The Abolition of Work
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"The Abolition of Work" is an essay written by Bob Black in 1985. It was part of Black's first book, an anthology of essays entitled The Abolition of Work and Other Essays published by
Although "The Abolition of Work" has most often been reprinted by anarchist publishers and Black is well known as an anarchist, the essay's argument is not explicitly anarchist. Black argues that the abolition of work is as important as the abolition of the state. The essay, which is based on a 1981 speech at the Gorilla Grotto in San Francisco, is informal and without academic references, but Black mentions some sources such as the utopian socialist Charles Fourier, the unconventional Marxists Paul Lafargue and William Morris, anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman, and anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard Borshay Lee.
Synopsis
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Bob_Black%2C_2011_BAAB%2C_cropped.jpg)
In the essay Black argues for the abolition of the producer- and
He views the subordination enacted in workplaces as "a mockery of freedom", and denounces as hypocrites the various theorists who support freedom while supporting work. Subordination in work, Black alleges, makes people stupid and creates fear of freedom. Because of work, people become accustomed to rigidity and regularity, and do not have the time for friendship or meaningful activity. Many workers, he contends, are dissatisfied with work (as evidenced by absenteeism, goldbricking, embezzlement and sabotage), 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.
Play, in contrast, is not necessarily rule-governed, and, more important, it is performed voluntarily, in complete freedom, for the satisfaction of engaging in the activity itself. But since intrinsically satisfying activity is not necessarily unproductive, "productive play" is possible, and, if generalized, might give rise to a gift economy. Black points out that hunter-gatherer societies are typified by play (in the sense of "productive play"), a view he backs up with the work of anthropologist Marshall Sahlins in his essay "The Original Affluent Society", reprinted in his book Stone Age Economics (1971). Black has reiterated this interpretation of the ethnographic record, this time with citations and references, in "Primitive Affluence", reprinted in his book Friendly Fire (Autonomedia 1994), and in "Nightmares of Reason" (a critique of Murray Bookchin posted at TheAnarchistLibrary.org).
Black responds to the criticism (argued, for instance, by libertarian David Ramsey-Steele) that "work", if not simply effort or energy, is necessary to get important but unpleasant tasks done, by contending that much work now currently done is unnecessary, because it only serves the purposes of social control and economic exploitation. Black has responded that most important tasks can be rendered ludic or "salvaged" by being turned into game-like and craft-like activities, and secondly that the vast majority of work does not need doing at all. The latter tasks are unnecessary because they only serve functions of commerce and social control that exist only to maintain the work-system as a whole. As for what is left, he advocates Charles Fourier's approach of arranging activities so that people will want to do them. He is also sceptical but open-minded about the possibility of eliminating work through labor-saving technologies, which, in his opinion, have so far never reduced work, and often deskilled and debased workers. As he sees it, the political left has, for the most part, failed to acknowledge as revolutionary the critique of work, limiting itself to the critique of wage-labor. The left, he contends, by glorifying the
Black has often criticized leftism, especially
"The Abolition of Work" has been reprinted, as the first essay of Instead of Work, published by LBC Books in 2015. Eight more essays follow, including an otherwise unpublished, lengthy essay, "Afterthoughts on the Abolition of Work". The introduction is by Bruce Sterling.
Influence and reception
"The Abolition of Work" was a significant influence on futurist and design critic Bruce Sterling, who at the time was a leading cyberpunk science fiction author and called it "one of the seminal underground documents of the 1980s".[3] The essay's critique of work formed the basis for the antilabour faction in Sterling's 1988 novel Islands in the Net.[3] "The Abolition of Work" has been widely reprinted. It has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese (both continental Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian), Swedish, Russian, Arabic, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Esperanto, Catalan, Azerbaijani (the language of Azerbaijan), and probably other languages.
See also
References
- ISBN 0-915179-41-5.
- ^
Porton, Richard (1999). Film and the Anarchist Imagination. London: Verso. pp. 166–172. ISBN 1-85984-261-5.
- ^ ISBN 0-252-06140-3.
Further reading
- Seyferth, Peter (2019). "Anti-Work: A Stab in the Heart of Capitalism". Routledge Handbook of Radical Politics. Routledge. p. 384. S2CID 242759065.
- Sinha, Maya (September 1995). "The end of work (Rev. of The Abolition of Work and Other Essays)". Mother Jones. 20 (5): 82. ISSN 0362-8841.
External links
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- The Abolition of Work and Other Essays, the 1986 collection by Bob Black hosted in its entirety on Inspiracy.com
- "The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective", chapter thirteen of Women, Race & Class, by Angela Davis.
- The Abolition of Work on YouTube