Paths to Paradise: On the Liberation from Work

by André Gorz

English, French (translation)

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

120 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1980

About the author

André Gorz , pen name of Gérard Horst, born Gerhard Hirsch, also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet, was an Austrian and French social philosopher. Also a journalist, he co-founded Le Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964. A supporter of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist version of Marxism after World War Two, in the aftermath of the May '68 student riots, he became more concerned with political ecology.
In the 1960s and 1970s, he was a main theorist in the New Left movement. His central theme was wage labour issues such as liberation from work, just distribution of work, social alienation, and Guaranteed basic income

Reviews

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am awarding the four stars for the main twenty-five point thesis. The interview included by way of a conclusion, and the supplementary texts seem to have lost some poignance.

Large parts of the thesis itself however are remarkably pertinent considering they were written thirty years ago (Notwithstanding some rather off-the-mark predictions about the then future development of society and work).

Primarily, why are we still working so much? Was technological innovation not intended to reduce the portion of our lives consumed by work? Instead retirement ages continue to rise, and people, in the developed world at least, are increasingly shackled to work that has no meaning to themselves, or any socially beneficial or necessary quality. Simultaneously unemployment has become an accepted fixture of economic life. Yet voices questioning the logic of all this are, perhaps unsurprisingly, absent in the contemporary discourse. Work continues to be valourised regardless of its social content.

Not explicitly stated in the text, but implied from it is the role of neo-liberal ideology as a product of the technological revolution. The capitalist class requiring a narrative befitting a post-industrial economy but marginalising views that question the efficacy of perpetual growth when the productive capacity to provide the necessities of life for all the world's people has been reached.

So rather than seeking to automate work to its feasible extent, spreading the socially necessary labour still required according to ones ability to contribute and consequently freeing up time for all, technological innovations are largely funneled into the creation of ever more consumer goods and the provision of waged work at least partially functions to ensure sufficient consumption. As Gorz states the "commodities buy their consumers".

This only serves to highlight how capitalism has run its course with regard to raising productive capacity to a sufficient level where all can enjoy a basic standard of living. It is the gross inequity of distribution which neo-liberal ideology seeks to justify or obscure, usually both. Simultaneously assuring the preservation of capitalism's system of domination.

It is the agonised and vicious cry of a system floundering to justify its own existence. Gorz offers insights into how we might seek to supersede this mire, but it is here, for me at least, that his ideas have less resonance.

Anyway, must stop writing now, got to get back to work...

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good bit of writing about the expected decreasing trend in the amount of work needed to be done by everyone. Makes predictions, from 1980, for the "end of the century" which did not pan out; it would be great to finder more recent commenters on this.

"Future socialism will be post-industrial and anti-productivist or it will not be." p.3

"...[T]here can no longer be full-time wages work for all, and waged work cannot remain the central activity in our lives. Any politics which denies this, whatever its ideological pretensions, is a fraud." p.34

[Alexander Billet · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is easy to feel the same way about this book as one does Inventing the Future. It makes many of the same assertions. Some of them hold up better than others. In the case of Paths to Paradise, however, what is out of date is very unmistakably out of date.

This doesn't make for a bad read or bad ideas, however. One just has to keep the time-period in mind. Gorz is prescient. He rightly identifies the way in which automation of work is making it a more miserable experience while also presenting the possibility that work be eliminated. Unions, rather than fighting for a "better deal" from employers, might be better served looking to work toward this goal.

Again, as with Inventing the Future, it is interesting to see how the details of this overarching demand have made their way into today's left and the evolving culture of work. Shorter workweeks are becoming standard among some sectors of labor movement, though only some European governments are proving amenable to the idea. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine any capitalist government of any political stripe not hitting an ultimate limit in terms of how much work they will eliminate.

This feels a silly thing to write. Nobody can imagine any capitalist government eliminating work. Gorz never denied that a final confrontation with the state was going to be necessary, which often gets ignored given his emphasis on the "revolutionary reform" (which remains a viable strategy for building a meaningful socialist movement). But as he leaned into this strategy, what he actually meant by revolution became hazier. This is a really strong example of that haziness. The fact remains that, ultimately, the total elimination of work will require its redefinition and democratization. In turn, these will not be accomplished without a definitive rupture.