Lost in Work: Escaping Capitalism

Outspoken

by Amelia Horgan

'Work hard, get paid.' It's simple. Self-evident. But it's also a lie—at least for most of us. For young people today, the old assumptions are crumbling; hard work in school no longer guarantees a secure, well-paying job in the future. Far from equating to riches and fulfilment, 'work' increasingly means precarity, anxiety and alienation.

Amelia Horgan poses three big questions: what is work? How does it harm us? And what can we do about it? Along the way, she explores the many facets of work under capitalism: its encroachment on our personal lives; the proliferation of temporary and zero-hours contracts; burnout; and how different jobs are gendered or racialized.

While abolishing work altogether is not the answer, Lost in Work shows that when workers are able to take control of their workplaces, they become less miserable, and even open doors allowing them to fight back against the elite.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, Sociology, Economics, Philosophy, History, Labor

166 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2021

Reviews

[Sarah Jaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. A good intro to the problems of work under capitalism but even as big a labor nerd as I am, I learned plenty.

[Sunny Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Workers of the world unite, women of the world must fight !

[Maricruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

(reseña en español más abajo)

"But this isn't just a book about crap jobs [...]. It's a book about how work under capitalism is bad for all of us", p. 10.

Hear, hear! This book had me cheering most of the time. We all know how absurd and harmful jobs can get (one thing worsens the other, that feeling of absurdness can rapidly shrivel your soul like a raisin, but not a sweet, nutritive one, you know what I mean... Ok, bad simile). Lost in work is concise and pretty much to the point, and it deals with superimportant issues without forgetting the gender perspective or the urgency of climate change. There are probably more profound works in this line, but this is a fantastic starting point for reflection and delving deeper. One thing I really liked: the author points to possible solutions, unlike other, most famous books which only show the problems (I'm thinking specifically of Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber). One of these solutions is never outdated: Workers of the world, unite!

> > > > > > > > > > >

"But this isn't just a book about crap jobs [...]. It's a book about how work under capitalism is bad for all of us", p. 10.

¡Sí señor! No sé cuántas veces habré jaleado a la autora de este libro. Todas sabemos lo absurdo y dañino que puede ser el mundo del trabajo (lo uno empeora lo otro, esa sensación de absurdo puede dejarte el alma hecha una pasa. Pero no una dulce y nutritiva, ya me entendéis, ¿no? Vale, quizás no era tan buen símil). Lost in work es un ensayo conciso y va bastante al grano en asuntos que son superimportantes, sin olvidarse de una perspectiva de género y ecologista. Probablemente habrá obras que profundicen mucho más, pero esta supone un punto de partida estupendo para reflexionar y adentrarse más en el tema. Una cosa que aprecio mucho es que la autora proporciona posibles soluciones en lugar de limitarse, como otros libros más famosos (pienso específicamente en Trabajos de mierda de David Graeber) a mostrar los problemas. Y una de esas soluciones nunca pasará de moda: ¡Trabajadores del mundo, uníos!

[Ville Verkkapuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well.
I didn't really find tips on how to escape capitalism. I guess it's not that easy.
Would love that, tho, because I truly hate our way of working and the way our world of hypercapitalism works, based on greed and eternal growth at the expense of limited resources.
Why do I hate capitalism?
Because we are mentally ill, because we have a climate crisis, because it exploits the poor and benefits the rich, because it promotes inequality, because it's highly racist and sexist, because it fills our world with utter bullshit and doesn't give much in return. Because it destroys a sense of community, culture, spirituality, values. Because only comment I get from criticizing capitalism (and GREED) is "that's COMMUNIST", which refers to the fucked-up, failed systems that weren't really even communist but just some other systems of men in suits in power of everything, once again.
Still, I kinda agree with Winston Churchill when he said that capitalism is the worst system there is, except for all the other systems.
This focuses on WORK. And is therefore a great pair with David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs. Work has fucking ruined my life and I'm 31 and I have a decent, laughably easy indoor job with a good salary and benefits and everything. But to me work is so much beyond that; it's the way my mothers arms go numb because she's worked long, mundane hours at her repetitive job, it's the reason for my stress and mental health issues. It's the reason why I so rarely see my friends and family, why I don't sleep well, why I can't take so good care of myself physically as I hope, why I fight with my partner, why I don't have time for chores around the house or personal projects. Yes; I've worked a 9-17 job and at the same time recorded albums, seen my friends, played shows and written a book, but I've had to fight extremely hard to make it happen, because my job getting in the way every single day.
I also understand completely that I'm extremely privileged in many, many ways.
I have so much empathy for all the millions and millions of people who are stuck in a dead-end job that kills them physically and mentally.
To me the worst thing about my line of work (advertising/marketing) might be the lack of meaning; I'm sitting around eight hours a day, not doing anything worthwhile, still getting paid more handsomely than people working actually important jobs. I'd love to to something about that. That's why I read about this, that's why I discuss about this, that's why I write about this.
To me all the best things in life are free; sex, sports, walks, singing, reading and writing and conversing. I absolutely adore public spaces and libraries. I spend most of my time at a library, I think it's the absolute peak of our civilization. I think so often about the fact that going to the city and spending time costs you, whether it be a café or a store or whatever. I'm not very keen on owning stuff; I tend to give away even important books, guitars, clothes.
Not saying that I'm a saint. But just saying that the memories and the effect doesn't disappear though I wouldn't own everything.
There's so much to change. Our attitude towards work, our attitude towards the amount of STUFF and CONTENT and whatever we don't really need.
At times I still find it extremely disturbing that I'm not allowed to get food or shelter without paying. Yet I still can't go in the woods and live like a nomad. I wouldn't do that necessarily, but I feel the world and it's gifts belong to me as a poet as much as they belong to a crypto investor.
I do not feel free AT ALL living in a capitalist world. Yet I'm grateful I can say that aloud.
At this stage of my life my dream would be to get an apartment. A decent apartment of my (our) own and food in the fridge. That way I feel I could give much more to the world than I do now. But in order to do that I must contribute to the this bullshit systems and, as for now, I have no idea to crack how to make decent money making something worthwhile, giving meaning and making the world a better place (even a little) and working on my strengths and at the most effective way possible, maybe 20
Ah yes, the book: it's interesting, it's pretty informative and good and nice. It worked as a catalyst for me, providing more questions than answers. Work is a complicated issue; it brings our lives meaning, we absolutely SHOULD work. But we shouldn't be FORCED to work on stuff that makes our world worse just in order to survive.

(Thanks for your time and letting me spill my guts. I'm still figuring this thing out, but here's some of the sources for my frustration.)

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This book is like a primer or introduction to the function of work in capitalism. Pretty good and articulates a lot of the feelings I have about work lol, but I found the writing style a bit dry and the book doesn't offer anything extremely insightful. But maybe I'm being nitpicky...

[Benjamin Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sigh.

I really wanted to like this book, in fact, I felt I kind of needed to. And I did agree with almost every point it made. The problem was, I felt that at times things weren't explained properly at all - there was a sort of assumption that the reader knew about something that was never actually explained in the book. And then, at other times, things were explained more than once and far too much. I'd actually go as far as to say there was an editing issue, as some sentences were reproduced exactly more than once throughout the book, once even further down the same page.

I appreciate that Horgan had long-covid while writing the book and explains at the start that she had to write in small bursts, but the inconsistency between formal academic tone and more laid-back conversational writing, coupled with the editing issues, really makes it hard to read. At times, we're learning from historical examples, Marx and academics, and yet at other times we're getting definitions of what work entails literally directly from Britney Spears' song 'Work Bitch' with no other academic support. I get that diversification of sources is a good thing, but it felt like there were lots of opportunities to be robust and persuasive that were missed. Which is a shame, because I really do agree with the sentiments and arguments of the book.

I also felt a little let down, as the author seems to conflate capitalism with being employed, which as a self-employed person (self-employment is here relegated to 'bogus self-employment' only, in which firms ask workers to be self-employed in order for them to avoid being expected to supply them with the benefits of employment) I know is not true. In fact, there are lots of examples from my life of being self-employed which I kept wanting to be included. Horgan argues that control over your own time is a great end-goal. Well, I technically have that and (and I do, more than some people) but still feel like capitalism as a whole has ultimate control over my time. The book kind of misses that point, assuming that the state of being employed is the entire problem.

There were also not really any solutions that I could take into my life - just bigging up unionisation (again, I agree with, but not something I can do directly in the same way as is outlined in the book). I was sort of hoping this book would be more liberating and less just an exposé of capitalist damage, which has essentially just left me feeling depressed and directionless.

So, good ideas, badly executed I would say - and unfortunately to the point where the argument is undermined by lack of robust support and lack of consistency and coherence.

[Romany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pithy! Gets to the heart of the problems of work under capitalism. The chapters were short, direct and had a clear focus with great references. Read this if you want to understand why you’re crying on the train surrounded by commuters at rush hour.

[Violet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise and very well-researched. I felt some of the advice bits in the "Escape" chapter were a bit naive and not necessarily practical, but other than that I only have good things to say about this book. It will make you angry and it will make you think.

[Lotte Levelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction into labor politics and economics, think unpaid work, reproductive sphere, unions, accumulation. Refers to the classics, Marx, Gramsci, Federici.


Interesting parts for me:
- role of technology, e.g constant monitoring of worker productivity (as opposed to a traditional manager)
- jobification of leisure time, and 'gamification' of work; leisure time become a source of side gigs/business ideas/stock exchanges, while work becomes (supposedly) playful, think pingpong tables, parties, an office dog. Only for the lucky few, that is.
- it is hard to feel self-worth outside of work, since we have little time to spend exploring and expressing ourselves beyond work.

Now off to seize the means of production x

[Venky · Rating 4 out of 5]

The SLANTY® brand of toilet comes with a seat angled between eight and thirteen degrees. At a slant of 13 degrees, it becomes visibly uncomfortable to sit on the toilet for more than five to seven minutes. Companies love the SLANTY®’s brand because an increased discomfiture means lesser time spent in the toilet, which in turn means enhanced productivity. Employers claim that an ‘average employee spends around 25% greater time in lavatories than necessary’. Hence the embracing of this particular brand to weed out inefficiency.

Writer & researcher, Amelia Horgan in a biting polemic castigates capitalism for reducing work to an almost accepted idea of déclassé. Horgan’s narrative is adorned by the aperçus of anger. Every phrase, passage and punctuation leaps out in unabashed and spit balling rage as it eviscerates the mavens of capitalism for viewing work as the handmaiden of consumerism. Juxtaposing lacerating wit with felt lament, Horgan traces the sustained deterioration of work and worker alike, from the “Fordism” of old to modern day “Toyotism.”

Spurred by the time and motions studies of Fredrick Winslow Taylor, “Fordism”, represented a metonym for the monotonous and drab mass factory work that had as its apex, the production line. Fordism involved an almost Faustian bargain. Subsistence wages in exchange for a fixed number of hours characterised by uncompromising attention and unwavering dedication. The modern times has seen a seamless substitution of Toyotism for Fordism. This new age phenomenon whose lexicon is seeped in corporate speak such as ‘Agile’, ‘Lean’, ‘Just-In-Time’ and ‘Kaizen’ is an absolute race to the elusive top where every unsuspecting employee is gripped by the mania or cult of self-improvement. A constant and unrelenting bedlam to improve oneself at work for the furtherance of a clutch of neo-liberalists makes Fordism seem a purveyor of unalloyed virtue! An employee and a rail union representative in the UK discloses to Horgan that in the inadvertent circumstance of a train running late, the solution is for the rail network to cancel stops at smaller stations (leaving a clutch of passengers stranded), so that centrally imposed fines may be avoided. So much for Just-In-Time!

As Horgan disquietingly reveals, ‘12.7% of all sickness absence days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions.’ While unpaid overtime enriched – some would say unjustly – employers to the tune of £32.7 billion for employers in 2019, in the UK, this is a phenomenon that is uniform across the globe. Professional time seeps into personal time as a continuous tethering to work via ubiquitous technological tools such as WhatsApp and email not just ensures but arrogantly ‘demands’ that employees be available at all times and all hours to stand at the ready – sentinels of the corporation. In the words of director of the think tank Autonomy, Will Stronge, ‘communications technology has dissolved the boundary between contracted and non-contracted hours.’

