By Chuck Colson & Jack Eckerd
| Day after day the prisoners hauled the same mountain of rubble back and forth from one end of the camp to the other.
After several weeks of this meaningless drudgery, one old man began sobbing uncontrollably and was led away by the guards. Another screamed until his captors beat him to silence. Then a young man who had survived three years of the vile labor that supported the oppressors’ cause darted away from the group and raced toward the electrified fence.
“Halt!” the guards shouted. But it was too late. There was a blinding flash, a terrible sizzling noise, and the smell of smoldering flesh.
— ‘A True Parable’ from the book in question referencing a Nazi concentration camp story originally told in ‘Kingdoms in Conflict’
What I Expected
Years ago I received ‘Why America Doesn’t Work’ as a present, and just recently decided to read it from the desire to start my own business. I expected the book to be about the “good ole days” of American workmanship and what we can learn from it. Or bar that, just how far we’ve fallen. My copy is copyright dated for the year of 1991, so I expected the information to be a bit dated but more up to date than the last book I read from that decade, ‘Bowling Alone’, which I chose not to finish as it felt “too dated”.
What I Got
Having finished ‘Why America Doesn’t Work’, would I say that I got what I expected? Yes, I would.
Chuck Colson and Jack Eckerd without saying it, defined the “American Dream” where hard work, more often than not, is rewarded. They addressed the historical relationship between the work ethic and traditional Christian values. They tackled the ideology that they believe altered American’s view of work and how the cultural revolution of the 1960’s is largely to blame. Some of the book is about the “good ole days” when America was leading in such markets as the automobile industry. Some of it is about the politics around welfare. And yet still, some of it is about the cultural changes specifically in the black community from 1905-1990 that affected work ethic.
Would I suggest that other people also read this book? Maybe. Overall, it was an easy book to read with thought provoking stories about Nazi concentration camps, Soviet prisons, and general industriousness; so if that interest you then give it a read.
As for those of you who don’t plan on reading this book, or for those who already have, I have written a comprehensive summary of the authors’ main thesis below, and as I have pulled many passages from the book itself, consider this a spoiler warning if you wish to continue.
What Will Revive the Work Ethic? Authors’ Proposals
In the Home
“Rights, even when widely distributed and fairly enforced, have not solved our problems…Unfortunately we have spent more time teaching our children about the world’s unfairness than about its general tendency to reward effort.”
— Dr. Louis Sullivan
The Problem
The problem with work ethic starts in the home. The same empressive work ethic that was taught by previous generations is not being passed down to the following generations. These problems are presenting themselves not only in the home but in society at large.
The Solution
A community should have a rich tradition of family and work. That means that two-parent nuclear families should be the norm, and work ethic should be taught at home by the parents most importantly by the father. Co-author Chuck Colson was raised in one such household and his father taught him, “It doesn’t matter what you do, whether it’s cleaning toilets or being the president of the United States–do it to the best of your ability, take pride in your work, and settle for nothing less than excellence.”
In the Schools
“…Imagine a producer of vacuum cleaners that rarely work hiring whole platoons of engineers who will in time, report that it is in fact tue that the vacuum cleaners rarely work, and who will, for a larger fee, be glad to find out why, if that’s possible. If you discover some such outfit, don’t invest in it. Unfortunately, we are all required to invest in public education.”
— Richard Mitchell
“You can’t teach ethics here [Havard Business School] because you don’t believe there are moral laws. But there are moral laws just as certain as there are physical laws.”
— Chuck Colson
The Problem
In Elementary & Middle School
In 1945 the vocabulary of American children aged six to fourteen was 25,000 words.
Modern [by 1991 standards] American children aren’t as educated as the children at the end of World War II.
In Highschool
American students finished dead last in a 1988 competition in math. In chemistry and physics American students lagged behind nearly all countries, and in biology they ranked last behind even Singapore and Thailand, countries many Americans regard as backwards [by 1991 standards].
American high schoolers have fallen behind the rest of the developed world.
In College
In 1914 potential college students were asked to do such things as compare Themistocles and Aristides as to statesmanship and character, to calculate the amount of silver chloride that may be precipitated by silver nitrate from one kilogram of sea water containing 2.5% sodium chloride, and to translate a Latin passage.
Granted, only the academic elites took the above mentioned test but today even our college graduates would be hard-pressed to pass such a test as this 1914 entrance exam.
The Solution
The present year is 2024 and here in Alabama one option that Chuck & Jack put forward has come up to be voted on in our local Senate. School choice. This gives parents more control over their childrens’ education. Parents are given a voucher (a check that they themselves and others have paid for with tax money) and they get to chose which school their child attends. If a private school is outperforming a public school in the area, they can pay for part of the tuition with the voucher. Not only doesn’t this incentivize schools to compete for the money, but it gives the parents power that they otherwise would not have to counter large and underperforming teacher’s unions whose members don’t have their performance tied to their pay.
