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کارگر مرده
سالها است که حامیان تندرو مساله سرمایهداری نیز اعلام میکنند که سرمایهداری در دهه ۱۹۷۰ از بین رفته است و تمام تلاشهایی که برای احیای آن انجام شده است با شکست مواجه شده است. اما این مساله به ظاهر مرده، به طرزی عجیب در زندگی مردم همچنان حضوری پررنگ دارد و زندگی را در کنترل و اختیار خود درآورده است. اما این کتاب درباره کارگران مرده صحبت میکند. افرادی که ممکن است در سطوح بالای طبقاتی زندگی کنند یا در یک کارخانه مشغول به کار باشند. این افراد ترسی بزرگ در دل دارند و آن، ترس از مرگ و به پایان رسیدن زندگی نیست. بلکه ترس از گرفتار شدن در مسئلهای روزمره است؛ زندگی کردن در شرایطی که آنها را تنها مساوی با کار میبیند.
به نظر میرسد در دنیای امروز ما، کارگران مرده بخش گستردهای از دنیا را تشکیل میدهند؛ افرادی که جامعه به سختی تلاش میکند تا به آنها بقبولاند که باید از استثمار خود لذت ببرند و شرایط مشقت بار و مرده زندگی خود را نقطه اوج بدانند.
به نظر میرسد در دنیای امروز ما، کارگران مرده بخش گستردهای از دنیا را تشکیل میدهند؛ افرادی که جامعه به سختی تلاش میکند تا به آنها بقبولاند که باید از استثمار خود لذت ببرند و شرایط مشقت بار و مرده زندگی خود را نقطه اوج بدانند.
127 pages, Paperback
First published May 16, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 3, 2014
Polemic attacking corporate culture, and the human malaise and “non-living” it promotes. The parts on “fun” in the office and teambuilding exercises are excellent, as is the analysis of the colonisation of workers’ interests/identity as a substitute for a meaningful work culture/values that corporations are incapable of developing themselves - “just be yourself”. It also touches on the “pseudo counter-capitalist values conveyed in the Corporate Social Responsibility discourse…”. This in turn is part of the way in which corporations seek to inoculate themselves from criticism by invoking the language and values of dissent. Hence we see the rise of the “liberal-communist” manager who tells you they’re a “socialist” and work is awful whilst ruthlessly implementing company policy.
This is all good fighting stuff and sometimes it hits home, but ultimately there was something unconvincing about this book, particularly towards the end. Perhaps there were too many references to Zizek and Foucault etc. An open and clear critique of corporate culture, which so often uses methods of obfuscation, seems very necessary. However, making constant reference to thinkers who are/were themselves often opaque doesn’t seem to quite work. Felt as though I was being asked to replace one form of muddy thinking/speaking with another.
This is all good fighting stuff and sometimes it hits home, but ultimately there was something unconvincing about this book, particularly towards the end. Perhaps there were too many references to Zizek and Foucault etc. An open and clear critique of corporate culture, which so often uses methods of obfuscation, seems very necessary. However, making constant reference to thinkers who are/were themselves often opaque doesn’t seem to quite work. Felt as though I was being asked to replace one form of muddy thinking/speaking with another.
June 19, 2017
What a ripper of a book. Rather than sex and death, the focus of this fine polemic is work and death. Working death. Death through working. The complete and utter incapacity to discover an 'outside' to work demonstrates that exploitation is inevitable and death is the only solution to exploitation.
Depressing book. But the powerful interpretation of management consultancy - breathing life into deadly ruthless working routines - remains a key critique of the narratives that attempt to transform dead work into living and meaningful productivity.
Depressing book. But the powerful interpretation of management consultancy - breathing life into deadly ruthless working routines - remains a key critique of the narratives that attempt to transform dead work into living and meaningful productivity.
October 18, 2019
mind-blowing, vorba aia
December 25, 2016
It's hard to know where to start with this slim text, a combination of philosophy and polemic, with some research thrown in, not because it's a complex work, but because of what it says and how it goes about it. The title itself is about people losing themselves in a real sense to the workplace, more specifically corporations and the associated management methods, but also, quite uncomfortably, about those who commit suicide because of the nature of their work and how theer workplaces deal with it (not all that well). The latter wasn't new to me, particularly data from China and Japan, but there is a French example here that's quite startling.
