"There can be little doubt that absence from work, and inefficient work, are frequently due to intemperance"
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King’s sentence has the clipped certainty of someone trying to turn moral judgment into administrative common sense. “There can be little doubt” isn’t evidence; it’s a pre-emptive closing of debate, a rhetorical padlock that frames dissent as willful blindness. He’s not simply diagnosing a workplace problem. He’s defining the boundaries of respectable citizenship in a modernizing industrial state: show up, perform efficiently, and keep your appetites off the clock.
The key move is the pairing of “absence” with “inefficient work.” Together, they treat labor not as a human activity with fatigue, injury, family demands, or unsafe conditions, but as a measurable output that can be audited and corrected. “Intemperance” does heavy cultural work here. It’s an old, moralizing word that smuggles class politics into the language of management. In early 20th-century Canada, temperance campaigns were entangled with anxieties about urbanization, immigration, and the unruliness of male working-class leisure. By pointing to drink, King offers employers and policymakers a tidy culprit that doesn’t require confronting wages, hours, or power.
The intent reads as reformist but also disciplinary: if productivity falters, look first to personal vice, not structural strain. The subtext is a bargain the state often proposes in moments of social change: we’ll protect the system’s stability, and in return you’ll practice self-control. It’s moral regulation dressed up as efficiency, and it works because it sounds like neutral observation while quietly assigning blame.
The key move is the pairing of “absence” with “inefficient work.” Together, they treat labor not as a human activity with fatigue, injury, family demands, or unsafe conditions, but as a measurable output that can be audited and corrected. “Intemperance” does heavy cultural work here. It’s an old, moralizing word that smuggles class politics into the language of management. In early 20th-century Canada, temperance campaigns were entangled with anxieties about urbanization, immigration, and the unruliness of male working-class leisure. By pointing to drink, King offers employers and policymakers a tidy culprit that doesn’t require confronting wages, hours, or power.
The intent reads as reformist but also disciplinary: if productivity falters, look first to personal vice, not structural strain. The subtext is a bargain the state often proposes in moments of social change: we’ll protect the system’s stability, and in return you’ll practice self-control. It’s moral regulation dressed up as efficiency, and it works because it sounds like neutral observation while quietly assigning blame.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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