So....if you surf r/antiwork, you might be wondering why it is currently private. The answer comes down to a subreddit wide meltdown over an interview given by u/abolishwork, the head mod and founder of the subreddit. They apparently went on fox news to discuss the movement...and...it did not go well.
Let's be honest. The big issue was that this person is not a public speaker. They did not give good answers to questions, and rocked back and forth in their chair the entire interview. It's been said she's autistic, which...I can believe, and that would qualify as stimming behavior, but this is NOT how to represent the anti work movement. It's impossible for one person to represent the entire movement fairly. And, in all fairness, also being an autistic NEET, I probably wouldn't do much better if caught off guard.
Still, I wouldn't actively pursue a fox news interview either. Some have questioned whether going on fox, a news network inherently hostile to left wing ideas, was a good idea in the first place. But if you do, you need someone cogent and able to...you know...answer questions persuasively.
Now, before I get started answering these questions myself, I'm gonna be honest, if, in a LIVE debate, I would suck too. And I'm thinking about what I say before I say it, but, if we had someone on the top of their game answering, I'd imagine the interview would go a bit like this:
Why do you like the idea of being home not working, but still getting paid by corporate America?
Well...first of all, let's just say the anti work movement is an extremely broad movement, ranging from leftists who want to abolish the idea of work, to people who just want to complain about unfair treatment at their jobs. Most members of r/antiwork DO work. 64% Work full time, with smaller numbers being part time workers or students. Less than 20% do not work in any capacity.
I will say, for myself, that I DO like the idea of people being home and not working, and still getting a check. Why? Because freedom. In America, we love to talk about freedom. We love to talk about being able to do what we want without the tyranny of the government telling us what to do. yet the overwhelming majority of us work jobs that many of us hate. And we do it because we have to. Because we have basic needs that can only be acquired by money, and in order to get that money, we need to work.
All I support is the right to say no. Give people a basic income at a truly basic level so people have the freedom to say no to employment that would otherwise feel forced to participate in. And when you do participate in it, you are micromanaged and tyrannized on levels that if the government was doing it to people directly, we would consider them a tyrannical dictatorship that should be resisted at all costs. Yet because these guys are quote unquote "voluntarily" choosing this, and it's private entities, it's all of the sudden okay.
But you're not being forced to work, this isn't slave labor. You've applied for a job, you've agreed to the terms and conditions of the employment, and you know you can walk away from that job at any time and quit, so I don't really understand what this is about except it sounds like people are just being "lazy"? Are you encouraging people to be lazy?
You know, early critics of capitalism considered wage labor under capitalism to be what is called "wage slavery". It's basically the difference between owning and renting a person. In a wage labor system, people still have self ownership on paper, but they are otherwise coerced to "rent" their time out in the form of their labor in order to survive. I mean, I ask anyone watching to ask yourself this. Why do you work? Do you like your job? If you don't like your job why are you working it? What would happen to you if you quit? I'm sure most people would answer along the lines of money. They work for money. And they'd imagine if they didn't work their jobs that they would have bills they couldn't pay. And then their water and electricity would get shut off, and they wouldn't be able to afford their medicines. Speaking of medicines, healthcare is tied to jobs, and if you quit your job you lose your health insurance, which might make it difficult for you to seek care you need, especially if you have a chronic illness that requires care. Some might lose their home, which, it being in the middle of winter is devastating because people are ill equipped to survive the elements this time of year, especially in much of the country. So let's be honest, when we talk about people losing their income, we're talking about people potentially being put in life threatening situations or in situations that over time would greatly reduce their lifespans. Work is a matter of pure survival for most. And that's what makes it coercive. We live in a society of "you work or you die" whether we like it or not.
So, when we talk about quitting, we're at best talking about people switching from one form of employment to another, which is just the equivalent of switching masters in this "master slave" type system. Rent yourself to someone else. Sure, there's the whole "start your own business" cop out some people (cough, fox news types) cough like to throw around, but honestly, not all businesses are useful, not all are successful, and not everyone has the vision, drive, ability, or means to run a successful business.
As for laziness. Laziness is a made up term to denigrate people who dislike working. We all should be "lazy" to some extent. Because that keeps the system in check. It seems dystopian that we expect everyone to have this insane work ethic where they'll sell themselves into servitude for wages they can barely live on and an oppressive boss who runs them ragged for 40+ hours a week, where if people call out the insanity this system is, we call them "lazy." We should all be a little "lazy." We should all be willing to point out the insanity of this and seek to build a better system so that we don't have to do this any more.
