The Abolition Of Work
posted by Johnny Drongo | January 21, 2010
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IcerocketCame across this essay again after all these years--From Bob Black
No one should ever work.
Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you'd care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working.
That doesn't mean we have to stop doing things. It does mean creating a new way of life based on play; in other words, a ludic conviviality, commensality, and maybe even art. There is more to play than child's play, as worthy as that is. I call for a collective adventure in generalized joy and freely interdependent exuberance. Play isn't passive. Doubtless we all need a lot more time for sheer sloth and slack than we ever enjoy now, regardless of income or occupation, but once recovered from employment-induced exhaustion nearly all of us want to act.
The full essay is here: http://www.zpub.com/notes/black-work.html
Comments
It's not the work that is
— Jan 21, 2010
It's not the work that is the problem. It is the people, how we have organized the work making a social structure in which people are made into units for profit, rather than work being about getting useful goods, services and maintenance.
In Praise of Idleness
— Jan 22, 2010
Bertrand Russell's essay "In Praise of Idleness" appeals to me, and has much more modest aims. I'm not convinced of the workability (or desirability) of eliminating work.
http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html (though it was published in a collection of 4 essays I think - would be interesting to read them all.)
& I found an audio version: http://www.archive.org/details/InPraiseOfIdleness
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