In the late 20th Century the fashion amongst even the most prominent of economic commentators (a massive category which includes economists and numerous persons of self-ascribed expertise in the subject) proselytized the fashionable view that human society should focus an efficiency of productivity as opposed to distribution of labour. The unemployed, they argued, could be supported with the profits from efficiency in mechanization. This view has prevailed in many economies during the first decade of this century. Some referred to this as “trickle down theory” described by J. K. Galbraith “the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.” 

The idea that the poor can be left to live off welfare is horrendous in its implications, both from the perspective of the psychology of work, and from largely unpredicted consequences in the form of socio-political unrest as currently evidenced in Egypt, Tunisia, Lybia, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Kenya, and not yet so evident but inevitably Zimbabwe and the Republic of South Africa. “The struggle for South Africa has only just begun” was Ross Kemp’s final comment after a televised study of gang growth in South Africa’s impoverished “high density areas.” 

We must resort to the psychology of individual needs to understand the intensity of feeling which has recently been so obvious in the pressure-cooker crowds of mostly unemployed youth that we have recently observed in the countries mentioned above.

Firstly, involvement in work has a positive effect on most people’s self-esteem. The damaging effects of withdrawal of work opportunities are glaringly obvious from increases in stress-related diseases and increasing in suicide rates amongst population groups suddenly made redundant by business closures.

Secondly, for the adult, human work is instrumental in providing support for the family. This is a strong source of motivation. In this sense, work is a selfless activity, orientated towards the wellbeing of others. The dregs of most societies – hoodlums, thieves, bandits, kidnappers, even politicians, illustrate the bizarre philanthropy of criminality, as they pass on to their families most of what they acquire through their crimes. A person with starving children will often take enormous risks. 

In short withdrawal of work, or failure to create it, foments anti-social revolution. 

Even the availability of marginally gainful opportunities is a socially calming factor. Numerous studies have shown that there is minimal growth into “big business” from the modern small scale sector and they have exposed as a myth the widely held belief that modern businesses in Africa depend for their growth upon emergence from small businesses (USAID/Gemini Studies [1991, 1993, 1994]). Yet about 70% of owners of small informal businesses believe that they will “one day be rich.” Thus, in their millions, they labour on at marginal activities, unaware of the reality (continuing poverty) that confronts them, but without resorting to crime or political upheaval. Thus I have, elsewhere, described the modern informal sector as a “socio-political opiate.” Removal of this ‘opiate’ from approximately 2.5 million Zimbabweans by Operation Murambatsvina was a politically inept move of which the consequences continue to threaten.

Summarizing so far, people need work, and they, by and large, like work and dislike unemployment. Politico-economic theory says “focus on the more economically productive sectors of the economy,” but that is a dangerous and inhumane error which can be avoided by bringing as many people as possible into the formal sector as quickly as possible. This would make psychological sense, and also political sense. Also, through the training and development of employees for the formal sector talents would be identified and allowed to grow. The small scale sector should be encouraged, rather than abandoned or destroyed, and the recent work of Frese, Harrison, Krauss and many others should be scoured for methods of developing meaningful economic growth from such businesses.