Horgan dissects the prevailing trend of ‘jobification’ of work and in the process tries to answer the question as to what is it that makes work an exercise in despondence? Zero-hour contracts, and gig employment bestow phenomenal flexibility to the employers, at the cost of the employee. The process of Hiring and firing becomes an extremely malleable activity far removed from emotion and empathy. Consder this. Warehouse workers employed with that beacon of capitalism, Amazon face a dehumanizing experience as every movement of theirs is recorded and every second spent at work monitored by pre-programmed algorithms. Too much time spent in the lavatory can mean getting the boot. There have been disturbing confessions of employees relieving themselves in bottles to save the trips to the loo.

Workers dismissed from their jobs face an even more deplorable future, for if the finely lubricated levers of capitalism are allergic to something, it is welfare payouts and benefits. In the acerbic and degrading words of UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, workers attempting to avoid the deadly COVID-19 workers were those ‘addicted to furlough’, Labour MP Rachel Reeves has gone on record insisting that her party was not the party of ‘people on benefits’.

The service sector industry spits out jobs at the rate of knots. However this also results in the dangerous compartmentalization of jobs as the good, bad, and the ugly. A burgeoning inequality in both income as well as wealth has spilt work between the people creating filth and the ones cleaning up after them. One of the most poignant and thought provoking passages in the book involves Horgan reminiscing about a childhood memory that involves a skirmish in a school playground, with two mothers as warring protagonists. One woman yells at another with undignified derision “You clean my toilets!” The woman at the receiving end of this stinging rebuke and who happens to work at the reception at the school, incidentally, also doubles up as the domestic help of her abuser.

The sad, yet undisputable fact that is common to a great proportion of the working class, is that people almost always, need a job more than a job needs people. This unfortunate fact puts the employee in a vice like grip of her employer. The relationship between employer and the employee therefore is totally asymmetric with the dynamics of power always steering towards the ‘boss’. For example, a majority of garment workers across the world are (most of whom are women) are paid paltry wages. In fact as Horgan writes ‘only 2% of garment workers are paid a liveable wage, calculated on local housing and food, education and childcare costs.’

Horgan does not end her book on an optimistic note. Striking a wary note, she acknowledges that there is no easy way out of this rut. The major solution lies in cohesion and conglomeration. A revival of the trade union culture, abolition of zero hour contracts, tight regulation of the gig economy and obliteration of bogus self-employment are some of the urgent and essential measures that would represent a tentative beginnings of hope and a realistic transition to worker freedom.

[Mehtap exotiquetv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arbeit. Welchen Zweck dient es & wieso bestimmt sie so viel unserer menschlichen Zeit?
In diesem gesellschaftskritischen Buch werden alle negativen Facetten von Arbeit & Kapitalismus beleuchtet. Überstunden, unfaire Bezahlung, Konsumgier, Obligation beschäftigt zu wirken.
Die Unflexibilität von Arbeitsstunden. Ein sehr interessantes Buch, dass einem nochmal bewusst macht, was Arbeit eigentlich heißt!

[Siobhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lost in Work is a highly accessible look at the history of work, the current situation, and how we might escape what capitalism has told us is the only way to live. Horgan explores what work is, how it has a history of harm, and what we might push for in the future to make 'work' much less damaging than it currently is.

I'd heard a lot of hype around this book (from Twitter at least) and it lived up to the hype, being strangely gripping for a book about work that I was mostly reading around working from home (reading it whilst tired from work felt very fitting). The chapters are short and combine real world examples and theoretical points with analysis of sources like Marx, Britney Spears, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation. I particularly liked this blending of material and the way they were all used to elicit points about work, about power relations, and who benefits from work.

