Britney Spears – Work Bitch

Not to legitimatize a meaningless phrase, but truly these are economic times. It’s hard out there for a pimp, and for most every other job too—taxable or otherwise. At this point, any downward movement in the unemployment rate is pretty much exclusively a function of how many people have given up on searching for a job. There are disruptive forces like 3D printing on the horizon to ensure that any manufacturing renaissance in the United States will be based strictly on output and not on labor. The outlook is grim, folks. Thankfully, Britney Spears has chimed in to remind us that this is America; we never saw a pair of bootstraps we couldn’t pull ourselves up by. Colloquially speaking—you gotta work, bitch.

Back in college, I minored in economics. I found much of it baffling and preposterous (two intersecting lines = the economy), but what confused me the most was that the unemployment rate wasn’t really the unemployment rate. Economists only consider someone to be unemployed if he or she is out of work but actively looking for a job. This song is squarely aimed at the people in the labor force as well as the people that are at least trying to get into it. It’s a motivational anthem for y’all that are willing to work.

There are a lot of doomsday-esque financial terms being thrown around these days. Debt ceiling. Fiscal cliff. Quantitative easing. STAGFLATION. We all live in an uncertain global economy, and it’s only natural to stress about job stability. Britney’s got some sound advice for us work-a-day schlubs: have goals. Plain and simple. We’re all out there hustling to get papered up when the payroll’s run. But to stay motivated and hardworking (and really wow upper management in the process), we need to have something to work toward. For those of us that are strapped for goals, “Work Bitch” has a few brass rings you could reach for:

• hot body
• Bugatti
• Maserati
• Lamborghini
• martinis
• looking hot in a bikini
• living in mansions
• parties in France

These are all fine goals, each the embodiment of financial/physical success and therefore happiness that we all wish to obtain. Just keep your nose to the grindstone and you’ll be in a much better position to meet your goals and objectives. But Britney makes an important and uniquely American distinction. Notice that she’s not making any promises. ”You want a hot body?…You better work bitch.” Work is required to obtain the hot body. However, Britney does not promise the hot body. We’re not an entitlement society. There are winners and there are losers in capitalism, and sometimes the worker loses.

America has managed to stabilize its economy largely through a jobless recovery. Wealth has shifted in this country, and consumer spending doesn’t seem to justify the same proportion of jobs within the population. We’re repatriating manufacturing output but not the jobs that used to go with it. What I’m trying to say is, I’m beginning to think that Britney Spears is a little out of touch with the economic landscape. Her song would be more realistic if it reminded people that they should just be happy they have a job. We’re not living in a country where success and upward mobility can be achieved anymore simply through hard work, gumption, get-up-and-go, and a little elbow grease. This country has been fashioning itself into a plutocracy for awhile now, and that rough beast’s hour has come round at last. Population growth is steadily outpacing job growth, and there aren’t enough opportunities for all those unemployed bitches that gotta work. The workforce is, per Thursday, drowning. It will not be rescued, but it will be replaced in America’s plutocratic horizon. Here comes the master. Here comes the smasher. Here comes the big beat. Here comes the blast off.

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