So, I'm reading Elizabeth Anderson's book "Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back", and while it's an excellent book that really documents the history of the protestant work ethic, and how it has been beaten into workers by conservatives over time, and how there is a pro worker side to it, to some extent she seems to miss the point. I decided to watch a video about the book and the subject of anti work and UBI came up (last 3 minutes or so). And this is where she basically imploded. She basically went on about how it is this "tech bro fantasy" and how humans need work and blah blah blah and I just can't help but think, ugh....not another one of these people again. While I plan to finish the book, I suspected based on discussions with the person who recommended it to me, and based on the author's apparent disposition from the get go herself, that she was like this, and seeing her say it in such stark terms is just...ugh.
So....let's be blunt. I've outlined this before on this blog, but I'm of the opinion that Bob Black was right when he said all of the old ideologies are conservative, because they are all in favor of work. They might differ in how they organize work, and who does what, and how, and who gets paid what, but they are all united in their glorification of some sort of work ethic, or inherent belief that work is a good thing.
I am fundamentally against this. Work is just the process by which we produce the goods and services humans want and need. While some people might drive purpose and satisfaction from their work, I do not believe that everyone does, and this is the important part, NOR SHOULD EVERYONE BE FORCED INTO IT.
The problems with capitalism, socialism, and various reformist versions of liberalism and social democracy in between all come down to being ideologies, that at their core, wanna force people to work. All of the failures of these ideologies come down to the fact that rather than allow people to live as they want, they have to enforce some vision on people about how they should live their lives. Conservative capitalists in Anderson's book were especially cruel about it, but the body count the socialists have is just as bad honestly. And while forms of reformist liberals and social democrats seem to get the best results, as I have pointed out, they merely regulate the work environment just enough to make it more bearable. They dont make work good or enjoyable.
Even worse, if I point out that I flat out don't want to work or dont believe in work, they treat it as if I am "just lazy" and that is some MASSIVE, FRICKING CHARACTER FLAW. Like, that's the thing. For the most part, in our society, people aren't really ALLOWED to openly dissent from the work ethic. Doing so is met with a lot of condescension, talking down to, and some idea that you're either young and don't know what you're talking about (aka, havent been fully indoctrinated into the cult of work yet and accepted your fate as a wage slave), or you possess some major character flaw.
But, I wanna say it. I'm in my mid 30s, screw work, I reject the cult of work, I understand that a large portion of our labor is unnecessary to human well being, and that we seem to employ people for its own sake, and/or to grow some number on a spreadsheet that says more stuff is good. We need forces in the world that oppose the idea of work itself. We need to reclaim our 20th century utopianism on the subject based on keynesianism, in which economic growth inevitably corresponded with reduced work demands. There is more to life than work. Most people don't realize it because most people are kept busy enough all of the time where they dont know what a life outside of work might look like.
Heck for all of the talk about how those who dissent from work are young, maybe we should look at our youth as a sign of what a post work world might look like. when I was a kid, I was basically told to keep myself entertained or my parents would have me do work or send me to a summer camp or something. So I developed a "play ethic" if anything where i'd never get bored. I'd just keep finding new things to do. And even now, the problem I have is that there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to. There's always more games, or matches of COD, or blog articles to write, and if anything, I hate it when real life responsibilities drags me away from this stuff. This stuff is my true passion. Not work. Work is just an unpleasant distraction that tries to occupy all of my time leaving me with little else i can do with my life. And that's why I hate it and resent it. Work isn't my passion. Work is counter to my true passions. I dont buy this idea that humans need to be told what to do all of the time and need to constantly be productive to be whole. That is society convincing people they are diseased so that they can sell them a cure.
The fact is, those who are young are not fully indoctrinated into the lie yet. They grow up living lives of relative leisure, despite school training them for future work, and then when they hit adulthood, they hit an existential crisis in their 20s in which they have to wonder "gee, is this all life is? i work my life away for 40 years and then im dumped in a retirement home to die?" But yes, that is exactly the life that is promised by the system as is. And I never grew out of that phase, and I so desperately wish to free people from this horrid fate. To me, a life spent on work is a wasted life. It comes at an opportunity cost. That time could be spent having other experiences that are arguably far more enjoyable. While people should be free to trade hours of their lives for money, and if anything, this is probably the least oppressive system of work that we can devise, it has to be voluntary to work optimally.
The only valid argument to the world being based on work is the fulfillment of human needs. Food needs to be grown, it needs to be transported and put on shelves. We need teachers and doctors and garbage people, etc. There is necessary labor that needs to be done. And having some work ethic is...functional. Again, keep in mind what I said, ideal, no work, reality, we need some work. How do we reconcile this? We make work as voluntary as possible and move in the direction of less work, while ensuring our needs continue to be met. Whenever we can put people out of work, we shouldnt create new jobs, unless people actually want them, we should distribute the goods and services of society more equitably via programs like a basic income, and we should try to redistribute work to those who want it too, gradually working fewer hours.
I admit, my goals cant even be achieved in my life time. I suspect that for the rest of my life, give or take 40-50 years probably, we will need a society based on work, at least somewhat. But, instead of embracing a so called "progressive" work ethic which just sounds to me like "no really guys, real communism hasnt been tried and it will totally work out this time", we should just full on abandon work as an ideal. Work sucks. We should admit the vast majority of it is drudgery that we force on people, and we should legitimize the idea that gee, maybe this sucks, rather all the ideologies simply arguing about how work should be structured, while all of them attack those who reject work as a concept at all.
Seriously, assuming that a world without work, or less work, can FUNCTION, then we shouldnt pursue work. The only way this kind of work ethic can be justified in my own ideology is if we absolutely NEED it and the alternative is our actual base physical needs going unmet leading to a poor quality of life. Other than that, we should strive to work the least we can. We shouldnt try to make jobs or employ people for its own sake. We shouldnt coerce people to take on work if it's not needed. We should strive to attain a "post work" world, one in which we can be idle and do whatever we want when we want it. That is utopia to me. Any world with forced labor is dystopia to me. And any society that insists on doing things this way due to the thinking of a bunch of religious zealots from hundreds of years ago is backwards and morally bankrupt.
And my message to elizabeth anderson and those who think like her? THERE IS NO GOOD WORK ETHIC. There's only work ethics that are better or worse relative to others. Reformist liberal and social democratic ethics might be better than conservative ethics, but that doesnt mean they're good. They just suck less. Marxist type ethics, they might actually suck more, or about the same as the conservative one, I'm not entirely sure. Conservative ethics are intentionally cruel by design, but marxist ethics seem hellish in their own right. The fact is, all systems that coerce people to labor are bad. Liberal ones are just better in the matter of degree with which they do so and the material conditions that they bring to workers. If we want to truly revolutionize society without an actual revolution, we need an ideology that doesn't glorify work. And that is what I seek to create.
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