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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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not sure where you're coming from here, are you saying that you think it is pointless to try and refer to Marx, because the passages are too complicated for most workers? Because I know for a fact that isn't universal. My gripe is this very assumption. Marx may be very hard, but (I'm repeating myself) he was writing for us. not the intelligentsia, or the ruling class intellectuals, or university administrators, or any of that. Which means once you get around the difficulty of the subject you realize that actually his writing is about our lives, and what we go through, but not only what but how it functions, from whence it came and where it is headed. It isn't difficult it's just a lot at first. I know literally hundreds of workers from all different ages, backgrounds, languages, who all better understand their revolutionary role opposing the capitalism system because they took to studying history using Marx's scientific methods. I myself have little formal education, yet ive become educated. It may not come natural at first, because there's so much distraction, but over time you gain knowledge and experience and it starts to click. And once it does, you wouldn't want to live without the works of Marx. We read them over and over, we discuss them and how it applies to our lives.

Maybe that isn't your experience, and that's fine, but that isn't universal. Maybe you aren't convinced,and that's fine, because maybe I don't think I can convince you all at once, that it takes time and exposure and eventually it starts making sense.

I have as severe ADHD as anyone I've ever met, I have learned this stuff and it has helped me, like I'm much better off as a person since I've started studying like this. I don't believe it is unnatural for workers, in fact I think it is a sign of our unnatural, alienated conditions that we are inclined not to.

When communist workmen gather together, their immediate aim is instruction, propaganda, etc. But at the same time, they acquire a new need – the need for society – and what appears as a means had become an end. This practical development can be most strikingly observed in the gatherings of French socialist workers. Smoking, eating, and drinking, etc., are no longer means of creating links between people. Company, association, conversation, which in turn has society as its goal, is enough for them. The brotherhood of man is not a hollow phrase, it is a reality, and the nobility of man shines forth upon us from their work-worn figures. -- KM, EPM 1844

Not trying to twist your comment into something you didn't mean however, so if I misinterpreted your intent or meaning, please correct me :)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm in agreement with you - my comment was directed at those who refuse to consider anything outside of their box. I mean... look how many people in this thread got hung up on "food is free" and couldn't be bothered to read/think past that statement. Marx is dense, and way above the average reading level here in the US. Combine that with relentless anti-intellectualism propaganda, yeah not a lot of people are going to bother.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

It's a process. To be honest certain parts of it are pretty darn bleak. I strongly believe Marx showed us a way through, but the bar was higher, the number of possibilities were greater, than any could imagine. I have hope, but I also might die with nothing but

Anyway, thanks for clarifying what you meant