168753.
• Ban, Wang (2019), Sorace, Christian; Franceschini, Ivan; Loubere, Nicholas (eds.), "Dignity of Labour", Afterlives of Chinese Communism, Political Concepts from Mao to Xi, ANU Press, pp. 73–76, ISBN 978-1-78873-476-9, JSTOR j.ctvk3gng9.14

Articles

• "The Dignity of Labor". Scientific American. 2 July 1853.
• Blackie, J S (January 1879). "The Dignity of Labour". Good Words. 20: 837–840.
• Somavia, Juan (31 March 2015). "Valuing the dignity of work". Human Development Reports UNDP.
• Jones, William P. (Summer 2020). "The Dignity of Labor". Dissent Magazine.