What do you think is like a good work day, how many hours, you know, a solid work day in your ideal society?
Well if you're talking "ideal" I would say 0. We should seek to reduce and eliminate all involuntary labor and automate as much work as we can to keep the society productive. However, I understand that this is merely the "ideal". In the realm of reality. I think we should reduce our work WEEK (let's do this in weeks not days since that can be debated), to maybe 30-32 hours (4D8H or 5D6H) to start, maybe moving to 24-25 if we can (3D8H, 4D6H, or 5D5H). I know John Keynes in talking about "the possibilities of our grandchildren" back in the 1930s predicted an economy productive enough to provide for everyone's needs in 15 hours (say, 3D5H). Rutger Bregman who wrote "utopia for realists" argued for 15 hours, and argued people are more productive with fewer hours and that with 40 hours we just end up filling our days with drudgery and that leads to inefficiencies. I do think 15 is unrealistic at this time without some level of sacrifice to our living standards so I like the 25-30ish range, but ideally? We should strive to work as little as possible. Work is a means to an end. As in, we work to produce what we NEED. We treat it as an end in itself, as if it's a "higher calling" as per calvinism and the protestant work ethic, which has leaked into our popular mainstream American culture.
And what do you do?
Oh, I'm a self employed activist who sets their own hours. I advocate for my anti work goals full time.
(See? you gotta use the lingo!)
And how old are you?
30s
And is there something you want to do besides being (whatever you are?), do you aspire to do anything more than (insert employment of choice), or is that kind of your pinnacle?
Honestly, if anything gives me purpose in life, it's advocating for my anti work goals. I don't view personal fulfillment in terms of traditional employment. i dont dream of labor. The only reality of labor is we need to do it for money. And the less we need to do the better. I seek a future in which people can pursue their dreams and have the real freedom to do what they want, whether that is within the context of employment or without. I seek to free society from having to do drudgery just to survive, and I view advocating for this goals as more personally fulfilling than any "job".
It is a free country, not everything is free, but it is a free country
Yeah until you have to slave away for someone else's profits or die of resource denial. Some "freedom."
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Honestly, doing the interview in my head, I see part of the problem right now. Fox...isn't going to let you talk. It's gonna put pressure on you, it's gonna cut you off. Doreen was trying to speak, and in retrospect her answers weren't HORRIBLE, but she was never given the room to express her views.
That's the problem with going on Fox News. She probably had noble intentions here to go on the network and educate people about her views...but let's face it, fox isn't gonna give her a chance to express her views well. They're gonna keep asking questions while you're answering the previous one mid sentence to throw you off your game. And of course, it had to get personal. It had to be like "what do you do?" and "is that all you aspire to be?"
That's the thing about going on hostile networks. They ask the questions, they frame them from their perspective, and they only give you a few seconds to answer and the purpose isn't to let you get your views out, it's to make you look bad. That's why Doreen kind of crapped the bed here. I didn't realize it until now, doing this exercise myself, but that's precisely what happened.
She never should have agreed with the interview. They're not gonna softball her. They're there to destroy her and make her look bad. That's why I would never do fox news myself. I dont like to give in person interviews for the same reason. It's much harder to control the discussions in those environments. You're under THEIR control. THEY ask, and you have to answer. That's how it works. They're there to be the bully.
Doreen tried, but eh, Fox didn't really want to hear the truth. They were there to screw her. And in doing so they basically caused a crapshow on the subreddit.
All morning and afternoon there was constant criticism. Even I offered light criticism of the interview, not feeling like they prepared an answer and if they were gonna do it they should have a more professional PR person. But...let's be honest. It's fox. They're gonna do this regardless of who speaks. Because they don't care about the anti work movement. They just wanna make them look bad.
Honestly, I think the lesson to learn from this is don't trust fox, and don't let interviews like this break the solidarity of the subreddit. I haven't seen the sub in this much chaos ever. It's like the interview destroyed whatever sense of unity there was. That's bad for the movement, but that's kind of the point.
That said, I think the lesson to learn here is not to let fox news interviews get in your head. It happened, it sucked, let's move on. No. Doreen shouldn't resign. Nothing should change. They shouldn't have even done the interview.
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