6/20/25 — SOCIETY | ESSAY

1. “AM I LAZY?”

Work disengagement is not something our hunter-gathering counterparts likely experienced. The result would have been the direct impairment of entire people groups ‘ abilities to subsist. Foraging societies understood this intimately. It was, perhaps, the last time since the uber-specialization of labor that, on a large scale, people felt intimately acquainted with the urgency of their work.

In the modern organization of labor, people can afford to be disengaged from their work. Instead of direct subsistence, today, the product of one’s labor is indirect subsistence, usually in the form of a wage, to earn the subsistence of another’s hands. This nuance results in what I call, “neo-subsistence,” where the typical line connecting subsistence mean to subsistence end is elongated and contorted into a balloon-animal. A wage, anyone knows, does not always directly correlate to the quality of one’s work. A widening gap between the means and ends of our work suggests, that in the neo-subsistence world¹, subsistence effort is vulnerable to being diluted in comparison to subsistence ability. 

Historical observation of the widening gap between subsistence means and ends makes general purpose money central. Today, it diversifies American labor by accounting for the value in consumer demands beyond plain subsistence; so that in non-redistribution societies where subsistence product is observed in surplus (namely our post-neolithic states), one’s living often relies on the ability to innovate one’s labor beyond that. I realize that primary sector jobs have been in increasing demand over the past few years. We probably witness modern overcorrection for over-popularizing, across modern history, the non-subsistence niche (economic pendulums will swing). Still, the former is a real part of America’s economic situation. The result as previously highlighted, is a neo-subsistence society. In which, less than 30% of people subsist for all others in the traditional sense².

Nowadays, over 70% of Americans work outside of true subsistence occupations: in tertiary, quaternary, and quinary sectors of the economy³. Specialization causes even the agriculturalist to rely on market exchange for a complete subsistence. Across economic sectors, neo-subsistence workers have become terribly disengaged from the importance of their occupations. A recent Gallop poll estimates that over half of American workers are actively quiet quitting⁴.

This behavior can be described as laziness, but allow me to suggest something alternative: a perfect normalcy surrounding this progression, given that subsistence work has progressed past the point of subsistence recognition.

2. “WHY AM I SO LAZY?”

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people lack higher motivations (or at least the capacity to act on higher motivations) than their current need. For example, people don’t pursue self-actualization while their esteem is low. The same can be said of a hungry person’s ability to pursue alternative motivations. But when a human’s subsidiary needs are met, their motivational psychology advances to the next level — ready or not.

This makes the psychology of human motivation ill equipped for our current moment: when our work is non-fundamental. Instead of directly subsisting, as previously mentioned, Americans work for an ability to engage in the market. The farmer does not farm for himself anymore, the urbanite devotes himself to cubical work, etc. This system is efficient, but it’s beyond instinct, and your needs hierarchy is confused by the new operation. It’s likely that you have no need to subsist in the traditional sense. What you have need for in the modern distribution of labor is monetary wealth to earn the subsistence of another’s hands. What it looks like to your human motivational psychology, however, is a serious resistance to climb Maslow’s ladder. It pangs you until you are miserable. You have heard it bemoaned, we wish we “were in other places and doing other things:” namely, fulfilling higher motivations than subsistence. All Human Motivational Psychology can tell is that you are well fed and physiologically cared for yet acting beyond the normal realm of human motivation.

Neo-subsistence behavior, beyond instinct, proves that humanity has innovated past itself. I’m sure there is no pinpointing the proto-historical moment in which neo-subsistence first took place, when humans finally rid themselves of their occupational blueprints. What I am curious to know, however, is if that moment was equated with a general deflation in humanity’s motivation to work.

Say it is. Haven’t we, then, an obligation to pay the vestiges of human instinct some attention? It’s a curious thing to wonder anyway: imagine the whole of humanity’s collective unconsciousness (spanning millennia of anthropological cannon) really prefers a simpler work. How might that fact illicit your attention; presumably, as a modern working class member of society?

If you are lucky enough to be confused by this whole discussion, you have very likely settled yourself into a neo-subsistence niche that engages your higher motivations. Props, genuinely, to you. I have to admit that this is the case for some. Your societal counterparts, however, express a much different reality in national surveys like Gallop’s. According to that same survey, disengagement caused by the hyper-specialization of labor cost the global economy a counterintuitive 8.8 trillion dollar estimate between the years of 2009 and 2022. Let us not forget, this is the result of a movement for and not against societal efficiency. If the former figure fails to, doesn’t this one at least, stir up concern within the pragmatist body?

