[Good work (whether it’s parenting, ranching, plumbing, playing an instrument, or coding) disciplines our attention because it is recalcitrant to our immediate inclinations. It is because the matter and rhythm of the craft resists our will that it makes some aspect of the world newly interesting and alive for us; it allows us to take the world personally. It places the worker into a creative relationship with reality, which thereby becomes more legible. The vision expressed by Marx’s epigram about a utopia in which people fish, rear cattle, and engage in intellectual criticism in the course of a day is that of a world we act on and own together, rather than one we buy into and are consumed by. In drawing us into creative and responsive relationships, good work opens us to the possibility of recognizing ourselves in solidarity with others; it forms the basis of collective action. As Richard Sennett put it, “good craftsmanship implies socialism.” To work is to matter, and to matter is to make whole.]
- Anton Barba-Kay