Transformations in the history of the work ethic are intertwined with the demands made upon workers by changing employment and labour regimes in different periods of capitalism. However, approaching the work ethic in terms of epochal shifts in the nature of capitalism can sometimes obscure as much as it reveals about the meanings ascribed to work in the formation of contemporary identities. The work ethic is not merely a dominant ideology of work to which all subscribe in the same way. Indeed, to make this argument would be to apply a functionalist logic to the work ethic and to the formation of classed identities through work, thereby ignoring the tensions and historical contradictions that shape how differently positioned young people respond to the incitement to self-realization through work. With this in mind, this chapter complicates the epochal periodizations of the work ethic to be found in the work of Weeks (2011) by exploring relationships to work, which I will suggest demonstrate both continuities and ruptures with the meanings ascribed to work in earlier periods of capitalism. While Chapter 3 described relatively privileged young people, whom I suggested constituted the ideal subjects of the post-Fordist work ethic, exploring the experiences of young people from working-class backgrounds reveals the work ethic as a heterogeneous discursive terrain shaped by the classed histories of work in different periods of capitalism. This chapter focuses on these experiences to explore what I will suggest is a new working-class manifestation of the post-Fordist work ethic, in which the promise of social mobility and material advancement made to the Fordist working class is experienced through the ontological reward offered by work in the post-Fordist present. This class-specific relationship with work produced in the context of both the classed history of the work ethic and within the material conditions that shape the post-Fordist present for contemporary youth, including experiences of unemployment and employment precarity.

In general, this chapter explores what I will call subjects of achievement. The chapter argues that working-class young people's relationship to the post-Fordist work ethic is one in which self-realization through work is manifested in concrete material advancement and social mobility that – at least ideally – takes place through the identification and cultivation of personal competences and their realization through successful engagement with work.