3. “SHOULD I QUIT MY 9-to-5?”

It is fair enough to say, “work is work.” The modernization of subsistence does not dampen its urgency. Whether stacking the bricks of your home with your own two hands or sitting in a cubicle for 8 hours a day to afford someone else’s doing it in your place, subsistence is subsistence is subsistence, and you still require a place to rest your head at night. Not to mention, subsistence without the extra physiological strain, within the comfort of air conditioning and protection from the elements, isn’t such a bad modern trade off…

is it? If so, at what expense?

Neo-subsistence demands us to mentally wage the gap between modern means and ends. To discover its intentionality, we must discipline ourselves through intellect, and rise above instinct. It accuses us of laziness. And affords some merit. I agree, subsistence is subsistence is subsistence. The average American worker also recognizes this and fails to complain. They clock in, they clock out. Quite quitting in the American workplace describes an obedience of modern people to modern means, but a lack of their complete self-application and a deflated understanding of their importance in society⁷. Gallop describes these employees as, “filling a seat and watching the clock. They put in the minimum effort required, and they are 

psychologically disconnected…”

Though an obedience to modern means, Neo-subsistence is a disobedience to the self. Abraham Maslow is just one among many academic figures to prove this, and society (that means you and me) must begin to recognize this, as it continues to manhandle the delineation of fragile human time.

I can’t tell you what the purpose of human life is.

The issue I take with the modern organization of labor is that it seemingly fails to even consider this question in the first place. We ignore our bemoaning instinct to this end? An indifferent one? When, on the other hand, our bemoanings are clearly interested in the question and even have answers? When they are making them loud and clear in the form of our current disillusionment?

The question, then, I suppose, is who will you trust?

When efficiency comes at the cost of humanity’s ability to actualize (I think that is clearly what our motivational psychology seeks to say), I can’t help but question the intention behind our model. Was not the intention of affording new leisure by early humans presumably an attempt to climb their needs hierarchy? Or was the purpose solely clinical, to advance societal productivity? I look to Maslow’s outline of human motivation, supposing it was not to neo-subsist: to fill newly afforded space in our days with a new type of old work, but to elevate the way humans spend their time to a level of self and societal actualization. I can humble myself to the degree of being wrong. Social stratification is, after all, one of the earliest results of labor specialization in societies with subsistence surplus, but even if the former conclusion is wrong, it is not too late for changing.

It may be illogical to categorize all forms of neo-subsistence work as below human purpose, the scope of the neo-subsistence realm is far too large to cover, but I can assume that the vestigial attachment of modern humans to fundamental subsistence, namely the earning of a wage in our system, keeps humans from advancing the quality of how they spend their time. The truth is, no matter how much society advances, we will never escape fundamental subsistence. It is the truest occupation. Why not accept that fact and return to humanity the ability of one to work for themselves: autonomy over how to organize the labor of individual subsistence, and ultimately, how we spend our time?

What we consider work is relative. What fulfills peoples’ higher motivations are relative. The day people are free to choose why and how they work, we will really advance. I won’t describe this call to action necessarily a rejection of subsistence or even neo-subsistence behavior, but I will say that people should recognize the social urgency to regain autonomy over this conversation.

Here’s an idea that I admit is my own view: simple work should stay simple. As previously stated, subsistence behavior is the truest occupation. No matter how hard we try or how much we innovate, we can’t change this simple fact. It’s time society makes amends with it. Increasingly complex works which require higher motivations are not inherent to subsistence intention and so, if at all, should only be sought out for the sake of themselves. This idea allows humans to operate in a way that is truly fulfilling for their motivational psychology: what should be the primary goal of societal advancement. Manipulating the psychology of human workers instead, in an attempt to avoid true subsistence, is what I consider the truly lazy object.

Summer Arukwer-Strother

Footnotes

1. Coined in my previous essay, “i wanna be human (human nature for social organizations).” ↩︎
2. You can Google this. It’s a public demographic, and I think it’s relatively consistent across most sources. ↩︎
3. Pretty much the same as above. ↩︎
4. GALLOP’s 2024 SURVEY OF THE AMERICAN WORKPLACE ↩︎
5. Adam Smith writes similarly on this idea in his “Wealth of Nations” when covering the topic of labor specialization ↩︎

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