Antiwork – a radical shift in how we view “jobs”

There are plenty of people who work, who work more than one job. They turn up, are told what to do, are at the mercy of the politicking of the organisation, get paid poorly, are physically exhausted, are pressured into moral compromises, have little medical or mental health support, have no assets or qualifications to be able to escape, and are well aware they would not be able to find anything substantially better. Perhaps they work 10 hours a day, then go home, cook for their kids, put them to bed, do the laundry and clean and crash.

When people try to compare my effort against those people, and say "look at people like him, he's proof hard work is the road to success!" I find it morally obnoxious.

The lie that work is the road to success is perpetuated by those who are able to anti-work, to maximise their own success on the backs of those who can't.

Not all work is created equal. What we have in reality is an information space where allocation is firmly in the center (financial industry at the center of the overall economy; IT at the center of each and every business). People who make a living allocating money are happy people because they literally do nothing but pick from their options. And yet somehow these pickers (investors, bankers, executives) are some of the best remunerated people in our society. Note that the startup scene itself is just a high risk/reward set of options from which those same people get to pick.

(The crazy thing is that in a growing economy the "allocation class" domination is self-reinforcing because it's impossible to pick wrong.)

Meanwhile as children we're taught "follow your passion" and exposed to arts, crafts, stories, and other things that have nothing to do with allocation. Meanwhile the allocation class is dominated by a social structure defined primarily by college admission boards. "Legacy" students have an edge, this implies that our brand of capitalism is at least loosely hereditary. They are offered jobs on graduation that most of the nation doesn't even know exist.

http://oaj.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/3/391/F4.large.jpg

To the extent that automation and cybernetics foreshadow the massive replacement of workers by mechanical slaves, forced labour is revealed as belonging purely to the barbaric practices needed to maintain order. Thus power manufactures the dose of fatigue necessary for the passive assimilation of its televised diktats. What carrot is worth working for, after this? The game is up; there is nothing to lose anymore, not even an illusion. The organization of work and the organization of leisure are the blades of the castrating shears whose job is to improve the race of fawning dogs. One day, will we see strikers, demanding automation and a ten-hour week, choosing, instead of picketing, to make love in the factories, the offices and the culture centres? Only the planners, the managers, the union bosses and the sociologists would be surprised and worried. Not without reason; after all, their skin is at stake.

"THE REVOLUTION OF EVERYDAY LIFE" - Raoul Vaneigem, 1972

(Full text: http://www.scenewash.org/lobbies/chainthinker/situationist/v...)

If we can live in a world like ours where everyone is doing "antiwork" instead of work, that would certainly be better. But it's not at all clear from this article how such a world would function.

Many of the actions necessary for clean water, plentiful food, good shelter, etc. (as they are provided today) are actions that no one would do "out of love, fun, interest, talent, enthusiasm, inspiration".

This, I think, is a particularly telling summary of the connection between Christian doctrine and attitudes to work: "The underlying idea is that you’re endlessly undeserving – that reward, ie happiness, will always be contingent on the endurance of some unpleasant activity (eg “hard work”). Again, we could trace this notion to early moral ideas – eg original sin and redemption through suffering ..."

However I see two shortcomings in this essay. First, he doesn't make what should be the obvious economic connection. True, any job has value; this is evident from the fact that the employer pays for it to be done. There is a market in labor. However, the religion-derived morality that makes it deeply wrong not to work tends to drive down the price of labor. People will accept shittier jobs for lower wages than they would otherwise, when they also accept the belief that it is evil to be unemployed, and virtuous to have work regardless of the type or satisfaction of the work.

Thus the societal attitudes ably described in the essay serve the interests of the employers and work against the interests of the workers. If the workers didn't buy into this zeitgeist, they might not not-work, they might even work the same shitty jobs, but they would be more willing to drop them, and would demand higher pay in line with the shittyness. The necessary jobs would still get done (ya want fries with that); but the employers would have to pay more and provide better conditions because the workers would feel morally free to be more choosy about pay and conditions.