For Taxpayers
The educational system is bloated and less effective than it was in past decades and institutions such as teachers’ unions continue to fight to keep it that way described as “grand theft pedagogy” by some liberal columnists [”American Education Reform Is Gigantic Fraud” — Don Feder, Sacramento Union, 13 September 1987].
The Problem
In New York from 1988-1989 $6,107 was spent on each high school student (well above the national average) but $4,135 of that went to non-classroom services (an astounding amount).
The Solution
Even though this book is 33 years old at the time of this writing, this feels like the most unaddressed issue even in the year 2024, but many of the good things that we see today were started in early 1990’s when this book was created.
These solutions include:
• School choice, where local governments (who are responsible for collecting the taxes that go toward education) give parents’ a voucher to pay for the school of their choice be it private or public schools (this would incentive schools to do a good job or lose money and also gets around teachers’ unions).
• Shut down schools that graduate illiterate teenagers.
• Lengthen school years closer to the global average (the school year was around 175 days instead of 200-220 at the time [though I am personally in favor of summer jobs instead]).
• Enforce standards and achievement test so that the performance of schools and teachers can be measured.
• Teach ethics.
• And, as per a suggestion of the ‘Oregon Educational Educational Act for the Twenty-First Century’, offer “certificates of mastery” by the 10th grade where not-college-bound students would then be directed toward trade schools.
The view of the historically famous philosopher Plato was that the purpose of education was to make good people because good people would behave nobly.
In the Churches
“In nothing has the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation…[How could anyone remain interested in a religion] which seems to have no concern with nine tenths of his life,”
— Dorothy Sayers
“[The West has] a freedom toward evil.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a political prisoner in a Soviet gulag that Chuck & Jack visited
The Problem
The authors agreed that apart from the family no other institution played a more vital and basic role in moral education and would be responsible for restoring the work ethic as the church. They lamented the lack of sermons on the work ethic, productivity, the virtues of hard work, thrift, respect for property, and the teaching of vocation as an integral part of life. They also denounced the swing in the opposite direction in what could be called the “health and wealth gospel” or “prosperity gospel” which preaches that “faith–expressed though positive thoughts, positive declarations, and donations to the church–draws health, wealth, and happiness into believers’ lives.” — Briannica, early 20th-century ‘New Thought’ movement.
The Solution
As the reader we were offered many quotes from past Christians and christian thinkers such as:
• “Make all you can, save all you can, and give away all you can.” — Joh Wesley
• “[The work of the Christian] ought not to be of such questionable caliber that it disgraces God, discredits one’s employer, and affronts society.” — Carl Henry
• “Man’s physical life is dependent upon production for human survival.” — R.C. Sprool
• “We are happier when we follow our conscience, not when we deny it.” — Garth Wood
In the authors’ words, the church must reclaim its own heritage by preaching and teaching the work ethic drilling it into the youth and the pulpit. By teaching diligence, excellence, and thrift. By teaching vocation and helping the Christian find their calling because, “our work cannot be separated from our witness.”
They summed it in a short story that went like this…tell a carpenter to stop getting drunk and to come to church on Sundays. Fine, but the very first demand that his religion should make on him is that he should make good tables. What use is his piety in church attendance if he is “insulting God with bad carpentry”.
In the Prisons
“To put people behind walls and bars and do little or nothing to change themis to win a battle but lose a war. It is wrong. It is expensive. It is stupid.” — Warren Burger
The Problem
During their time in Soviet Union authors Jack Eckerd and Chuck Colson noted that they saw some of the most dejected, dispirited expressions that they’d encounted anywhere in the world, but surprisingly, they noted about the prisoners, “The Soviet system had done everything imaginable to beat these men into submission. Yet where one might expect to find a bleak, frozen winter of the spirit, these prisoners had kept their sense of individual dignity and purpose.” They found this to be an amazing paradox and probed to figure out what was different. What they found out, besides the amazing amount of Christianity they found, was that every inmate had a job, six days a week for eight hours a day they did some kind of work recieving 2/3 pay of they’re free counter parts. One such prisoner, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, even talked about his stab of pride that he felt after recieving the compliment, “Good line,” from a prison guard after he had laid a row of bricks. In stark contrast from the Nazi “experiment on mental health” told in the preface.
So what did the authors see in the Soviet Union that was different from America? In 1828 approximately 85% of all inmates were gainfully employed, but by the 1940’s the prison industry had be separated from the free market and by 1990 less than 10% of our nations inmates were working in prison industries. Out of the 400 prisoners that the authors had visited every one of them, men and women, where found lying in their cells on their beds staring at the ceiling or walls with nothing to do. This has deprived those in prison from doing meaningful work, providing for their families, and even paying for the systems that house them (putting all the strain on tax payers).
