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What is ‘real work’ anyway?

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James Brockett

27 Nov 2008 | 11:06

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Earlier this week I had the good fortune to attend the CBI’s annual conference, and as well as listening to some of the country’s noted politicians holding forth about the financial crisis, I heard some pretty profound stuff from some of the other speakers on the platform. The consensus seemed to be that the UK has become a nation of bankers, at the expense of the manufacturing sector; that too many young people are growing up wanting to be city traders rather than engineers; and that through their buying and selling of collateralised debt obligations, workers in the financial services industry had sold their souls and lost touch with the basic morality of good, honest, ‘real work’.

The sentiment was summed up by one of the chief executives speaking at the conference from a manufacturing viewpoint, who related the business motto that the only way to create wealth is to grow it (agriculture), dig it up (mining), or make something out of what you dig up (manufacturing). Anything else is not wealth creating, goes the argument – it just passes wealth from one person to the next.

By this definition there are an awful lot of people in Britain who have lost touch with what real work means – manufacturing accounts for only 13 per cent of our economy, and agriculture a fraction of that. Yet a lot of people who aren’t truly wealth-creating have had years of going home with a lot of money in their pockets. Will the coming recession provide a shock to the system?

I’m reminded of the words spoken by Martin Sheen in the film Wall Street to his banker son (played by Charlie Sheen), who is just about to be jailed for insider trading: “Take a good look at yourself son. It’s time to stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others.”

A lot of commentators cleverer than I am believe that while previous recessions have hit manufacturing hard, this time it will be different and it will be the middle class pen-pushers who will feel the strain. If this is true, then a lot of us might have to get back in touch with ‘real work’; either that, or face up to real unemployment.

It’s all very thought-provoking stuff. Anyway, you’ll have to excuse me, I’m off to try and dig up some wealth.

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