What do you think?
Rate this book
Why Work?: Arguments for the Leisure Society
Why Work? is a provocative collection of essays and illustrations dissecting “work,” its form under capitalism, and the possibilities for an alternative society. It poses the question: why do some of us still work until we drop in an age of automated production, while others starve for lack of work? This collection includes contributions from luminaries of the past like Bertrand Russell, contemporary theorists like Juliet Schor, and illustrated examinations of workplace potentials and pitfalls.
208 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2018
18 people are currently reading
371 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 16, 2024
Thus worthy Work carries with it the hope of pleasure and rest, the hope of the pleasure in our using what it makes, and the hope of pleasure in our daily creative skill. all other work, but this is worthless— mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.
These things, whoever may gainsay me , I will forever refuse to call wealth: they are not wealth, but waste. Wealth is what nature gives us, and what a reasonable man can make out of the gifts of Nature for his reasonable use.
To sum up, then, concerning the manner of work in civilized States, these states are composed of three classes – a class which does not even pretend to work, a class which pretends to work but which produces nothing, and a class which works, but is compelled by the other two classes to do work, which is often unproductive.
Every manifestation of energy is accompanied by feeling of pleasure when it is proportion to the strength of the organism. A walk is pleasant, but a forced march is a penance. In the same way, any activity, which follows a spontaneous impulse is pleasant. When, on the other hand, an individual is obliged by external conditions to act in opposition to his natural tendencies, he exhaust himself in his effort of will on himself, with consequent suffering, and lessened productive capacity.
They forget that the very fact of abolishing individual ownership of the instruments of production, (land, factories, means of communications, money,) must launch society into completely new directions; that it must change production from top to bottom, both in means and ends: that all the day-to-day relations between people must be modified as soon as the land, machines, and everything else are looked upon as communal possessions.
Liberty is secured not only when one demands the rights of the self against others, but when it is a natural consequence of solidarity.
In accepting the gift of free time, modern man, accepts also the challenge to occupy this time consuming the machine’s progeny. The result is a leisure, necessarily active, involving men and women in the purchase, and use of all kinds of equipment and gadgetry. It is a leisure in which passive contemplation or idle enjoyment of nature, seems to have in it a touch of oddness and even infidelity.
The clock, the gadget and the crowd – these three are given to modern leisure, much of its particular tone and quality. I am tempted to add a forth: the child – or, more accurately, the children. Family life is no longer the creator of free time, as it was in simpler societies were a numerous offspring, provided hands for the harvest and security in old age.
Personal development, not to be confused with socializing into roles, has two prerequisites. One is the availability of meaningful tasks, through which to relate to others, and establish notions of excellence, and the other is example.
Anarchism is not the struggle for better wages, more gadgets, and full employment. It is the struggle to win the freedom to dispose of one’s own time. Time is not money; time is life.
Thus, there is a structurally biased path, which I have called the “cycle of work and spend.” Productivity growth is passed on in the form of income, which workers spend. Over time nations use their productivity dividends, not to dramatically reduce hours of work, but to raise the amount they produce. There is a bias in the economic system against free time.
Our bosses fear to let us work permanently at home; after all, we might take 20 minute coffee breaks, instead of 10! But what if, say, a fuel, crisis or epidemic, made it imperative, for more of us to stay at home to do our work? The paradigm could shift so fast our bosses would fall over.
These things, whoever may gainsay me , I will forever refuse to call wealth: they are not wealth, but waste. Wealth is what nature gives us, and what a reasonable man can make out of the gifts of Nature for his reasonable use.
To sum up, then, concerning the manner of work in civilized States, these states are composed of three classes – a class which does not even pretend to work, a class which pretends to work but which produces nothing, and a class which works, but is compelled by the other two classes to do work, which is often unproductive.
Every manifestation of energy is accompanied by feeling of pleasure when it is proportion to the strength of the organism. A walk is pleasant, but a forced march is a penance. In the same way, any activity, which follows a spontaneous impulse is pleasant. When, on the other hand, an individual is obliged by external conditions to act in opposition to his natural tendencies, he exhaust himself in his effort of will on himself, with consequent suffering, and lessened productive capacity.
They forget that the very fact of abolishing individual ownership of the instruments of production, (land, factories, means of communications, money,) must launch society into completely new directions; that it must change production from top to bottom, both in means and ends: that all the day-to-day relations between people must be modified as soon as the land, machines, and everything else are looked upon as communal possessions.
Liberty is secured not only when one demands the rights of the self against others, but when it is a natural consequence of solidarity.
In accepting the gift of free time, modern man, accepts also the challenge to occupy this time consuming the machine’s progeny. The result is a leisure, necessarily active, involving men and women in the purchase, and use of all kinds of equipment and gadgetry. It is a leisure in which passive contemplation or idle enjoyment of nature, seems to have in it a touch of oddness and even infidelity.
The clock, the gadget and the crowd – these three are given to modern leisure, much of its particular tone and quality. I am tempted to add a forth: the child – or, more accurately, the children. Family life is no longer the creator of free time, as it was in simpler societies were a numerous offspring, provided hands for the harvest and security in old age.
Personal development, not to be confused with socializing into roles, has two prerequisites. One is the availability of meaningful tasks, through which to relate to others, and establish notions of excellence, and the other is example.
Anarchism is not the struggle for better wages, more gadgets, and full employment. It is the struggle to win the freedom to dispose of one’s own time. Time is not money; time is life.
Thus, there is a structurally biased path, which I have called the “cycle of work and spend.” Productivity growth is passed on in the form of income, which workers spend. Over time nations use their productivity dividends, not to dramatically reduce hours of work, but to raise the amount they produce. There is a bias in the economic system against free time.
Our bosses fear to let us work permanently at home; after all, we might take 20 minute coffee breaks, instead of 10! But what if, say, a fuel, crisis or epidemic, made it imperative, for more of us to stay at home to do our work? The paradigm could shift so fast our bosses would fall over.
November 9, 2021
Its a collection so there are some great and some awful segments. One full star off for the short section on kibbutz that perpetuates the “making the desert bloom” narrative, amongst other things. Overall very worth reading especially if you are new to the subject.
December 31, 2020
"...There is no inherent moral value to waged labour, and indeed, this kind of work often generates real harm."
February 25, 2019
Some of the older material hasn't aged well, but the newer additions make for a satisfying conclusion. I'm persuaded.
Read
November 12, 2018306.36 W6294 2018
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews