Jobs, Businesses, and Professions
(First published in The Island/17 December 2010)
“The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.” - John Ruskin (1819-1900), English writer, art critic and social reformer
The three words job, business, and profession all relate to work done in expectation of payment or income, but mean different things in terms of the main motive that drives each. A job is what you do to earn a living, a business involves work relating to the production, buying or selling of goods or services, and a profession is work which requires specialized knowledge and rigorous training, and which is considered to be more a form of honourable service to the society than simple labour to be appropriately remunerated. Disciplined performance on all these three forms of employment is essential for a country’s wellbeing. However, in the society today, one is often struck by the way traditionally hallowed professions such as the medical and the teaching professions are losing their aura of nobility, and degenerating into mere jobs or businesses, though there’s no reason to despair that old values are totally gone.
Professionalism, that is, the practice of skills combined with high standards, while intrinsic to professions by definition, is also expected of jobs and businesses. However, we don’t talk about ‘noble’ jobs or businesses, while we do apply that adjective to a profession. What makes a profession noble is the sense of compassion, generosity, and service that characterizes it. There is nothing very exalted about doing a piece of work to make a living, or exchanging goods or services for money to make a profit. But if your work involves, as in the case of the medical profession, saving people from physical and mental pain, or even death, or, as in the case of the teaching profession, fashioning the character of an individual for life, and if you do that out of compassion for fellow beings rather than covetousness, such ‘service’ should be considered noble.
A job is the least complicated of the three forms of employment. It is a regular occupation, and is nothing more than just a means of making a living. The worker is expected to work a regular number of hours each day, and is paid a regular salary. Usually the type of work the person is expected to do is routine, and allows little room for innovation. There may not be much of an opportunity or need to reveal one’s altruistic spirit, once the duties connected with the job are conscientiously performed.
A business makes an initial investment to produce goods or services for a target customer base. The main purpose of a business is to ensure a return for the money that is invested. Though businesses are usually for-profit organizations, occasionally, there are non-profit making businesses too, such as cooperative establishments, where the income earned is distributed among the members, who are themselves the investors, in the form of enhanced services and other benefits. A non-profit making business may sometimes raise money for a special cause, for example, charity. But, in the case of a business, the overriding concern is to augment returns on the capital resources deployed. Perhaps, moral standards seem to be irrelevant to business. This may be why American author Jim Tully (1886-1947) was prompted to say: “The lawyer and the doctor and other professional men have often a touch of civilization. The banker and the merchant seldom”, something borne out by the recent scams and scandals in the financial investment field in Sri Lanka.
A profession is different from both. The only common feature a profession shares with jobs and businesses is that it is practiced in expectation of some income. But, in reality, the purpose of earning some money becomes incidental to its main motive of providing a vitally important public service. A profession is no profession if it allows itself to become a mere job or business.
A number of special attributes of a profession (and by implication, of a professional) have been identified by different writers. Following are the most frequently stressed ones: a profession is based on a systematic body of scientific knowledge, and practical skills acquired through a formally assessed period of serious study and hard training; it should reflect authority and credibility in the relevant knowledge field, and also a widening of the knowledge field through research; a profession should be informed by compassion and a sense of dedication for public service; it should conform to a culture of values and standards; a profession must be committed to a special code of ethics; and it should demonstrate efficiency and competence in the performance of specific, socially useful, tasks which are challenging. These attributes give status and prestige to those engaged in the professions. Professionals generally enjoy more respect and recognition in society than other workers, and their work is regarded as a service. They are usually better paid than others, though people believe that the important work they do using their advanced knowledge and expertise cannot be valued in terms of money.
In the past, only a few forms of employment were included in the category of professions, such as the careers of doctors, educators, lawyers, engineers, or the (Christian) clergy. In modern times, however, the term is used more inclusively. It is extended to any field (such as business management, journalism, and communication) in which the practitioner performs an important task in a spirit of public service, based on his or her advanced scientific knowledge and hard training acquired over a period of time.
This western concept of profession is quite compatible with our own indigenous cultural attitudes, strongly evident in the medical and teaching fields. The (material) poverty of the ‘vedaralas’ (native physicians) who looked after the health of particularly the rural villagers, the vast majority of the population, almost single-handed until perhaps the beginning of the last century before the western system of medical care spread throughout the country is the theme of the following Sinhalese verse (I learned this verse from my late mother who herself had learnt it in her childhood. I regret my inability to relate it to a source):
Saththare denagath vedaralalata
Neththare nidinatha rae thun yamata
Goththare natha kusagini welawata
Paththare mai vedakama hingamanata
“Physicians who have mastered the art of healing have no rest even at night. You forget about your caste when you are hungry. Truly, this occupation of a physician makes a beggar out of you”.
The verse suggests that the local healers of that bygone era expected and got very little material benefit from practicing their profession. They engaged in it as a duty they owed to society. It seems that they believed that those who had gained medical knowledge were morally obliged to serve the community. They considered it a religious duty, a meritorious act. The society also relied on them to behave in that manner, and accorded them great respect and recognition.
In our knowledge-loving society teachers have always been similarly respected. It was only in the 1970’s that the private tuition centres started in earnest. Before that time, students depended entirely on classroom teaching. Sometimes, teachers offered extra teaching free of charge after school hours. We find no evidence to suggest that teachers of those less modernist times wanted to use their teaching to get materially rich.
This is only a neutral reflection on the past. No implied criticism of the highly commercialised medical and educational spheres that one finds nowadays is intended. Today we live in much more complicated times. We are materially and socially more advanced than before. We have more expectations in life and more opportunities to realize them. If private medical practitioners, and private tutors flourish by plying their trade, that is because there is a great demand for their services. Answering the vital needs of the society is no crime. But, even in the highly commercialized world of today, it is not impossible for them to infuse a sense of professionalism and humanity into their activities.
There are many who do, and enjoy the highest reward they can get for their toil as conceived by Ruskin in my quote at the beginning. That is why any indiscriminate condemnation of private practitioners in the medical or education fields as unconscionable profiteers would not be proper. We have many specialist doctors engaged in private practice who maintain high ethical standards by focusing on their profession rather than profit. The same applies to teachers; in both urban and rural schools some teachers who may be adding to their income by doing some moonlighting often provide free tuition to their needy students after school hours. This must be recognized and those professionals duly honoured for their service.
