"Shop Class as Soulcraft:" the value of manual labor

"Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work"

by Matthew B. Crawford

Penguin Press, 246 pp., $25.95

"What ordinary people once made, they buy: and what they once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves replacing an entire system because some minute component has failed," writes Matthew Crawford in his book, "Shop Class as Soulcraft."

Crawford's basic argument is that people have lost touch with manual labor and the skills that it engenders, such as independence, creative thinking and pride of accomplishment; instead we work at jobs where we crunch numbers, stare at computer screens and trade ideas.

To illustrate his points, Crawford, who has a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and owns/operates a motorcycle-repair shop, describes his work as an electrician and motorcycle mechanic. In his shop he locates the problems, compares them with past repairs, finds the right tools, and fixes the bike, which allows the motorcycle owner to get back out and get on the beloved machine. In contrast, Crawford describes the cubicle dweller, whose main goals are to conform and to be part of a team.

Although Crawford does make some valid and timely points about our modern lack of hands-on knowledge and focus on making money, they are lost in the hubris of his ponderous statements. Furthermore, his descriptions of work in his motorcycle-repair shop are so cursory as to lose any power of illustration. I find it ironic that in a book about manual labor, the majority of it centers on Crawford's philosophical meanderings. I was also bothered that it seems that the world of manual labor is just for men. Crawford rarely uses the feminine pronoun and at least twice he proudly states the importance of dirty jokes to success as a mechanic.