Philosophy of Work, Money, Politics & Such

Leland

Following from some recent posts about unions and politics, I thought some readers here might like to know about a kind of book & study club I have visited a few times called Autonomous University. Their next session, meeting IRL in Seattle at the end of March looks like it will be on point.

Here's the write up with links and downloads.

Love, Dr. J, Dr. of J.

This is an invitation to the next meeting of the Autonomous University. We will be meeting Sunday 31 March, 5PM at Cafe Racer (5828 Roosevelt Wy NE Seattle).

We are open to anyone of any background or disposition who wants to carry out collaborative, creative, intellectual, or political work outside of the university. We will be discussing the texts attached and referenced below.

All the readings, except Weeks, are short. For the cram version of Weeks, just read the introduction and the epilogue (44 pages). Whatever you’re able to read, come join us and let’s talk about work.

Kathi Weeks asks: “Why do we work so long and so hard?” Keynesian capitalism promised a future of automation: shorter hours, more leisure, prosperity for all. But that dream, trumpeted about by futurologists in the 50’s, has dropped out of mainstream discourse. The neo-liberal future offers austerity, more overtime, and a few lucky winners. How did we get here?

Our text for this session of AU is Weeks’s The Problem with Work. Subtitle: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Not only does Weeks revive as a point of political demand the Keynesian ideas of shorter hours and a guaranteed income, she explores the construction of the modern ideology of work and finds a surprising convergence in the theories of Weber and Marx: both saw that people would have to be forced to work the new hours that Capital demanded. For Weber, this meant the creation of a Protestant ethic that linked work and salvation; for Marx; the physical removal of potential laborers from rural lands (so-called primitive accumulation).

Weeks extends the dissident left tradition of anti-work politics, inaugurated by Paul La Fargue, Marx’s son-in-law, with the pamphlet, The Right to Be Lazy. In the words of Peter Frase, she “identifies advocates of more work and those who want better work, and finds each lacking. As an alternative, she holds up the straightforward and unapologetic demand for less work. In the process, she powerfully articulates the case for a politics that appeals to pleasure and desire, rather than to sacrifice and asceticism. It is, after all, the ideal of self-restraint and self-denial that ultimately legitimates the glorification of work, and especially the ideology of the work ethic.”

Peter Frase is a tireless explorer of the post-work imaginary, both in his blog and his contributions to Jacobin. Here are four short posts that relate to the questions at hand:

1) The Anti-Star Trek Society: a Theory of Posterity (http://www.peterfrase.com/2010/12/anti-star-trek-a-theory-of-posterity/)

2) Resenting Hipsters (http://jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-the-politics-of-resentment/)

3) The Politics of Getting a Life (http://jacobinmag.com/2011/01/hipsters-food-stamps-and-the-politics-of-resentment/)

4) Post-work: a guide for the perplexed (http://www.peterfrase.com/blog/)

Last link, a two page review of Pietro Basso’s book, Modern Times, Ancient Hours: Working Lives in the 21st Century According to Basso, Marx’s struggle over the length of the working day has not gone and will not go away.
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ps. Thanks to Philip for putting together this announcement.

Kathi Weeks download here. (2MB pdf)