"Do what you love” is the mantra for today’s worker

"Do what you love” is the mantra for today’s worker. Why should we
assert our class interests if, according to DWYL elites like Steve Jobs,
there’s no such thing as work?

In the Name of Love | Jacobin



referenced by observer article 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/20/do-what-you-love-good-or-bad-advice



Full Article :

Many 20 and 30-somethings (if not those older and younger than that)
grew up hearing the advice that all you need to do in life is "find your
passion". The implication is that if you "do what you love" (in
shorthand: DWYL), success – and presumably happiness and money – would
follow.

People like Apple's Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark
Zuckerberg were held up as examples (if not gurus) of this "DWYL" trend,
alongside people who quit investment banking jobs to become cheese
farmers, plumbers or yoga entrepreneurs.

But writer and art history scholar Miya Tokumitsu
argues that this romanticized notion of the working world is a
dangerous fallacy. It's the modern-day equivalent of the emperor's new
clothes myth.

In a much shared commentary for Jacobin magazine (later re-printed on Slate.com), Tokumitsu writes:

DWYL
is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises
its elitism as noble self-betterment. According to this way of thinking,
labor is not something one does for compensation but is an act of love.
If profit doesn't happen to follow, presumably it is because the
worker's passion and determination were insufficient. Its real
achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and
not the marketplace.

She points out that the vast
majority of jobs have no place in the DWYL world because they are "done
out of motives or needs other than love". Most people don't grow up
wanting to clean up after others or work in low-end retail or fast food
jobs. The idea that everyone gets to choose what they want to do only
applies to the wealthy. She also notes that professions such as
journalism and academia have eroded over time because people are
supposed to accept lower and lower pay in return for being lucky enough
to "follow their passion".