I felt this article conveyed over-simplified Rand-ian leanings as a basis for defining morale: Working Hard = High Morale, Receiving Charity = Low Morale. I can't disagree more. I think NickH hit on what I was thinking as I read the article, which is much more situational and nuanced.
I agree that morale is primarily a group mechanism, and while it can be experienced separately (and differently) by a single member of a group, it affects the culture and cohesion of a team in a contagious fashion. Good team morale boosts everyone -- even the low-performers (or those with personally lower morale, to a lesser degree) -- while bad team morale can bring down even the cheeriest of cheery team members.
Additionally, I believe morale is more a gauge of personal perception of equity than simply the results of "hard work", especially since the definition of the "hard work" is incredibly subjective. Two different people can put in "hard work" and achieve very different levels of productivity. Additionally, both people can experience very different feelings of "accomplishment" independent of actual output. However, if they are both being compensated the same for the same task, feelings of inequity breed poor morale.
In group dynamics that include differing levels of authority or power, such as the standard workplace, it's lack of proper recognition of results and improper compensation that breeds poor morale, even though the final product for both workers may ultimately yield the same results, but in different timeframes.
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Lastly, the crux of the current decline in American morale involves these statements:
- You can do one better if you reward active sabotage.
- There should be a hack for societal morale, though, and it's economic growth.
I would argue that lack of true accountability for active sabotage, once discovered, is far more damaging to morale than the sabotage itself, and is in itself a type of reward for the saboteur. As for economic growth being a hack for societal morale, when general economic growth is being generated by the same untouchable saboteurs, does it really fix morale? I would say it does not, especially since the growth is so often lopsided in its distribution.
One particularly pernicious condition is low morale. Morale is, roughly, "the belief that if you work hard, your conditions will improve." If your morale is low, you can't push through adversity. It's also very easy to accidentally drop your morale through standard rationalist life-optimization.
It's easy to optimize for wellbeing and miss out on the factors which affect morale, especially if you're working on something important, like not having everyone die. One example is working at an office that feeds you three meals per day. This seems optimal: eating is nice, and cooking is effort. Obvious choice.
Example
But morale doesn't come from having nice things. Consider a rich teenager. He gets basically every material need satisfied: maids clean, chefs cook, his family takes him on holiday four times a year. What happens when this kid comes up against something really difficult in school? He probably doesn't push through.
"Aha", I hear you say. "That kid has never faced adversity. Of course he's not going to handle it well." Ok, suppose he gets kicked in the shins every day and called a posh twat by some local youths, but still goes into school. That's adversity, will that work? Will he have higher morale now? I don't think so.
Now, what about if he plays the cello in the school orchestra. Or he plays for the school football team. I think that might work, even if he's not the best kid in the school at either of those things. It's not about having nice things or having bad things, it's about something else
II
Morale comes from having the nice things in your life correlated with effort. Cooking your own dinner is basically microdosing returns to investing effort: if you put in effort, you eat steak frites with peppercorn sauce. If you don't, you get eat chicken and rice.
It doesn't have to be cooking, basically any hobby works like this, as long as you get returns to effort. It might be art, or weightlifting, or whatever. You just need to keep reminding your brain that effort has a purpose.
This is especially important when you work in an area (like not having everyone die) where the returns on effort are hard to come by. Good software engineering looks like solving a PR in a day or so (or whatever you people do). Good alignment research might mean chasing a concept for weeks, only to have it fail.
The early stages of dating can also induce low morale. Sometimes, things just fall apart due to random incompatibilities which aren't your fault. Long-term relationships are much less like this: you can just do things (plan dates with your partner and enjoy their company).
John Wentworth has written about a minor depression presenting as extremely low morale amongst rationalist types. I don't think you should wait until it gets that bad before you improve your morale. I think you should think about it now.
III
Morale doesn't just matter on an individual level, it also matters on the scale of whole societies. In this case, it doesn't just matter whether an individual gets rewarded for effort, it matters whether they see others rewarded for effort---and whether or not they see others punished for a lack of effort.
It's a truism that the most effective way to kill morale is to reward lazy or incompetent employees. You can do one better if you reward active sabotage. The harm of small but visible crimes (like fare-dodging on public transport) is, in part, the damage to the morale of everyone around.
There should be a hack for societal morale, though, and it's economic growth. People generally put some amount of effort into their work. If they can afford a better car each year, they'll attribute that to their own grit, and not an increase in the productivity of a Chinese factory.
Unfortunately, there's a twist in the twist. People are really awful at understanding nominal inflation. If the price goes up a bit (even if their wages more than match it) the price increase just feels like a random, unfair, morale-reducing loss. I conjecture this is a big contributor to the American Vibecession.