The Solution
Besides the obvious, providing work for our prisoners through programs like PRIDE (Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprise) [which author Jack Eckerd ran in the state of Florida] or UNICOR, countries like Singapore have private companies place bids for the right to run shops inside prisons through government run programs SCORE in this case. The prisons make money, the prisoners make money, and the businesses turn a profit.
In the Welfare Programs
“I’m always looking for a better job…Once I get bored that can make me think of going back to get high, and I don’t want to even think of going back.” — Katie Brown, longtime welfate recipient
The Problem
This is where the book is showing its age the most.
The Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) was in effect from 1935 to 1997 and accounted for half of all welfare funds spent in the United States by the time it was replaced with the more restrictive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). AFDC was criticized, by this book and others, for being a gateway to welfare dependency. Its funds were paid to unwed mothers to support their children. The more fatherless children that she had the higher the benefits. These payments were often more than the woman could make working minimum wage. This took away the incentive to look for work, encouraged young pregnancies, and disincentivized marriage.
Since AFDC has been replaced, that’s all that I’ll write about it.
Besides the aforementioned program and programs like it, welfare has other issues. It doesn’t equip recipients with the skill necessary to get back into the work force or address the issues that got people there in the first place.
The Solution
[Talking about charity at the turn of the nineteenth century] in Boston alone, “500 people each year took 500 alcoholic or drug-addicted women into their homes–often with their infants–to give them shelter and a place to begin a new life. The poor were not given alms [handouts], but the tools to create independence and dignity in their lives. One group over the course of eight years raised 4,500 families out of the rut of pauperism into proud, if modest, independence without alms [handouts].” — Marvin Olasky, ‘Beyond the Stingy Welfare State: What We Can Learn from the Compassion of the 19th CenWorker
I believe that the authors would agree that they would like to see both the humanity brought back into our charities/welfare system and the promotion for temporary, not long term, benefits for those who are able bodied.
In the Workforce
“Work…presents moral issues. But we have not attended to them. [We] ignore the other moral considerations having to do with work. We allow people to work only for money. We offer only endless task for those who would try to escape confrontation with life, and we encourage their being distracted or pacified through the consumption of goods and services.” — Perry Pascarella
The Problem
Found in the final chapter, here’s the argument that much of the book makes:
“In our highly technological, impersonal society people feel lonely, helpless, unable to change the circumstances of their lives, alienated, and isolated…Only 50% of the population votes, 45% believe that hard work no longer pays, and cynicism and despair are on the rise…People have been stripped of their spiritual roots.”
Partially a personal list, but the authors would agree that workers often feel:
• Underutilized
• Unappreciated
• Underpaid
• Overworked
• & Under equipped
While management oftentimes is under educated compared to the worker, can be greedy, and in the worst of cases promotes a dog-eat-dog or “us vs them” environment.
The Solution
Also found in the final chapter, here’s the authors’ solution in it’s simplest form:
“Respect for the individual needs to be recovered. We need the shoves from our heros as well as an aggregation of pushes from honest workers.” They go on to say that, “A set of corporately held values and goals is the soul of an organization, “ and that the most exciting, successful, and ethically run businesses had sat down–executives, directors, management–and developed a clear idea of just why their organization existed and what its goals and values were. This was often a list that each employee could carry around with them or quote when asked a “company motto” if you will. As a response the authors present their own list of values that serve as a solution to the problems at hand.
The Value of the Worker
As Martin Luther said, every job is to glorify God, and every worker is infinitely significant. All who labor, no matter how menial their task, must be treated with respect and dignity. That means corporate leaders need to enlist the help of every employee in solving problems. It’s the right thing to do–and it’s good business.
Walking and Talking in the Trenches
How do you get those values out to the people doing the work? How do you find out what values the worker needs? Ivory-tower management doesn’t work; managers need to lead their forces by going to the front lines themselves.
Responsibly and the Pursuit of Excellence
No work that is less than our best can be personally meaningful or rewarding. And no work that is less than our best can be truly profitable. When we encourage excellence, we undercut the corrosive ethic of entitlement.
The Value of Training
Developing the skills of employees is not only good for the individual, increasing loyalty and sense of self-worth; it also makes them more valuable to the organization.
Dollars and Sense
This is the profit motive. We’re not so otherworldly as to think that multimillon dollar corporations ought to exist just for the general good, or that people work hard just because they like to. For most, the greatest motivation comes from incentive pay and healthy competition.
Working to Serve
Effective leadership includes enabling others to meet gosls. No one said it better than Jesus: He who would lead, let him serve.
Conclusion
And that sums up ‘Why America Doesn’t Work | How the Decline of the Work Ethic Is Hurting Your Family and Future’. After reading this book, I was inspired to write a mission statement for my business which I believe has given my business better direction. Look for an article about that in future.
— TBryantS