Idle Hands

What productive work gives us besides a paycheck

Idle Hands

What productive work gives us besides a paycheck

By Jim Reynolds | www.reynolds.com

October 14, 2026

Our ancestors did not have much opportunity to debate the virtues of productive work. They had to find food, make tools, and secure shelter. Someone who could not hunt might contribute in another way. Someone injured could be cared for. But the group still had to produce enough to keep everyone alive.

We have put considerable distance between ourselves and that necessity. We can feed people who produce no food, house people who build no shelter, and support people who contribute little to either arrangement. That is an achievement of a productive civilization.

It also leaves a question that paying the bills does not answer: What will those people do?

John Hawkins recently raised the question of personal responsibility in an article titled “Who Is Responsible for Your Poverty? Society or You?” He quoted Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed criticizing what El-Sayed called the “Cult of Hard Work.” Hawkins defended the obligation to support yourself rather than require other people to do it for you.

I think the argument goes considerably further. Productive work helps hold a society together. It also helps hold the individual together.

First, we should define work. A man dragging logs uphill is working. So is an engineer figuring out how to make a bridge carry its load, a programmer tracking down a defect, or an investor studying how to put capital to productive use. Some of the most consequential work involves sitting quite still while thinking very hard.

Nor does useful work always come with a paycheck. Raising children, caring for an aging parent, studying a difficult subject, and helping a neighbor can all carry substantial responsibilities. Retirement need not mean withdrawing from useful activity. I am retired. I write essays and work on my property. There is plenty to do.

The distinction is whether a person accepts meaningful responsibilities and follows through on them.

A job makes that difficult to avoid. Other people expect you to arrive when you said you would. You have to learn something, cooperate with people you did not choose, accept correction, and complete tasks someone else needs done. Your intentions eventually meet a result. The engine runs, the customer gets his order, or the student learns how to solve the equation.

I spent ten years teaching math and music in public schools. A student could feel confident about an algebra problem and still get the wrong answer. A musician could be enthusiastic and still come in two beats late. Progress required attention, practice, and correction. Eventually, something that had been difficult became something the student could do.

There is considerable satisfaction in that. There is also an education in how to live among other people.

Now consider a young person whose food, shelter, and basic comforts are supplied, but who has no useful responsibilities. His needs may be met while his days remain empty of accomplishment. He still has energy. He still wants recognition, companionship, and something interesting to do.

He will find activities. The question is which ones.

A gang can offer membership, assignments, advancement, and a reputation. Planning a theft can require ingenuity and cooperation. Intimidating people can earn approval from the wrong companions. Someone engaged in these pursuits may be extremely busy. His abilities are being exercised in ways that make life worse for everyone around him.

There is evidence that giving young people constructive responsibilities can change their behavior. In a randomized Chicago study involving 1,634 disadvantaged high school students, assignment to a supported summer jobs program reduced violent-crime arrests by 43 percent over 16 months. The program included adult support, so the result cannot be attributed to wages alone. But it gives us a concrete reason to take the combination of work, structure, and guidance seriously.

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” The expression can be misleading if we imagine hands that remain folded in a lap. They may soon be occupied. The trouble is what occupies them.

I wonder how much of the turmoil in our universities reflects a related problem. Where the connection between institutional activity and useful accomplishment becomes difficult to identify, internal disputes can become consuming occupations. A grievance supplies a cause. A campaign supplies comrades. A confrontation supplies excitement. People can acquire status by escalating a dispute that people with pressing responsibilities would have little time to entertain.

That is a question worth asking of particular departments and administrative offices, rather than a verdict on every person who works at a university. The useful test is what their activity accomplishes for the students and the public supporting it.

Work has never been our only source of direction. Family creates obligations that persist when they become inconvenient. Religious communities supply moral instruction, shared practices, and people who notice whether you show up. Love of country can connect a person to responsibilities extending beyond his own lifetime.

Organized religion retains a substantial place in American life, but its reach has diminished over the longer term. Pew Research Center found that 62 percent of American adults identified as Christian in its 2023–24 survey, compared with 78 percent in 2007. The decline had recently leveled off; the difference remained substantial.

People outside organized religion can lead deeply responsible lives. The question is what supplies guidance when religious attachment is absent, family obligations are weak, and citizenship carries little meaning beyond a list of complaints. For someone in that position, useful work may be one of the strongest remaining connections to other people and their expectations.

Which brings me to universal basic income.

Most discussions begin with the expense. Could we afford to provide everyone with an income? Would automation eventually make it possible to support a large population that does not need to work?

Suppose it did. We would still have to consider what we were encouraging people to become.

My concern is that a guaranteed income could make sustained disengagement easier precisely when other sources of obligation have weakened. Someone with a strong family, serious interests, or a project he wants to build might use the freedom exceptionally well. Someone already drifting might be paid to keep drifting.

That is a concern about what UBI could produce, not a claim that its consequences have already been settled. But the question deserves more attention than it gets. If a policy weakens the incentive to pursue useful work, what takes its place?

TikTok and the other social platforms are ready to fill the hours, supplying a steady stream of amusement, grievances, causes, and people to follow. Someone who lacks direction can spend an entire day absorbing someone else’s. The time is occupied; the need for purpose remains.

The latest salesman offering an explanation for everything will have an audience. He may offer an enemy to blame, a movement to join, or an exciting mission whose accomplishment consists of making trouble for other people. A person without attachments can acquire them from someone who knows exactly how to exploit that absence.

We cannot assume that supplying the necessities of life will leave people contentedly doing nothing. People will continue to plan, cooperate, compete, and seek recognition. A productive society gives those impulses useful destinations and teaches the habits required to reach them.

Hawkins asks why the productive should be obliged to support people who refuse to contribute. I would add another question: What happens to a society when it encourages people to live without useful responsibilities?

We may become wealthy enough to pay people to sit around. We should not assume they will sit quietly.

Sources

Sara B Heller, Summer jobs reduce violence among disadvantaged youth, Science, 2014.

Pew Research Center, Religious identity in the United States, February 26, 2025.