I take issue with all the comments suggesting that the movement should be rebranding into “work reform”, because reforming is absolutely not the point. Speaking as someone who subscribes to the anti-work movement, my problem is not that much with current laboral laws and, in fact, I’d go as far as saying that all jobs I have had so far have been reasonably respectful with me except for maybe one.
My problem with that is that we consider normal that, in order to deserve leading a meaningful life, we must be working for someone richer or for the economy. Our life must be dedicated to constantly providing products and services so that we deserve to enjoy what little is left of it. In more concrete terms, I don’t like that we must get into wage labor in order to have access to fundamental goods such as food, water, housing, amenities or even free time. I believe all human beings living in a society capable of providing these are entitled to them, I also believe that our current society is perfectly capable of that, and that the only reason why the working class only gets conditional access or no access at all to fundamental goods are bullshit “number go up” reasons. I don’t buy for a second that homeless people deserve their status because “they didn’t work hard enough”. Wage labor being such a central axis of our current way of life is what I’m strongly opposed to.
Furthermore, I regard the power balance between employer and worker to be fundamentally broken, and no reform can do away with that. When you sign a contract and accept the terms of a job, are you really accepting them or just avoiding the alternative, the threat of homelessness? For a lot of people who can’t find jobs easily, not signing might mean starving or losing their home. How is that not coercion? Sure, if you don’t accept the terms of your current job, you can just look for another (even though this is not a reasonable posibility for a lot of people), but any job will offer as little pay with as many working hours as possible because, due to the lack of meaningful consent, all employers can get away with that. And we accept it as normal and reasonable.
I also don’t believe that abolishing wage labor will make people spend their whole lives not adding anything to society. If given enough free time, people will get bored of not doing anything and engage in work that they actually enjoy, of their own actual volition. I know I get involved into a lot of things given long enough vacations or subsidized unemployement. Now imagine if we just could get organized to find out what tasks need to be done, and each picked the tasks that they geniunely want to do, without being coerced. Without rich assholes and investors getting involved and often forcing us to work long hours on tasks that won’t add anything to the world, but they make money.
“Reforming” laboral laws is absolutely not enough for this. Sure, I’d appreciate a reduction in my working hours, an increase in my salary, more vacations, etc but even if those goals were met, I’d still be out there protesting for the reasons I’ve just stated. Work, as we understand it today, is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed without it being abolished first.
You may not agree with me, mind you, and have a more moderate position stating that work must not be abolished as it can be meaningfully reformed. But then you are subscribing to a different ideology altogether. Which is legitimate and can be argued for, but it does not match the ideology of the anti-work movement. Sure, under late capitalism, some short term goals may match, but the long term goals are entirely different. My point being, “work reform” would be a terrible rebranding for the movement because it stands for a different ideology entirely.
I take issue with all the comments suggesting that the movement should be rebranding into “work reform”, because reforming is absolutely not the point. Speaking as someone who subscribes to the anti-work movement, my problem is not that much with current laboral laws and, in fact, I’d go as far as saying that all jobs I have had so far have been reasonably respectful with me except for maybe one.
My problem with that is that we consider normal that, in order to deserve leading a meaningful life, we must be working for someone richer or for the economy. Our life must be dedicated to constantly providing products and services so that we deserve to enjoy what little is left of it. In more concrete terms, I don’t like that we must get into wage labor in order to have access to fundamental goods such as food, water, housing, amenities or even free time. I believe all human beings living in a society capable of providing these are entitled to them, I also believe that our current society is perfectly capable of that, and that the only reason why the working class only gets conditional access or no access at all to fundamental goods are bullshit “number go up” reasons. I don’t buy for a second that homeless people deserve their status because “they didn’t work hard enough”. Wage labor being such a central axis of our current way of life is what I’m strongly opposed to.
Furthermore, I regard the power balance between employer and worker to be fundamentally broken, and no reform can do away with that. When you sign a contract and accept the terms of a job, are you really accepting them or just avoiding the alternative, the threat of homelessness? For a lot of people who can’t find jobs easily, not signing might mean starving or losing their home. How is that not coercion? Sure, if you don’t accept the terms of your current job, you can just look for another (even though this is not a reasonable posibility for a lot of people), but any job will offer as little pay with as many working hours as possible because, due to the lack of meaningful consent, all employers can get away with that. And we accept it as normal and reasonable.
I also don’t believe that abolishing wage labor will make people spend their whole lives not adding anything to society. If given enough free time, people will get bored of not doing anything and engage in work that they actually enjoy, of their own actual volition. I know I get involved into a lot of things given long enough vacations or subsidized unemployement. Now imagine if we just could get organized to find out what tasks need to be done, and each picked the tasks that they geniunely want to do, without being coerced. Without rich assholes and investors getting involved and often forcing us to work long hours on tasks that won’t add anything to the world, but they make money.
“Reforming” laboral laws is absolutely not enough for this. Sure, I’d appreciate a reduction in my working hours, an increase in my salary, more vacations, etc but even if those goals were met, I’d still be out there protesting for the reasons I’ve just stated. Work, as we understand it today, is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed without it being abolished first.
You may not agree with me, mind you, and have a more moderate position stating that work must not be abolished as it can be meaningfully reformed. But then you are subscribing to a different ideology altogether. Which is legitimate and can be argued for, but it does not match the ideology of the anti-work movement. Sure, under late capitalism, some short term goals may match, but the long term goals are entirely different. My point being, “work reform” would be a terrible rebranding for the movement because it stands for a different ideology entirely.