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Erik Baker, "Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America" (Harvard UP, 2025)

Mar 2, 2025

In this engaging discussion, Erik Baker, author of "Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America," dives deep into how the perception of work has transformed over the past century. He explores the roots of the entrepreneurial spirit, linking it to movements like New Thought and the cultural shifts in management. Baker argues that while this work ethic promotes self-initiative, it also masks increasing economic insecurity. The conversation highlights the tension between innovation and tradition in the workplace and critiques the gig economy's impact on today's workforce.

58:12

Episode guests

Erik Baker

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Quick takeaways

The shift towards an entrepreneurial work ethic in America reflects a cultural expectation for individuals to create job opportunities amidst increasing economic insecurity.

The historical roots of this mindset can be traced back to the New Thought movement, which emphasized personal agency and positive thinking in achieving economic success.

Deep dives

The Emergence of Entrepreneurialism

Entrepreneurialism has evolved as a dominant work ethic in the United States, reflecting a broader societal shift in how work is perceived and valued. This shift is characterized by the growing belief that individuals must actively create their own jobs rather than merely performing assigned tasks. This aspiration is rooted in historical contexts, particularly following the Great Depression, where traditional job security diminished, prompting a cultural embrace of self-creation and innovation. The entrepreneurial work ethic legitimizes tireless commitment to work beyond material needs, effectively reshaping cultural expectations surrounding success.

Intro

2min

The Evolving Work Ethic: From Labor to Entrepreneurship

12min

The Rise of the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic through New Thought

5min

Shifts in Management and the Rise of Entrepreneurialism

14min

The Intersection of Conservatism and Entrepreneurship in America

2min

Entrepreneurship and Tradition in Corporate Culture

9min

Navigating Turbulence: The Roots of Entrepreneurialism

7min

Exploring Entrepreneurial Culture and Its Impact on the Workforce

4min

How Americans think about work changed profoundly over the course of the twentieth century. Thrift and persistence came to seem old-fashioned. Successful workers were increasingly expected to show initiative and enthusiasm for change—not just to do their jobs reliably but to create new opportunities for themselves and for others. Our culture of work today is more demanding than ever, even though workers haven't seen commensurate rewards.

Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America (Harvard University Press, 2025) by Dr. Erik Baker explains how this entrepreneurial work ethic took hold, from its origins in late nineteenth-century success literature to the gig economy of today, sweeping in strange bedfellows: Marcus Garvey and Henry Ford, Avon ladies and New Age hippies. Business schools and consultants exhorted managers to cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit in their subordinates, while an industry of self-help authors synthesized new ideas from psychology into a vision of work as “self-realization.” Policy experts embraced the new ethic as a remedy for urban and Third World poverty. Every social group and political tendency, it seems, has had its own exemplary entrepreneurs.

Dr. Baker argues that the entrepreneurial work ethic has given meaning to work in a world where employment is ever more precarious––and in doing so, has helped legitimize a society of mounting economic insecurity and inequality. From the advent of corporate capitalism in the Gilded Age to the economic stagnation of recent decades, Americans have become accustomed to the reality that today’s job may be gone tomorrow. Where work is hard to find and older nostrums about diligent effort fall flat, the advice to “make your own job” keeps hope alive.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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