From libcom.org: In The Problem with Work, Kathi Weeks boldly challenges the presupposition that work, or waged labor, is inherently a social and political good. While progressive political movements, including the Marxist and feminist movements, have fought for equal pay, better work conditions, and the recognition of unpaid work as a valued form of labor, even they have tended to accept work as a naturalized or inevitable activity. Weeks argues that in taking work as a given, we have “depoliticized” it, or removed it from the realm of political critique.
Employment is now largely privatized, and work-based activism in the United States has atrophied. We have accepted waged work as the primary mechanism for income distribution, as an ethical obligation, and as a means of defining ourselves and others as social and political subjects. Taking up Marxist and feminist critiques, Weeks proposes a postwork society that would allow people to be productive and creative rather than relentlessly bound to the employment relation. Work, she contends, is a legitimate, even crucial, subject for political theory.
An HTML version of the Introduction is available here.
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This reminds me of an elderly woman I met in Auckland in the mid-1980s. As I was still a relative newcomer to New Zealand, she felt duty-bound to “educate” me. “Maoris,” she announced at the breakfast table, “are L-A-Z-Y” (yes, she spelled the word out). I remember thinking, “Well, if they really are lazy, they’re probably very sensible”. I didn’t say anything, however, as I was the lady’s house guest.
Reblogged this on Spirit In Action and commented:
This looks very cool! Reminds me of a wonderful article I read in an economic geography class called “From Artisans into Workers”, which explained how industrialists worked to force people to turn from lives spent at home, on the farm, in a home based workshop or shop to being factory workers controlled by a clock and forced into rigid work postures, basically treated as machines to create profit for the slavemasters, I mean, industrialists.
“Work” as we now knowit is about as un-natural of an activity as could be invented. It stifles creativity in most cases, causes harm to the body and -this one is so well known to everyone who works outside of a personal calling-it is mind shatteringly BORING.
Imagine what you would do with your time if you could choose completely-at first maybe we would all do “vacation” things like go to the beach, but eventually, as we see with many retirees, people find their calling, the gifts they have to give to society and to one another. These gifts come naturally, from the heart and are a joy to do, and they provide things that others need, from art to caregiving, to creating beautiful clothes or drums or growing healthy food.
The difference is the doing of whatever it is, is not forced, it is a joy. Check out Starhawk’s book The Fifth Sacred Thing for a wonderful Utopian vision of how people organize getting things done and “work” in a post-colonized, post industrial, truly free society.
True freedom is not the freedom to “OWN” this thing or that thing, it is the freedom to think and to be outside of any box created by someone else, indeed outside of boxes altogether since life is a flowing moment not a map anyway.