Another thing I liked about the book was the fact that the conclusion didn't try to give a single answer for what needs to happen to 'fix' work or change it (or, as Horgan says, 'denaturalise' work, making visible the fact that it is not natural and unchanging, but has resulted from historical conditions and power relations), but offers up some of the potential suggestions and considers how a combined and collective approach may be more effective. It's a good balance between the shrug emoji (or, as the book critiques, just blaming capitalism and acting like there's nothing to be done) and suggesting that there is one straightforward way forward.

As well as a really interesting book engaging with theory and pop culture as it relates to work, Lost in Work is also a great opportunity to reflect on your own thoughts around work and what they've been influenced by, and also wider ideas about things like productivity. Maybe that's just ironic as I'm choosing to review a book for fun, but still. A thoughtful book with a well-judged tone.

[Sergio · Rating 3 out of 5]

A comprehensive, yet very accessible look at how work... well, works under capitalism and how an intrinsic experience of the human experience, the expense of effort in the pursuit of material improvement is turned into an exercise in violence and oppression.

[Larakaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good analysis of what is wrong with work today. The "escaping" part could have been longer and deeper. 

[RJRobinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book. As an introduction to work it’s clear and concise yet manages to cover a huge amount of ground in 166 pages. It’s well sourced with a mass of up-to-date references to hard data, and I read the whole thing in just a few hours, even though I’m a very slow reader. If you’re at all interested in the world of work, buy a copy.
In slightly more detail…
• The book begins by outlining and then challenging the comfortable notion that most people are likely to find work rewarding, financially or psychologically. Based on the way work has changed over the last few decades – with the rise in ‘precarity’, real falls in wages and so on, and the increasing intrusion of ‘the boss’ into weekends and one’s private life generally – the author makes a robust case for the opposite conclusion.
• Early on, Horgan makes the case for rethinking ‘work’ in crucial ways. Currently, work is usually equated with paid employment, But none of this work would be possible without the unpaid labour (usually of women) in the home and other unpaid settings. This is certainly work in any general sense of the word, so should it not be paid? Or organised collectively, like ‘real’ work? Horgan rises a number of issues and alternatives here, and shows that it is quite impossible how even paid employment is possible without also understanding this so-called ‘reproductive’ labour.
• Horgan also analyses ‘emotional labour’ – the kind of work where we are expected to put on our best smile and never let the customer know how we really feel – even if we feel insulted by their rudeness, or sick and tired of the work itself. Such relentless pretence and obscuring of our real feelings is absolutely the norm for millions of employees, from call centres to shop assistants to an increasing range of other jobs. The relentless and disingenuousness of this existence, Horgan shows, is profoundly damaging to workers.
• Nor is work decently organised. A lot is driven by false incentives, leading to a mass of effort being squandered in the name of misguided and counterproductive metrics, all driven by the increasing concentration and centralisation of control. All too often, work is badly conceived and badly managed, but the worker has no control over their own work, and so is unable to escape from the resulting mess.
• On the other hand, work is very well organised to strip all control from the hands of the individuals who actually do it. All decisions about work, from what we will do to how to do it (often in excruciating detail), is put in the hands of management bent solely to maximising the productivity and profit they can extract.
• On the other hand, one’s employment status has become the single most important indicator of the individual’s social status. So if you don’t have a job, you are increasingly nobody.
• Finally, Horgan outlines the principle ways workers can resist a lifetime of such profoundly unsatisfying and rapacious work. After useful thoughts about trades unions and politics in general, she argues that working people’s ultimate aim must be not just to make work tolerable but to fundamentally transform it into what it should always have been, namely the way we – collectively, democratically and with profound satisfaction – recreate the world.
There were a few areas I would have liked to see included, though it is perfectly understandable why they don’t show up in an introductory text.
• Firstly, Horgan mentions that all work is in fact exploitative – even when entered into voluntarily, the employment contract is anything but fair. I would like to see an analysis of why this is so, and why the illusion of fair exchange of my labour-power for an agreed wage is, in fact, an illusion.
• Secondly, Horgan mentions the important concept of alienation. As I have always found this to be one of the most profound and effective concepts in social analysis, I would like to have seen a longer account of exactly what this word means and how alienation operates in the modern workplace.
• Thirdly, there are a few areas in modern employment where a radically different approach to employment is emerging. In particular, the ‘Agile’ movement is rapidly converting all sorts of workplaces to what is essentially a form of anarchism. Given how flatly Agile appears to contradict some of the fundamentals of capitalist labour, I would very much like to know what Horgan makes of this trend, what its potential is and what its long-term consequences are likely to be.
But again, this is an introduction, not a general textbook. In the meantime, I can only advise the reader to buy this book.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only took me a year to finish a non fiction book lol

[Gintare · Rating 5 out of 5]

This corporate girlie is in an exact same escape room at this very moment.

