by Paxus

Created on: October 26, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Undoubtedly, it is part of the American dream to be self-employed. You have control over what you work on, when you work, and where you work. It encompasses our ideas of freedom and entrepreneurship in one cute little package; a career Manifest Destiny. But not every person is able to be successfully self-employed, and employees, not employers, are the backbone of any economic structure. So while it may be nice to be your own boss, I say it is in many cases nobler to be an employee.

Teachers are employees. Whether at a private or public school, these people help to build the society of tomorrow. They give us the tools and knowledge necessary to make a better life for ourselves. They lay the foundation for our future employment. To be a teacher means you have dedicated your life to the service of others. It is a shame teachers are not paid more for their services, but thankfully they are not all self-employed; not every family could afford a private tutor for their children. A world where education is a private enterprise would further the class divide and concentrate power and information into the hands of only those who could afford it.

Civil servants, from our police officers to our military, are employees. They make sure we have our legal system, our protection and our defense. If teachers are the foundation of society, civil servants are the mortar. We depend on their work, nationally and locally, to provide coherence to what we enjoy as modern life. If every civil servant were a self-contractor, many of our towns and cities wouldn't be able to provide services for their citizens. A world of private civil service would return us to a feudal society of serfs and nobles.

For many people, it is the accumulation of wealth and freedom that makes self-employment so desirable. There is also a social disdain for the supposed "cog" in the machine. As a result, workers throughout the world are in many cases treated as second class citizens. Nobody wants to be that person, and everybody would like a little more freedom and money. With this mentality, we forget that employees at every level make modern life possible. And while it can be argued that employees are usually less educated and less wealthy than their employer counterparts, that does not decrease their value or their importance. It is a shame that employees do most of the work and receive the least of the profits, but as long as I can pay my bills and provide for my family, I prefer to play my part as a noble employee in the much larger web of society.

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