Whither Avoidance?

Was Bartleby a shirker? An essay by Tommy Titmouse, age five.

In re-reading Melville's seminal short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," with my little brother Timmy, I am bemused at the total inability of the titular character to understand even the minutest basics of the capitalist system. Indeed Timmy, who has only begun reading Marx's Capital, grasped the inherent dynamic between personal freedom versus market forces. Bartleby, by proclaiming with terse vapidity his opposition to any ideas of his own, comes across as a layabout, a wastrel, a slacker, & a shirker.

Can we, in these days of nation-transcendent corporate interests & transformative free trade, afford to allow the labor force to so blithely renege on what is assuredly a social contract? More information would be required, of course, & it would be helpful if perhaps Melville had provided ancillary documents, like Bartleby's resume, & perhaps commentary from previous employers. Yet if we are to believe in the maturation of the employed through incentives that only the market can provide, we must empathize with his supervisor's boundless optimism in utilizing someone who surely came with more caveats than praise. When business fails, it can rarely be said to be from the sanguinity of the owners of the means of production!

How to prevent such unhappy outcomes in the labor force? Surely a system of rewards coupled with healthy slogans, perhaps from the works of Adam Smith, would suffice for the average earner. But Bartleby was worse than a Luddite; a wooden shoe thrown into a cogwheel would be more fundamentally fixable than a stubborn dolt refusing to do his work! & unemployment is frankly too generous for the likes of Bartleby; when a hireling causes profit loss through non-cooperation, the punishment ought to be more severe.

Perhaps a critic of my polemic might say, "Didn't Bartleby suffer as you would have him do? Did he not die?" Ah, but he did so first by breaking the law (a right surely reserved only by the most international of consortiums) & then requiring a social network (ie, the police & the criminal justice system) to shelter him as he destroyed himself! As the late Charlton Heston might have said, a firing squad (in an event publicized & attended by his fellow scriveners) would have been quicker, cheaper, &, I daresay, more just.

Indeed, Bartleby was a shirker, & his sorry tale should be as a parable for all who wish the wheels of industry to run smooth & true. I rest my case.

Adds little Timmy Titmore, age three & a half: But Bartleby was cool!

Damn it Timmy!