The second thing wrong with the essay is that it ends without even sketching a solution, or a direction that society might take if "antiwork" gained traction. It seems to be an empty term.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/speedup-american...

Companies aren't hiring like they used to. There is no need. Automation and outsourcing have reduced the demand for local labor.

http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=185

This is a good thing. Overpopulation is behind some of the biggest dangers that face the entire human race, including climate change, overfishing, ecosystem collapse (bees and others disappearing due to stresses introduced by changes in agriculture), factory farms (ethical issues) etc.

Countries have to break their dependence on the old style pyramid of more young people paying for old people's social security. It encourages exponential population growth, which just leads people into trouble later on and kicks the can down the road.

EDIT: Would someone downvoting this care to explain why? Because you are really believing necessary work has some intrinsic value or goodness or whatever? If yes, what is it?

Jesus: "consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin thread"

...I don't think he meant that literally, but he definitely didn't mean, "work as hard as you can so you can give a little to charity yet still anonymously hire tons of people to make you nice things"

Antiwork makes it sound like it's the opposite of work. It's not the opposite of work; it's the opposite of pointless work. If anything needs a new nickname, it's the pointless work. Pseudo-work. And if we're going to be morally superior about one or the other, I think the author makes a good case for celebrating selfwork, not pseudowork. (I don't know who celebrates leisure, it's usually the butt of a joke)

I'm 30 and I've never been paid a salary in my entire life except for 1 month. Same for my father, and my mother is not so much better on that.

I tried being honest and tried the "reintegrate myself" option, but I have to say I'm not convinced.

If some people are ready to bite their tongue and subscribe to the obeying workforce, I would let them be, but I will never let them insult unemployed people as being lazy. But I think I belong to the portion of people who is not really actively doing something I think is productive, or is not being able to effectively progress towards that goal. I can't always stick the blame on me.

I understand that civilization and economics are something people hold dearly, like it's important for the well being of millions of people, but sometimes, you have to be honest and explore the sociology and psychology of it if you want to make real improvements. I can't honestly believe politics are completely insensitive to this. Or may they will be in 50 years.

As W. Edwards Deming said, "All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride." Prideful, real work—work that produces joy for the worker and results in something of value—is virtuous.

The real problem is structural. A requirement of working with pride is to be a part of an organization that treats employees well and enables that pride, and removes all barriers to it. They must seek a quality product and a valuable result as a primary goal.

This is why Deming advocated for Quality as a first principle, and why his system was so functional and correct. It took into account primarily the need for every individual in the organization to take pride in work. Learn more -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

And to sum this up, never a better time for this poem:

To be of use – by Marge Piercy

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2006/09...

  The people I love the best
  jump into work head first
  without dallying in the shallows
  and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
  They seem to become natives of that element,
  the black sleek heads of seals
  bouncing like half-submerged balls.
  
  I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
  who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
  who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
  who do what has to be done, again and again.
  
  I want to be with people who submerge 
  in the task, who go into the fields to harvest 
  and work in a row and pass the bags along,
  who are not parlor generals and field deserters
  but move in a common rhythm
  when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
  
  The work of the world is common as mud.
  Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
  But the thing worth doing well done
  has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
  Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
  Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
  but you know they were made to be used.
  The pitcher cries for water to carry
  and a person for work that is real.

As for the moral argument as to why people on welfare are often viewed negatively, I think the reasoning is fairly obvious - most taxpayers are doing work which they don't necessarily enjoy, and may become annoyed if they think they are being exploited by people who are not working. Hence why nobody cares if a person who is not on welfare doesn't work.

Finally, I would be interested to know what specific jobs the author is referring to as "BS jobs". As far as I'm aware, people are only given money if someone else finds utility in what they are doing.

It is a privilege to be able to work in such an environment as it is so rare.

Those who do not work (labour) shall not eat! This cynical principle is still in effect; all the more nowadays when it becomes hopelessly obsolete. It is really an absurdity: Never before the society was that much a labour society as it is now when labour itself is made superfluous.