The book starts off with a bit of theory, which for me is a problem in itself – not that the authors are glib or intellectually unsatisfactory, but because that's where they start. Theirs is what might broadly be a postmodern view and this is an example of "theory" which you'll see in a lot of sociological journals. I don't have any problem with using an idea as an interpretative model (I do it myself) but I think it's unwise to start with it and the paradox is that postmodernism is supposed to be anti-ideological, against the grand theory.
So here we have for instance Marx, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Heidegger, Deleuze and Guattari. The first two are kind of accepted as gospel, and my theological inference is deliberate here. You get similar stuff in Jungian work, John Perry's over-the-top introduction to Jung's seminars on ancient dreams being an example: so full of hyperbole I just couldn't read on. It doesn't help credibility, put it that way.
Anyway, a basic proposition is around work and whether people want to do it. The short answer, following Marx, is "no" which is a plausible answer in context, particularly as analogies are made between the selling of labour as Marx wrote about it and the current demands of the corporation, or modern management, if you like. There are terms like Post-Fordist and Late Capitalism, familiar from my Masters studies. There's a lot here about false consciousness and the like, not explicitly and there's a lot of similarity with religious or Jungian themes in this notion, which I think is fairly deluded; very millennial actually, and a crude form of evolution as progress (not the same thing) to which most movements seem to be attached
In some respects this is something worthy of reflection. Wanting to do things other than work doesn't mean you won't want to do your best or at least be functional. I found this when I started work all too many decades ago. When I became professionally involved in learning about organisations and doing change projects and the like (20 years later), I was surprised at the attempts to connect the worker directly with the organisation, and isolate the worker's representatives in the union.
Much of this material came from the USA, where management and union clashes had a different flavour to them, partly due to different histories and a different cultural perspective. In 1991, I was at a personality conference in the USA and listened to one speaker state flatly that the associated community was anti-union. The other major source was Japan and it was a couple of years before someone pointed out (a Ford executive, actually) that the Japanese system was actually quite medieval i.e. feudal in its arrangements with workers.
Anyway, the gist of the book is that current workplaces are designed to both infantilise its workers and keep them either working or on the premises. I think there's a lot of evidence to support this, even without the accompanying ideology here and in fact the Freudian interpretation works well here. There's a consequent loss of self, possibly what Durkheim would call anomie, although he doesn't get a mention. The loss of self, together with postcolonial exploitation in some respects leads to the dead man working, with the extreme the suicides that cover much of the second part of the book.
An academic/consultant I worked with as an internal consultant had done research here and in Japan indicating that people identified themselves with their work, and part of his rationale for this is that one of the questions at barbecues and other social events was "what do you do?" This never struck me as a good example, because my limited experience of such events indicated that most people didn't know what to say to each other, particularly someone they didn't know, and so asking about work was a default question which implied nothing more than that.
Anyway, this was an interesting book in various was and confronting in others. I did wonder what kinds of courses the two authors taught at their respective universities, given some of the text bordered on outright cynicism about organisations, although I can't say it was completely unjustified and I could see the logic of their comments.
The book starts off with a bit of theory, which for me is a problem in itself – not that the authors are glib or intellectually unsatisfactory, but because that's where they start. Theirs is what might broadly be a postmodern view and this is an example of "theory" which you'll see in a lot of sociological journals. I don't have any problem with using an idea as an interpretative model (I do it myself) but I think it's unwise to start with it and the paradox is that postmodernism is supposed to be anti-ideological, against the grand theory.
So here we have for instance Marx, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Heidegger, Deleuze and Guattari. The first two are kind of accepted as gospel, and my theological inference is deliberate here. You get similar stuff in Jungian work, John Perry's over-the-top introduction to Jung's seminars on ancient dreams being an example: so full of hyperbole I just couldn't read on. It doesn't help credibility, put it that way.
Anyway, a basic proposition is around work and whether people want to do it. The short answer, following Marx, is "no" which is a plausible answer in context, particularly as analogies are made between the selling of labour as Marx wrote about it and the current demands of the corporation, or modern management, if you like. There are terms like Post-Fordist and Late Capitalism, familiar from my Masters studies. There's a lot here about false consciousness and the like, not explicitly and there's a lot of similarity with religious or Jungian themes in this notion, which I think is fairly deluded; very millennial actually, and a crude form of evolution as progress (not the same thing) to which most movements seem to be attached
In some respects this is something worthy of reflection. Wanting to do things other than work doesn't mean you won't want to do your best or at least be functional. I found this when I started work all too many decades ago. When I became professionally involved in learning about organisations and doing change projects and the like (20 years later), I was surprised at the attempts to connect the worker directly with the organisation, and isolate the worker's representatives in the union.
Much of this material came from the USA, where management and union clashes had a different flavour to them, partly due to different histories and a different cultural perspective. In 1991, I was at a personality conference in the USA and listened to one speaker state flatly that the associated community was anti-union. The other major source was Japan and it was a couple of years before someone pointed out (a Ford executive, actually) that the Japanese system was actually quite medieval i.e. feudal in its arrangements with workers.
Anyway, the gist of the book is that current workplaces are designed to both infantilise its workers and keep them either working or on the premises. I think there's a lot of evidence to support this, even without the accompanying ideology here and in fact the Freudian interpretation works well here. There's a consequent loss of self, possibly what Durkheim would call anomie, although he doesn't get a mention. The loss of self, together with postcolonial exploitation in some respects leads to the dead man working, with the extreme the suicides that cover much of the second part of the book.
An academic/consultant I worked with as an internal consultant had done research here and in Japan indicating that people identified themselves with their work, and part of his rationale for this is that one of the questions at barbecues and other social events was "what do you do?" This never struck me as a good example, because my limited experience of such events indicated that most people didn't know what to say to each other, particularly someone they didn't know, and so asking about work was a default question which implied nothing more than that.
Anyway, this was an interesting book in various was and confronting in others. I did wonder what kinds of courses the two authors taught at their respective universities, given some of the text bordered on outright cynicism about organisations, although I can't say it was completely unjustified and I could see the logic of their comments.
October 12, 2013
There is a turn of phrase that is seeming its way into analyses of working lives and work itself of late – ‘life itself is put to work’ (I have used it in some of my writing). For the most part, we use to show that work has taken over our lives and that there are increased rates of exploitation through never being not at work; we also tend to use it in analyses of the cultural, service and information-based industries.
Cederström and Fleming have done us a service in this short essay by shifting the frame of that analysis in two ways. In the first (and although there are only a couple of references to the text) they have taken a key aspect of Luc Boltanski & Eve Chiapello’s superb The New Spirit of Capitalism , the notion that we live in a world of project-based work (they call it a projective city) and that new managerialism has appropriated counter cultural discourses of anti- (or perhaps sceptical-about-) capitalism, to examine what it means for life itself to be put to work. The second re-framing shifts the focus from the cultural, service and information-based industries to suggest that this sense of the boundlessness of work should be understood as a vital aspect of most people’s working lives, no matter what their job. This latter point is more implicit than explicit, but their examples suggest a move in that direction.
So, the questions Cederström and Fleming raise are important ones – they examine what happens when work colonizes life, how do we respond and what can/should we do about it. What’s more, they do so in the form of a philosophical essay, exploring and teasing out ideas that illustrate and develop major points with glumly believable work-based examples – the call centre workers called together to sing a Muppets’ song is more than depressingly believable. They give us a set of instances of The Managed Heart for the early 21st century that bleakly illustrate the contemporary world of work where we struggle if the coping mechanisms that allow us to maintain some form of core, authentic or secret non-work identity are breached (they illustrate this brilliantly through the discomfort of sex workers whose clients want the ‘girlfriend experience’).
The problem is the bleakness of it all; Cederström and Fleming have only one solution to the problem: withdrawal. At best where work has colonized life, this is the symbolic suicide – for some it is not so symbolic – of keeping moving and staying out of sight. As solutions go this is, to understate the problems, difficult but more problematically as politics go it is individualistic and profoundly limited and limiting. So, this is good and in places as a quite entertaining and philosophically rich analysis, but as politics go devoid of desirable, viable or achievable solutions. We need to get beyond repeated analysis; even if it had proposed a utopia of desirability (what does keep moving and stay out of sight look like in practice) this could have given us something to aim for, something around which to build viable and achievable solutions in the now.
Cederström and Fleming have done us a service by indicating ways the debates about work and working lives can and should be reframed, but that is not enough if we want to do something about it!
Cederström and Fleming have done us a service in this short essay by shifting the frame of that analysis in two ways. In the first (and although there are only a couple of references to the text) they have taken a key aspect of Luc Boltanski & Eve Chiapello’s superb The New Spirit of Capitalism , the notion that we live in a world of project-based work (they call it a projective city) and that new managerialism has appropriated counter cultural discourses of anti- (or perhaps sceptical-about-) capitalism, to examine what it means for life itself to be put to work. The second re-framing shifts the focus from the cultural, service and information-based industries to suggest that this sense of the boundlessness of work should be understood as a vital aspect of most people’s working lives, no matter what their job. This latter point is more implicit than explicit, but their examples suggest a move in that direction.
So, the questions Cederström and Fleming raise are important ones – they examine what happens when work colonizes life, how do we respond and what can/should we do about it. What’s more, they do so in the form of a philosophical essay, exploring and teasing out ideas that illustrate and develop major points with glumly believable work-based examples – the call centre workers called together to sing a Muppets’ song is more than depressingly believable. They give us a set of instances of The Managed Heart for the early 21st century that bleakly illustrate the contemporary world of work where we struggle if the coping mechanisms that allow us to maintain some form of core, authentic or secret non-work identity are breached (they illustrate this brilliantly through the discomfort of sex workers whose clients want the ‘girlfriend experience’).
The problem is the bleakness of it all; Cederström and Fleming have only one solution to the problem: withdrawal. At best where work has colonized life, this is the symbolic suicide – for some it is not so symbolic – of keeping moving and staying out of sight. As solutions go this is, to understate the problems, difficult but more problematically as politics go it is individualistic and profoundly limited and limiting. So, this is good and in places as a quite entertaining and philosophically rich analysis, but as politics go devoid of desirable, viable or achievable solutions. We need to get beyond repeated analysis; even if it had proposed a utopia of desirability (what does keep moving and stay out of sight look like in practice) this could have given us something to aim for, something around which to build viable and achievable solutions in the now.
Cederström and Fleming have done us a service by indicating ways the debates about work and working lives can and should be reframed, but that is not enough if we want to do something about it!
May 4, 2016
I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting from this book - but it's a good discussion of late capitalism and why we all feel so dead and helpless inside as both workers and agents in society. This book discusses the social ill of liberation management, the inconvenience of being yourself, and the way to commit suicide that most effectively says f*ck you to your boss.
An entertaining and quick read, I would totally recommend this to any person who hates working for a living. (JK that's everyone.)
An entertaining and quick read, I would totally recommend this to any person who hates working for a living. (JK that's everyone.)
February 12, 2013
Great polemic, full force logic against the illogic of Capital. The scope is decidedly narrow and includes/is directed towards mainly North American middle class white collar types. It is effective in that range but falls short of a comprehensive critique (it's an essay really, 70 pages). Also lacks references or citations of any kind which irks me. Read if you like Zizek
October 31, 2012
not sure it is as bad as all that. People and reality tend to thwart the bleakness.
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I've put more distance between myself and this book. Which makes me realise that academics attempting to be creative are the last people you should turn to for a sense of perspective.
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I've put more distance between myself and this book. Which makes me realise that academics attempting to be creative are the last people you should turn to for a sense of perspective.
November 30, 2018
After quitting my job about six months ago because I could no longer deny the fact that I was miserable there, I mostly identify & agree with the various pathologies of capitalism (or maybe more precisely “work“) that the authors describe. However, I found this book to be extremely frustrating, and it is perhaps safe to say I enjoyed reading it less than I enjoyed working. This frustration was more for what it omitted than for what it contained, although the arguments certainly became flimsier as the book progressed.
I would be very much willing to bet that the authors have never worked outside of academia. The book makes no acknowledgement that It is possible for people to actually enjoy, be interested in, or even love what they do, and condescendingly insists that those that do are just fooling themselves, unable to recognize that their persistence in finding/claiming meaning is an ironic perversion, a pursuit of that which does not exist. Likewise, they fail to acknowledge the power held by a ‘good’ employee who combines the interpersonal skills which the authors claim that modern capitalism utilizes as a Trojan Horse of sorts to render “real life“ (which is never ever defined) and work inseparable from one another (a claim I don’t dispute), along with knowledge of a firm’s processes, which the authors severely underrate the value of. A manager‘s worst nightmare can be losing an employee who combines the two, especially if they are customer-facing and the institutional knowledge inside that employee’s head is non-redundant. I have seen companies slip into near ruin, and indeed some go out of business entirely, at the loss of “irreplaceable“ employees True, that power is dependent upon the workers’ continued employment at the firm, and not all employees can wield that kind of leverage, but in an economy reliant on knowledge and soft skills, it is much harder to replace these sorts of than the authors give credit for.
Also, There is no acknowledgment of the fact that, in so many cases, what an individual may consider “real life“ is necessarily dependent on another’s work in order for that outlet/passion/etc to exist and be accessible in the first place. I don’t think you necessarily need to have an alternative in place in order to critique something, but the authors’ inability to define what they even consider to be a good life, and how it would be attained cannot be ignored. Do they hate their jobs? What would they do if they didn’t have to do them? Who would produce anything if we all decided to quit? Woodwork be some help miraculously better into more tolerable under different type of economic system (e.g. is the problem capitalism, or just work?) Would living a “good life” it still be dependent upon somebody else doing their job? No answers, hints, or even mention of these questions.
I give it two stars only because the first half was fairly readable and made me think differently deeply about some things, and at only 75 pages it is a quick read. Had it been much longer, I probably would’ve just put it down. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not very well-versed in all of the theory, and that the authors are probably much smarter than I, but he overall tone is thick with smugness, for instance is the authors describe the “unsavory“ requirement to “reluctantly“ conduct research by browsing Management books in an airport bookstore (how bourgeois!), it left me wondering whether the authors actually cared about convincing anybody about anything other than how smart they are.
I would be very much willing to bet that the authors have never worked outside of academia. The book makes no acknowledgement that It is possible for people to actually enjoy, be interested in, or even love what they do, and condescendingly insists that those that do are just fooling themselves, unable to recognize that their persistence in finding/claiming meaning is an ironic perversion, a pursuit of that which does not exist. Likewise, they fail to acknowledge the power held by a ‘good’ employee who combines the interpersonal skills which the authors claim that modern capitalism utilizes as a Trojan Horse of sorts to render “real life“ (which is never ever defined) and work inseparable from one another (a claim I don’t dispute), along with knowledge of a firm’s processes, which the authors severely underrate the value of. A manager‘s worst nightmare can be losing an employee who combines the two, especially if they are customer-facing and the institutional knowledge inside that employee’s head is non-redundant. I have seen companies slip into near ruin, and indeed some go out of business entirely, at the loss of “irreplaceable“ employees True, that power is dependent upon the workers’ continued employment at the firm, and not all employees can wield that kind of leverage, but in an economy reliant on knowledge and soft skills, it is much harder to replace these sorts of than the authors give credit for.
Also, There is no acknowledgment of the fact that, in so many cases, what an individual may consider “real life“ is necessarily dependent on another’s work in order for that outlet/passion/etc to exist and be accessible in the first place. I don’t think you necessarily need to have an alternative in place in order to critique something, but the authors’ inability to define what they even consider to be a good life, and how it would be attained cannot be ignored. Do they hate their jobs? What would they do if they didn’t have to do them? Who would produce anything if we all decided to quit? Woodwork be some help miraculously better into more tolerable under different type of economic system (e.g. is the problem capitalism, or just work?) Would living a “good life” it still be dependent upon somebody else doing their job? No answers, hints, or even mention of these questions.
I give it two stars only because the first half was fairly readable and made me think differently deeply about some things, and at only 75 pages it is a quick read. Had it been much longer, I probably would’ve just put it down. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not very well-versed in all of the theory, and that the authors are probably much smarter than I, but he overall tone is thick with smugness, for instance is the authors describe the “unsavory“ requirement to “reluctantly“ conduct research by browsing Management books in an airport bookstore (how bourgeois!), it left me wondering whether the authors actually cared about convincing anybody about anything other than how smart they are.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 26, 2022
Back in the day, there used to be a strict demarcation between work and private life but that demarcation has now faded as capitalism has seeped into the private spheres of the general populace that workplaces now tend to replicate the facilities and activities that we would have in our private lives (to a greater extent of course!) and the aim is to get more control of the workers' life. Moreover, this also includes mindless exercises or unnecessary work parties such as BBQ events, etc. It also reminded me of a gym and sporting area that was inaugurated at one of my previous workplaces a few years ago. Initially, employees showed great interest as after work, they would head off to these areas. Gradually, interest began to ebb away as those who would frequent this area were deemed to have lots of free time and then this area would mostly be found deserted but it still ticked the box.
May 20, 2022
The first few chapters of this book are like a punch in the gut. A perfect description of what's like to be a corporate worker under capital in the 21st Century. Praying for the sweet closure of death (and the end of work), and comforting ourselves with the daily mantra of 'well, at least if it gets any worse, I'll just kill myself!' Very interesting concept of biocapitalism too, but they're clearly working from the Mark Fisher blueprint, and could use some of their own original ideas. Oy with the Children of Men references already.
January 14, 2018
Engrossing and depressing until the damn postscript which needed a lot more explanation to counteract the odd sexism/stereotyping/assumptions regarding femininity. What a disappointing way to end an argument I was totally on board with. Also super weird that it was missing a reference list.
January 5, 2018
Great subject matter that could and should be handled more incisively and less polemically.
October 26, 2023
I wish I had read this before I ended up in the cardiology ER. I wish I would have listened to my body, before my mind started giving up on me. I wish a lot of things ...
Now I have read this book and I know what I will never want to go back to - working myself to death. In my country we love to work ourselves to death. Especially men - it's a thing of pride to be working 24/7! Always hustling, always spinning tall tales, always looking for that extra buck.
And for what! To pay for the funerals at early age where they will sit around the table and ask themselves "what happened?!" They will say he worked hard. They will say he never spat in his drink - because that was the medicine for everything. They will say he should have said something. They will say a lot of BS like this, and then they say a toast and go back to spinning the wheel of progress until next one bites the dust!
Now I have read this book and I know what I will never want to go back to - working myself to death. In my country we love to work ourselves to death. Especially men - it's a thing of pride to be working 24/7! Always hustling, always spinning tall tales, always looking for that extra buck.
And for what! To pay for the funerals at early age where they will sit around the table and ask themselves "what happened?!" They will say he worked hard. They will say he never spat in his drink - because that was the medicine for everything. They will say he should have said something. They will say a lot of BS like this, and then they say a toast and go back to spinning the wheel of progress until next one bites the dust!
February 4, 2013
Parts of this were a very interesting look at how modern corporations try to muddy the line between work and life to increase productivity and mine your personal skills as a tool to increase profits. Other parts were rather stale "provocative" academic arguments about symbolic suicide and the like, through the lens of Lacon and all of these thinkers I read about in school. I still recommend this due to the simple argument they make and some of the funny examples they use to illustrate it.
September 5, 2012
Something of a wake-up for for the overworked working class, not to mention the fading middle class, this is an interesting and engaging read.
I had the good fortune of interviewing the authors on the book itself - http://themomusreport.blogspot.com.au...
I had the good fortune of interviewing the authors on the book itself - http://themomusreport.blogspot.com.au...
April 1, 2013
bad polemics
April 14, 2013
An interesting analysis and cultural critique of the conditions of work and capitalism, but it falls short of offering much in the way of solutions or, at the very least, modes of resistance.
January 23, 2016
Lets think about the tragedy of capitalism and money from different point of view. From point of view that has ones who after loosing "what capitalism see as important" choose to finish thayer lives.
Read
December 9, 2024Need to get sick to stay home and be free from work
April 1, 2016
Strange last chapter otherwise quite interesting.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews