No More Work: Why Full Employment is a Bad Idea by James Livingston
To refer to economists as a priesthood has become a commonplace. Economists practice “a religion couched in the language of mathematics and statistics,” say Yanis Varoufakis. Their church, to carry the symbolism further, has a magnificent gold and marble altar where they offer praise to Capital.
Our Postwork Future
A Prospect to Win or to Lose?
by Peter Frase
It borders on a disservice to characterize Four Futures: Life After Capitalism as a
primer on contemporary political philosophy, since Peter Frase, the author,
explodes any expectation of pedantry in his prose, or more importantly, in his
approach to political theory, which he calls “social science fiction.”
Pre-industrial European societies, for the most part, didn’t conceive of time in the abstract as a scarce commodity that indicated when to work and when not, but as an elastic measure embedded in social relations. The seasons determined work: as daylight waned in winter so too did toil.
In Response to Grist’s “Real Sharing” Economy
The idea here is to subvert consumerism by real sharing and in so doing create a better quality of life, beyond the notion that material scarcity rules, to develop in its place social practices that cultivate meaningful relationships, so to retrieve, or discover, our unique creative outlets.
– Basic Income or Job Guarantee?
REFUSING TO WORK
Periodically, the New York Times publishes sobering long-form articles depicting the economy in dark tones that clash with their more upbeat business page reportage. For example, the NYT recently noted a poll indicating the decline of belief in The American Dream – Many Feel that The American Dream is Out of Reach, Poll Shows (December 10, 2014).
U S Labor Day needs retooling
Labor Day needs some serious retooling. With millions out of work and the prospects of good paying (mostly union) jobs disappearing at a steady pace, Labor Day increasingly takes on the aspect of a memorial, not a celebration.
Many summers ago, just freed from the enforced boredom of high school, I signed up for a course on Marxist economics. Andy, the teen I worked with, asked if I would accompany him. I envied him his dad, a transplanted Marxist Scotsman, and I relished the transgression I was invited to undertake, especially as a recent apostate from Catholicism.
In the April 23rd issue of the New Republic Tim Wu published a review of Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s book Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think and compared its theme – “more is better” – with Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.
Social Text’s Periscope web page currently features a number of essays on “Work and Idleness in the Age of the Great Recession.”
This special issue of Periscope on “Work and Idleness in the Age of the Great Recession,” reconsiders our sense of what qualifies as work or idleness when there is little or no work to be had.
Guy Standing recently wrote a short introduction for openDemocracy on the main themes of his new book on the precariat. He ends the essay by suggesting three proposals to develop a precariat-sensitive political program.
But before commenting on his proposals I need to note a glaring omission in his analysis of the current global situation.