this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Antiwork

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For the abolition of work. Yes really, abolish work! Not "reform work" but the destruction of work as a separate field of human activity.

To save the world, we're going to have to stop working! — David Graeber

A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway. ...the love of work... Instead of opposing this mental aberration, the priests, the economists, and the moralists have cast a sacred halo over work. — Paul Lafargue

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. — Karl Marx

In the glorification of 'work', in the unwearied talk of the 'blessing of work', I see the same covert idea as in the praise of useful impersonal actions: that of fear of everything individual. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. — Lane Kirkland

The bottom line is simple: all of us deserve to make the most of our potential as we see fit, to be the masters of our own destinies. Being forced to sell these things away to survive is tragic and humiliating. We don’t have to live like this. ― CrimethInc

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[–] natecox 79 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I mean, the answer is agency. You enjoy doing things that you choose to do—which you choose to do because you enjoy them, it’s just a tad selective and cyclic there.

Most people don’t choose to work because they enjoy it; they work to survive, doing what the market will support.

Some few very very lucky people get to do work they would otherwise choose to do anyways.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I feel like below a certain wage threshold, jobs are made shitty on purpose.

There is no need for a cashier to stand all the time, a small and high chair would suffice. There are boards used by mechanics to slide around on the shop floor when working beneath cars, but there are no carts for workers filling up lower shelves. Etc.

I worked in engineering and now process management and I could exit most B2C shops screaming of frustration for their inefficiency and spiteful brutalism.

Ergonomics is one of the main factors for worker health, happiness and productivity, but if you have literal wage slaves, you can even save the peanuts. True Greed.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

your cashiers don't have chairs???

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Only at Aldi do they have chairs. It's so stupid

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

And that’s probably because they exported a lot of their German ethic and if you’d take away German cashiers‘ chairs, you’d be in trouble more quickly than you can spell aldi

[–] natecox 7 points 2 days ago

The cross section of companies willing to pay poverty wages and companies ok with/happy to make your life suck all day is depressing but not surprising.

[–] Mikina 17 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

From what I remember from college, I think what you're talking about is mostly about intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic motivation, into which there's a lot of research. Just adding it in case someone wanted to look more into it, and was looking for some keywords.

It's one of the things that's worth knowing about, because you can somehow work around it to get motivated better, and it's one of the more important topics in game design. So, in general a usefull piece of psychology knowledge.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Stuff like this is why I come here. Thank you for taking the time to post.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago