THE REFUSAL OF WORK: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF RESISTANCE TO WORK PDF, EPUB, EBOOK David Frayne | 280 pages | 15 Dec 2015 | ZED BOOKS LTD | 9781783601172 | English | London, United Kingdom The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work PDF Book Political concepts. He was followed by Crates of Thebes who gave away a large fortune so he could live a life of Cynic poverty in Athens. In affluent societies, work is one of the most conventional and readily available means through which we become part of the pattern of other people's lives. The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods. Worth to read but presented research doesn't actually proof anything. In recent times, the stripping-back of the welfare system has seen a phased introduction of increasingly stringent audits and penalties for the non-worker. He reflects that many he interviews are constrained by their own perspectives on how society views them, as well as the force applied directly by society itself. Main article: Wage slavery. The delight of Terkel's piano tuner is a form of pleasure unfamiliar to many people. Welcome back. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Behind the glorification of 'work' and the tireless talk of the 'blessings of work' I find the same thought as behind the praise of impersonal activity for the public benefit: the fear of everything individual. Original Title. While some tramps may do odd jobs from time to time, unlike other temporarily homeless people they do not seek out regular work and support themselves by other means such as begging or scavenging. Browse housmans. Other Editions 5. Many of the accounts featured in Terkel's book give substance to his conclusion that work is violence, yet some of the book's accounts also offer glimpses of work's pleasures. Following this, I briefly touch upon a number of studies that chart the historical emergence of work, with a view to developing some critical distance from its central role in modern capitalist societies. Autonomist philosopher Bifo defines refusal of work as not "so much the obvious fact that workers do not like to be exploited, but something more. His central theme was wage labour issues such as liberation from work, the just distribution of work, social alienation , and a guaranteed basic income. The Idler is a bi-monthly British magazine devoted to promoting its ethos of "idle living" and all that entails. The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work Writer In the work-centred society, the most readily accepted purpose of education is the socialisation of young people for the successful adoption of a predefined work role. Open Preview See a Problem? Lists with This Book. For those who work in jobs with dubious social utility, subjected to the latest innovations in workplace organisation and control, work often represents a struggle against boredom, meaninglessness and exhaustion. Significant events. The author eloquently captures the taboo rejection of how we have constructed work and is somewhat inspiring in his narrative. Marx from the fruits of one's labors, from the process of production itself, and from life-affirming human relations. It represents the contractual exchange of a certain amount of productive time for a wage, and is distinguished from the separate category of 'work-for-ourselves' Gorz, In the UK the context in which I am writing , apart from New Labour's cursory interest in 'work—life balance' in the mid s, the question of working hours, and the entitlement of people to lead active and varied lives outside work, has long been absent from the mainstream political agenda. It may feel like there is little incentive to reflect critically on work from a position where most of us, irrespective of our attitudes towards work, are pretty much obliged to perform it anyway. Average rating 4. Anarchism portal Politics portal. Also it is constructed mainly around pieces from a bunch for previous works on the topic, which don't make this book very valuable by itself, more than as a compendium or summary, if maybe not comprehensive enough even if a bit repetitive , since leaves some questions in the air Frayne signposts arguments presented in an objective manner. Everybody should be free to refuse to work. A significant part of the book is devoted to the analysis of interviews with unemployed or minimally employed people. While the interviews are interesting, they seem too limited in scope to allow much by way of deeper analysis. At the outset, Frayne is rightly preoccupied with identifying critical questions——ones that reveal the heart of his dispute with the modern concept of work: "What is so great about work that sees society constantly trying to create more of it? The term slacker is commonly used to refer to a person who avoids work especially British English , or primarily in North American English an educated person who is viewed as an underachiever. It is, above all or beneath all , about daily humiliations. This is a beautifully clear and thought-provoking discussion and I would recommend anyone to read it. How do they introduce you there? This could be even more powerful if combined with the rapidly-increasing global concern about climate change. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. 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. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. Overall, the book offers the reader a good starting point for framing 32nd book for Sometimes we construct elaborate escapes and compensations out of hours in an effort to forget or 'rebalance', as the life coaches call it. Some well researched and interesting theories and perspectives. The stronghold of work Normative mainstream attitudes toward work do little good for the working class. This was possible in times of almost full employment and in times of egalitarian culture. Most workers, he states, are dissatisfied with work as evidenced by petty deviance on the job , so that what he says should be uncontroversial; however, it is controversial only because people are too close to the work-system to see its flaws. Return to Book Page. See also: Aktion Arbeitsscheu Reich. In a social context where engagement in work is tied with what it means to be respectable, socially included, and worthy of recognition, the question of which activities society chooses to allow into the category of 'proper work' becomes an important one. What is work for, and what else could we be doing in the future, were we no longer cornered into spending most of our time working? A range of personal tactics help us to survive the working day: we remind ourselves that we are more interesting than the jobs we do, we stage imaginary rebellions against bosses and clients, or we hide away in shells of cynicism. Play, in contrast, is not necessarily rule-governed, and is performed voluntarily, in complete freedom, as a gift economy. Yet for many of us, paid work is at best a frustrating experience. If one of the key characteristics of a paid job is that it serves society in a general sense, work-for-ourselves is distinctive because the worker performs it for the direct benefit of either himself or others with whom he shares a relationship outside the commercial sphere. Wednesday November 11 pm - pm. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Douglas Harper. The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work Reviews The term 'wage slavery' has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratification , with the former seen primarily as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital particularly when workers are paid comparatively low wages, e. First of all, work represents society's main mechanism for the distribution of income. I most enjoyed chapter eight, in which we finally begin to see Frayne's personal position, and are offered tangible, practical ways to join the conversation. They are all extremely pressing issues and the fight is far from won, but it is crucial that we also think beyond workers' rights to confront a broader and more fundamental set of questions. Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links Articles with French-language sources fr Articles containing Japanese-language text Articles containing Greek-language text Articles containing Latin-language text Articles containing Spanish-language text. Whether one is in or out of employment, preparing for it, or seeking it, and certainly whether or not one likes one's job, work as it is conventionally organised significantly shapes everyday life experience for most people in industrial societies. In the limit, this is a vicious cycle where people work ever harder to afford ever-growing consumption, and all our lives become ever more transactional as workers, too drained by their jobs to manage it all themselves, contract out the mere necessities of life eating, cleaning, child-caring, etc. Work, in the sense of aesthetic creation, might even be seen as a quest for immortality, expressing the producer's desire to create durable evidence of his or her finite existence in the world. I found this a fairly light, but interesting read questioning the underlying assumptions about the need for work as an economic, moral, and self-affirming activity within our society.