Great intro book to a critical perspective on contemporary work culture. Of course, it does discuss socialist theories, but the themes would be relevant to any overworked capitalist.

One thing particularly spoke to me is the cult of constant improvement and its monetization. I'm always picking up new hobbies, learning languages, and even sometimes studying something connected to my job. But that doesn't mean that I will hop onto a management career, change my profession completely, or start a side gig. To quote a tiktok sound "I do not dream of labour" is highly unserious but relevant nonetheless.

[Tori · Rating 5 out of 5]

i’ve spent the last few weeks looking for work and i’m finally starting a job on monday, so this has been a really relevant and prescient read for me. the question this book asks is ‘what’s wrong with work?’, which seems so vast and numinous a question that it’s a surprise that the book isn’t thousands of pages long, but what horgan offers in answer to that question is a succinct yet thorough exploration of work in 2021 and how leftists should feel about it.

what i appreciated most about LOST IN WORK is the breadth of focus that horgan has; she’s as likely to go back to marx, or even further by drawing on recent studies of the transition to capitalism from feudalism, as she is to discuss instagram influencers, remote working or workspace sharing arrangements. this makes for an analysis that feels extremely relevant without being hot-button: the influence of covid-19 on the workplace, especially on who gets to work from home and who has to go in to work, is examined really thoroughly, and the climate emergency is a recurring touchstone for the actual state of the world and capitalism’s influence on it. i also really enjoyed the final few chapters on what we can do as individuals, which are useful without veering into debatably marxist self-help. i’ve followed horgan on twitter for a long time, so i knew already how clear and powerful her thought is, but what she’s achieved in this book is an indispensable intervention that speaks clearly to the rising discontent with work as it stands and takes crucial first steps towards allowing us all to imagine something better.

[Kab · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well intentioned but not damning nor transformative. There's a flash of technosolutionism and 'A taxonomy of slacking off' in chapter 7 is embarrassing. Paraphrased: Some people take up smoking so they can take smoke breaks. Another thing you could do is learn a rare skill so your boss and co-workers don't actually know how long it should take when you batch edit image files.

[Lotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[pizca · Rating 4 out of 5]

El historiador Studs Terkel comenzaba su libro Working diciendo :"Al tratar sobre el trabajo este libro es por su propia naturaleza, un libro sobre la violencia" . Podríamos aplicar lo mismo a este. En el Laberinto del trabajo Horgan expone como el trabajo en el sistema capitalista es malo para todo el mundo por las relaciones de propiedad y el poder que lo sustentan, la crisis climática y el estancamiento de la demanada de mano de obra. Mientras el Stablistment politico convierte el desempleo y la probreza en fracaso individual . (Currantes frente a gandules, el desempleo como patología). Como escapar al capitalismo cuestiona el tabajo en sí mismo, nos habla de la resistencia al trabajo, nos cuestiona el ocio y el tiempo libre, el control y la falsa elección.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really refreshing and important read. Amelia Horgan succinctly explores topics of burnout, functions of work, and a practical and informative analysis of the exploitative nature of work in today’s society. The term ‘The Great Resignation’ currently permeates through work-based discourse and there is much evidence of a general reevaluation of what work is to us and how it fits into our lives. As such, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to engage with this topic.

[José Pereira · Rating 1 out of 5]

Doesn’t have an original (or any) thesis and treats everything superficially.
It’ll be useful/interesting only for someone with absolutely no knowledge on Marxism or leftist political economy.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5; good but frustrating lol
I think I’m gonna have to write an essay about books about work bc there’s an industrial complex going on here - Raymond geuss has a new book about work too. should academics be writing about work?

[Sarah Reza · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book discusses modern capitalism and its effects, which can make people unhappy (burn-out and anxiety) and rob them of their identity. This book also explains about young people who do not work according to their passion. They only work to fulfill their needs. I think this is what worries people today. This book also explains the history of the beginnings of capitalism.

In my opinion, there are not many new solutions that can be offered in this book. But this book can be used as a book to begin to understand capitalism and its impact on life.

[Lisa Zickuhr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long read for me … but I made it!!! (&liked it)

[Raphael Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't need to read this book to want to quit my job, but now I have much more intelligent sounding reasons for wanting to do so

[James Peacock · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great analysis on how capitalism has shaped modern work and despite the happiness of a few within it, is broken for all.

[Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's always refreshing when a book presents more questions than answers. this was a well-written / researched book that succeeds in swaying favor away from a free market society and invites us to reconsider power dynamics in our relationships. Horgan maps out the gross perversions capitalism embeds into our daily lives, introducing to me new concepts like Fordism, social reproduction, and feminist ideals that challenge the naturalisation of domestic labor. she articulately argues the need to completely rethink our systems from the ground up, that simply improving the status quo and fighting infringement of our current rights will never result in an effective transformation of today's unhealthy work environment. ironically, Peter Thiel presents this exercise of rethinking in his business book "Zero to One," in which he advocates for entrepreneurs to build something completely unique rather than something incremental. I used to think of technology as a panacea, that human ingenuity would triumph in times of crises, but in a world where the profit-motive commands self-interest, innovation can be stymied by the cheap exploitation of human capital. Horgan also makes a poignant commentary on the cult of continuous improvement. in a world of optimisation / maximizing productivity / increasing efficiences, even leisure time becomes poisoned with gamification and rendered less fun. this leads me to question if self-development, the realization of one's best self, is a toxic and a vain pursuit? if not, how do you strike a balance between a growth mindset and the buddhist concept of impermanence? the first strives toward a goal, always grasping - trying to solve a problem, while the latter accepts change and decay, describing problems as a feature, not a bug. in seeking a solution, the capitalist attitude valorizes effort, yet Tao philosopher Alan Watts describes a wholly different approach in the law of reversed effort, saying “Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” these are ongoing themes that I struggle with in my life, "Kaizen" being the very principle my business is founded on. we live in a world in which it is so easy to feel powerless, like the system is rigged against us, many just getting by on a base level of subsistence. fulfilment in work is thus seen as a noble endeavor or afforded by the privileged few. Horgan's book challenges us to flip notions of status on their head and see if we can escape the hamster wheel of business to derive sources of recognition outside our careers that are just as enriching.

[Penney Hames · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I opened it with no clear conceptual framework of capitalism or work and closed it with a dawning outrage at the way that the one structures and limits the other to the detriment of the people who do the work.
In short, punchy, chapters Horgan makes clear how a narrative which starts from exchange and barter ends with the modern-day encroachment of work on our very identities not just at work, but also at leisure too.
The more precarious and low-paid the work the more workers are required to give. Every worker gives their time in exchange for a wage. But increasingly, capitalist work demands that workers think the right way, act the right way and even look as though they feel the right way about their work. The price for not doing this is unemployment. But, here’s the rub, workers don’t define and agree what that right way is – that part is determined by those who extract the profit. The loss of control is almost significant and crippling.
In my day job as a therapist, I often meet people who are busy being the person they feel they ought to be, rather than being who they are. It’s exhausting - never being you, always being the person that you think others require you to be – and it’s hard work. And the cost of this work is mental illness, misery and psychological alienation. It feels as though there is a parallel here.
In the introduction Horgan writes about the conditions under which this book took shape – the pandemic and her own long covid. It is not, she says, the book that she might have written, without that exhaustion and mental fogginess. Is there a sad irony here? A first-class mind is perhaps the most intimate, most personal tool of an academic’s trade, and yet, because academia exists within a capitalist economy, where the need for commerce – even the commerce of the university – to continue when it is not safe to do so, that very tool becomes expendable. When capitalist work takes your very mind it is time to re-think what we are about?