Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work [Paperback]

Matthew B. Crawford's appeal for a society that engages more with its material world caught my attention some time back in a recommendation that I saw. My father retired from electrical engineering some time ago, and now does all kinds of DIY jobs for people. Because I spend most of my time uninvolved with such work, but intrigued by the idea of finding what so fascinates my father, I picked up Shop Class as Soulcraft thinking that Crawford might provide me with some insights. He did just that, and challenged my thinking with trenchant philosophy to boot.

A word of warning, as much as Crawford's book is the story of a how gearhead came to open his own shop, it is also, and probably more so, an academic philosopher's appeal to the academically-inclined and college-educated to give greater credit to those who are involved in manual labour, the trades, and the crafts. He explains his case as an academic would using academic language, references, end notes, and the other mainstays of academia. This book is not a memoir, neither is it just a story about the pleasures of construction. Instead, it is a philosophical attack on the motives for college education rather than 'vocational training', in which he argues that college education is turning people into cogs, and that 'vocational' training is more cognitively challenging than universities and politicians would have you believe. Consequently, you should not buy this book if you are looking for a comfortable or easy read about restoring and repairing motorcycles. Don't go in thinking it's a quick holiday read, or just a bit of fun - it'll require some serious work if you're unfamiliar with the debates, especially those in which the names of Marx, Smith, Heidegger, Polanyi, and others pop off of the workshop shelves.

With that in mind, I think that Crawford largely achieves what he sets out for himself. He argues that allowing workers to use their judgment provides them with greater happiness and provides non-monetary rewards. He asserts that giving workers objective standards, rather than the mealy-mouthed corporate speak of 'missions' and 'buy-in' allows workers to succeed or fail, and when they fail they better understand their success. He attacks college education for not including places where kids can go wrong, he argues that "The experience of failure seems to have been edited out of the educational process, at least for gifted students... A student can avoid hard sciences and foreign languages and get a degree without ever having the unambiguous experience of being wrong." (p204) He laments the devaluation of genuine mastery, and is frustrated by "the easy fantasy of mastery [that] permeates modern culture." (p17) He believes, probably like many conservatives do, that modern consumer culture, with its emphasis on immediacy and short-termism, damages humanity and, "If the modern personality is being reorganized on a predicate of passive consumption, this is bound to affect our political culture." (p18) So he has many worries and many criticisms, and his proposed solution is what he calls 'progressive republicanism'. He argues that it should be progressive because "the defenders of free markets forgot that what we really want is free men" and thus "It is time to end the confusion of private property with corporate property" (p209). Furthermore, he argues that many politicians fail the electorate because, "Those who belong to a certain order of society - people to make big decisions that affect all of us - don't seem to have much sense of their own fallibility. Being unacquainted with failure, the kind that can't be interpreted away, may have something to do with the lack of caution that business and political leaders often display in the actions they undertake on behalf of other people." (pp203-4) I think that Crawford should have foreshadowed these rather radical statements earlier on, and that in the expectation of such conclusions many people might have read on to see exactly how he motivates such end results.

Notwithstanding the credit he gives to those whose work requires a physical engagement with a physical world, Crawford seems to miss one large fraction of the working population with his 'switch it on and see it work' nostrum for the value of the trades. Computer programmers have the same need, to 'switch on' (compile) their program and see it work. Others appreciate their product because it works for them every day, each hour. Yes, like poor craftsmanship there is poor programming, but good programming and database management have many similar characteristics to their physical brethren in the engineering, trades, and crafts. In my view, Crawford doesn't give programmers, and knowledge workers generally, sufficient credit for their good work, but derogates them for their poor work, and for the apathy and indolence of many of those who inappropriately do programming and IT work.

Additionally, when Crawford says, "Craftsmanship means dwelling on a task for a long time and going deeply into it, because you want to get it right." (p20) By rights, then, many 'knowledge' tasks should be classified as 'crafts'. Should I not, when I spend hours before a computer trying to engage with data, dwelling on it for many hours, be classified as a craftsman trying to craft or model the correct, or most true, set of regressions? For me this differentiates academia from consultancy or an equivalent (Crawford dislikes consultancy and management greatly) - the ability to spend hours pondering one question, or one set of questions, in order to provide a rigorous and honest answer.

Though there may be a few shortcomings to the book, I think it was largely worth my while to read it and to engage properly with what Crawford sets out - an argument for smaller, responsible businesses and responsible, free workers, craftsmen and tradespeople, brought together in markets and allowed to engage in free exchange. Though his dream seems Utopian, and there are occasional flaws in his reasoning, the ideas are nonetheless clearly set out and often beautiful.

Crawford's book brings across a similar message to Pirsig's Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values - namely of the value of craft type work, and the intelligence required to go into it. In effect it is a renewed rallying call to devote more thought to one's career than the blind obeisance to college and office work that seems to be the prevalent mode today.

There is certainly a lot to be said for skilled craft work and the practitioners - the good ones, at least - can definitely boast of just as materially rich lives as white collar workers, and often have much more intrinsic satisfaction.

The author does an excellent job to bring the pleasures of skilled physical work across, based primarily on his own experience (with some literary refferences thrown in for good measure). Where he falls somewhat short is in his description of white collar, office work - it seems that his own experience prepared him poorly to adequately describe and judge it. In the main points he is of course right but you will get a much better examination of both Taylorist management methods, as well as problems of white collar jobs in something like Matthew's The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong.

At the end of the day the message transmitted is similar to Pirsig's, and whether you prefer this book or the Zen original will probably depend on your age, and exposure to / liking of philosophy. Both use it copiously but Pirsig seems to rely on it more heavily, and he tells the whole (based on his real life, of course) more through a story - a road trip - rather than in the completely non-fictionalised account of Crawford. Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values also uses more complicated language and requires more concentration from the reader.

Overall definitely a book worth reading to give you an added perspective, just do not expect a nation of motorcycle repair shop mechanics to be the cure to the current economic woes - even if it may well provide the solution to a disgruntled individual office worker.

Very readable and as many of the reviews already available indicate, funny at times. I haven't read the entire work yet so my comments may be addressed within the rest of the book. I think that an important reason why so many industries such as the US (and UK) motoring industry have declined is because the cars and motorcycles they built were just not very good. Yes it is nice to tinker around when it is a hobby, but not if it's a wet Monday morning and you want to get to work. I do think the book makes some very valuable points and that there is a strong case made for not only manual work of this nature but for how we as nations plan for our future prosperity. This book is well worth its place in my collection.