Work has already changed, the future is here, but it's here because people need two jobs to make rent, or because people freelance so that they can realise their personal visions, not because robots are going to steal our jobs.

The real problem is finding out what you want to do and where you fit (hence https://www.somewhere.com).

Yes, because productivity and determination are so pernicious.

I don't understand the point of this article; is it suggesting that we intentionally try to decrease humanity's labor output in the name of some poorly-defined notion of "work sucks"?

I'm quite willing to accept that the value I instinctively place on work and, to a lesser degree, success has a large societal component. When I try to evaluate myself, I cannot avoid those values, and it doesn't help that my predisposition to anxiety emotionally magnifies any idea of not doing something useful with my life, of wasting time and makes it difficult for me to ever be truly relaxed if I feel like I'm in such a situation. That's been the dominant emotion when I think about my day job since I first started having day jobs some four years ago - anxiety.

And it's pretty arbitrary, isn't it? A common justification or explanation of caring about success is that it improves one's chances of being important and remembered. But I am not important; I hope to accomplish something interesting enough in life that people will remember me for time to come, but it's very unlikely to happen, and if I consider that there are ways to optimize for memorability - careers more associated with fame, or writing - that I am not taking advantage of, and that I don't mind that at all, I can see that that has nothing to do with my real emotional goals. I value work not as a means to any end, but because I've internalized it as an end in itself.

Even people who spend money to get buildings named after them - are they doing it to be remembered, or just because leaving one's name on things is part of our societal narrative of success, and doing it themselves makes their self-narrative better track that one?

But... then there are my side projects. The ones that even if I had the capability to work on full time, I wouldn't, because they don't seem important enough in the long run (there the anxiety creeps up again) - yet that I like no less for it. When I think about doing them as side projects, the associated emotions are pleasure, personal fulfillment, and connection. I value the intellectual stimulation I get out of them; I value being able to prove to myself my ability to complete them (which is a different, more idiosyncratic and egotistical emotion than the desire to matter); I value being able to help people, if the project is used by others, and to socially engage with them. I even value the feeling of being (mentally) exhausted after giving the thing my all, very similar to the feeling of having given a physical activity, say skiing, my all.

I think those desires are more intrinsic than the desire to work. Inherently those projects are so similar to work; indeed, I'm lucky enough to be able to perform for my job almost the same activities (reverse engineering, coding) I like to do by myself. But I think they are anti-work, because when I pop a project off the personal stack and onto the work stack, I can't help but think about it very differently. It grows all sorts of context that didn't exist before.

But at least it's similar.

For example, the author does not appear to realize that the reason most people work is to exchange their time and efforts for something they value more, which is usually money but could be experience or other things, in any combination.

what special skill or trait do you need to become a successful antiworker?

I have this growing uneasiness about capitalism that its really about capital, not special skill, not some super insight, but mainly luck and/or capital. Not brains. Not muscles.

To me this realization throws the entire concept of working hard. It's easy to see that capitalism is not based on exploiting yourself or peddling your ass for wages. In fact the people who claim that hard work is road to success are the very people who benefit it.

It might be that this has become a widely accepted falsehood that was started by no good factory owners since the industrial age, that is being perpetuated to this day.

I honestly feel like I've been lied to all my life. Your startup or business failed, not because you were dumb or it was all your fault, a lot of it has to do with luck. Luck comes in many forms, sales, market timing, product fit etc.

I almost feel like you are almost entitled to spend some time without accomplishing much with antiwork but when you stick around luck will eventually come to you.

In the past month I've completely stopped trying so hard. I just tuned out and let business happen. it was the best month I've had so far.

This whole article is a ridiculous strawman. People don't advocate hard work for its own sake (or if they do, this viewpoint isn't politically influential). They promote hard work for what it brings, that is, whatever the worker produced.

Graeber's essay is wrong. There are no "bullshit jobs". From the employer's point of view, why would they hire someone if hiring that person wasn't profitable? Does he really think businesses put the ideology of everyone having a job over profit?