deoxy.wiki : Work

: Society today has the capacity to reduce work to a tiny fraction of what it is now, while continuing to meet all human needs.

Psychopathology of Work

: There are three types of labor — wage work, domestic labor and autonomous activity, the latter being (in most cases) exempt from charges of drudgery and slavery.

Aphorisms Against Work

: The Revolt Against Work drives the productive forces of capitalism to their limits in demanding more value for less labor, higher wages for less work.

Revolt Against Work

: Statistics published in 1938 indicated that the use of the most modern technology would reduce necessary working time to three hours a day. Not only are we a long way off with our seven hours, but after wearing out generations of workers by promising them the happiness which is sold today on the installment plan, the bourgeoisie (and its Soviet equivalent) pursue man's destruction outside the workshop. Tomorrow they will deck out their five hours of necessary wear and tear with a time of "creativity" which will grow just as fast as they can fill it with the impossibility of creating anything (the famous "leisure explosion").

Decline and Fall of Work

: A new Emancipation Proclamation is needed. Liberation from an 8 hour day 5 day workweek to a 5 hour day 1 day workweek getting paid the same amount. Or how about a 12 hour day 7 day playweek? Or maybe keep only the least harmful factories and everyone has to factory once during their life for a year, the rest free to learn and create art, travel to wilds and other lands, like Huxley's Island?

: Anyone who says it can't be done is performing what I call "The Ghost Dance in Reverse."

Zero-Hour Day, Zero-Day Workweek

The Revolution of Everyday Life

: The most important thing is to arrange your life so that you are doing things because you want to do them, not because they are profitable—otherwise, no matter how much money you make, you will be selling your happiness for money. Remember that the less money you spend, the less you will have to worry about getting money in the first place... and the less you will have to work at those dehumanizing jobs. Learn to use all your "free" time, not to vegetate or spend money on entertainment, but to create things and accomplish things—things that no one would pay you to make or do, but that make your life (and perhaps the lives of others) better anyway.

How Ethical Is The Work 'Ethic'?

: You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid, monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education.

: Usually—and this is even more true in "communist" than capitalist countries, where the state is almost the only employer and everyone is an employee—work is employment, i.e., wage-labor, which means selling yourself on the installment plan. Thus 95% of Americans who work, work for somebody (or something) else. In the USSR or Cuba or Yugoslavia or Nicaragua or any other alternative model which might be adduced, the corresponding figure approaches 100%. Only the embattled Third World peasant bastions—Mexico, India, Brazil, Turkey—temporarily shelter significant concentrations of agriculturists who perpetuate the traditional arrangement of most laborers in the last several millennia, the payment of taxes (ransom) to the state or rent to parasitic landlords in return for being otherwise left alone. Even this raw deal is beginning to look good.

Abolition of Work

: The domesticate works dutifully Monday through Friday. Saturday SHe is allowed to assemble in animal-totem competitions—the Bulldogs of Yale versus the Horned Toads of Texas Christian. Saturday night the socially approved intoxicant is imbibed, permitting a temporary explosion of mammalian territorial competition and sexual low-jinks. Sunday morning the chastened and hung-over domesticate attends a DNA adoration ceremony in which the dignified gene-hive Creator is recognized, the brief foray back to animalism exorcised. The domesticate, purged and reborn, is ready to start the next week of hive duty.

The Ups of Pleasure and Downs of Satisfaction

: Work toward improving conditions promises well, because it accords the possibilities of the time. We must not recoil from work and danger—symbolized by crossing of the great water—but must take hold energetically. Success depends, however, on proper deliberation. This is expressed by the lines, "Before the starting point, three days. After the starting point, three days." We must first know the cause of corruption before we can do away with them; hence it is necessary to be cautious during the time before the start. Then we must see to it that the new way is safely entered upon, so that a relapse may be avoided; therefore we must pay attention to the time after the start. Decisiveness and energy must take the place of inertia and indifference that have led to decay, in order that the ending may be followed by a new beginning.

Work On What Has Been Spoiled

No Work, No Food

: We should consider whether it makes sense for private banks, rather than government or communities, to create money, and seriously consider substantial taxes on short-term speculative gains. The purpose of such measures is not to promote global growth and competition, but rather to create healthy and prosperous societies that provide economic security and just rewards for productive contribution to their members, have a strong and caring social fabric, and live in balance with their natural environment.

Money versus Wealth

So quit already!