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Tag Archives: productivism

Against the Grain Presents Dr. Peter Hudis On Marxian Life After Capitalism

29 Tue Nov 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Totalitarianism, Marxian Theory (Marxism)

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Against the Grain, Christina Aanestad (SaveKPFA), communism, Dr. Peter Hudis, KPFA, Pacifica Radio Network, productivism, Sasha Lilley, transcript

337px-Karl_Marx_001WikiUserLUMPENPROLETARIAT—On today’s edition of free speech radio’s Against the Grain, co-host Sasha Lilley invited Dr. Peter Hudis (Oakton Community College) to discuss life after capitalism, according to the economic and sociological work of Dr. Karl Marx, which is often inaccurately equated with the communist projects of the Soviet Union and China.  Dr. Hudis is the author of Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism published in 2013 by Haymarket.

Among other topics, Dr. Hudis discussed Marx’s role in the split between socialists and anarchists, and the commonalities and differences between the two ideological camps.  Dr. Hudis cites various writings of Marx, which weren’t widely available until relatively recently, allowing for greater perspective into the development of Marx’s immense lifelong intellectual project of understanding and overcoming capitalist modes of production.  Listen (and/or download) here. [1]

Messina

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Against the Grain]

kpfa-free-speech-take-it-back-logo-121199AGAINST THE GRAIN—[29 NOV 2016]  [ERICA BRIDGEMAN(sp?):  “—1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFA in Berkeley; 88.1 KFCF in Fresno; 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz; and online at kpfa.org.  The time is 12, noon.  Stay tuned, next, for Against the Grain.] 

[Against the Grain theme music]

SASHA LILLEY:  “Today, on Against the Grain:  Capitalism appears to many to be a failed system, leading to extreme inequality and ecological devastation.  We’re also told that the alternative posed by Karl Marx is similarly bankrupt, as proved by the failures of state socialism.  But what if Marx’s vision for a postcapitalist future has little in common with the experience of the Soviet Union and China?

“I’m Sasha Lilley.  Peter Hudis argues that freedom, including from a repressive state apparatus, was central to Marx’s concept of life after capitalism.  I’ll speak with him after these news headlines with Christina Aanestad. (c. 1:18)

[KPFA News Headlines (read by Christina Aanestad] [2]  (c. 5:43)

[Against the Grain theme music]

SASHA LILLEY:  “From the studios of KPFA in Berkeley, California, this is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.

“We live in starkly anti-utopian times.  The idea of transforming our world for the better in any thorough-going way seems to be entirely off the table.  In fact, we’re just bracing for things to get worse.  We’re frequently told that to try to change the world systematically will lead to a dead end, like the dismal societies of the Soviet Union and China under state socialism.  Marxism, in particular, can’t point the way forward, we hear, because of its doctrinaire notion that individual freedom should be discarded for some idea of the greater good.

“But today’s guest argues that this gets Marx entirely wrong.  His vision of life under capitalism was based on individual and collective liberation and much of it remains unknown to, both, the detractors and supporters of radical politics alike.

“Peter Hudis is professor of humanities and philosophy at Oakton Community College and the author of Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism published by Haymarket.

“Peter, beyond your own ideas of capitalism being followed by socialism and then communism, can you explain why there’s an assumption that Marx had little to say about life after capitalism?”

DR. PETER HUDIS:  “So, there are three connected issues here.  [snip]  “

[snip]

[On the split between anarchism and communism.]

[snip]  (c. 51:15)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Well, let me by asking you, then, about [sighs] whether you see Marx’s writings on, eh, a post-capitalist society as being future-oriented or not?  And I say that because you were just talking about his notion that, at least in some societies, there were communal forms, that had been preserved, that, perhaps, could be tapped for life beyond capitalism, but, really, more specifically, since the world that we live in now is predominantly capitalist.  So, those debates over those things are less relevant.  Marx saw freedom as, partially, anyway, connected to the ability to create a society where the forces of production were developed and could lay the basis for a different kind of political-economic foundation for the society.  Obviously, not just as narrowly as I stated it.

“But you also raise the question of whether the issue for us now is developing the forces of production—or limiting the forces of production—given the crisis point that we’re in, ecologically.  Obviously, Marx lived in his time.  You know?”

DR. PETER HUDIS:  “M-hm.  Yeah.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “He didn’t live now.  He didn’t have a crystal ball into the future.  But would you say that his notion of life beyond capitalism was a future-oriented notion?  And, now, is that something, that we can still embrace?” (c. 52:52)

DR. PETER HUDIS:  “[deep breath]  Yes, but with one big, big reservation.  And that is that, um, it’s understandable, perhaps, even out of necessity, that in much of his work Marx does emphasise the material condition—one of the main material conditions being needed for a socialist, for essentially a socialist or communist society—is developed forces of production.  That is, he never believed you can create socialism in one country.  He also never thought you can create a socialism of poverty.  There had to be a certain level of material development in order to allow for what he called a totality of manifestations of life.  He said, we have to work.  If we have to work—if we have to spend three or four hours a day fetching our own water, if we have to spend 50 or 60 hours a week of our time, engaging in all kinds of labour, that could be readily, uh, made redundant by the use of technology, how are we gonna be able to create the new human personality, that’s necessary for a socialist or communist future?

“But that was necessary for him to emphasise in his time when the capitalism was supposed to be just beginning to show itself.  And it had not dominated the entire world; and the forces of production were relatively underdeveloped.

“But we’re living in a very different world today in which we have a—still, in a certain sense—that problem.  But, in a certain sense, the opposite.  That is, much of the world remains horribly underdeveloped.  Uh, 90% of humanity is living under close about—is living under $10 dollars a day.  There are conditions of real material deprivation, that have to be resolved.

“So, there is no question that development—economic development—is a necessity.  But, at the same time, it is also—we have to look at the way the forces of production have no longer really geared to augment the improvement of people’s lives in a real material, let alone a spiritual, sense.  It should simply be augmented for the sake of the augmentation, or the accumulation, of capital.  And it’s become such an end in itself that the forces production are so enormous and so complex and so much a concentration of wealth that, um, it’s causing enormous techno-ecological destruction.

“So, in a certain sense, the forces of production, in some context, have to be radically taken down.  It’s not developing the forces of production.  It’s also destroying some of these forces of production and freeing ourselves from them that it’s gonna be needed in order to save the planet and have an effective socialist or communist society.

“So, you’re not gonna get a lot of that from Marx, himself.  But that is a conception, that, obviously, the realities of our age require us to emphasise. (c. 53:30)

“But the general principles of Marx’s conception of a post-capitalist society, not only still apply, they apply even more so, given the qualification I just mentioned because what’s the fundamental core of his notion of achieving a socialist society? It’s not the increase of productive forces per se.  For him, that was one important aspect.  But it wasn’t the sole or overriding aspect.

“The overriding aspect is to break from abstract forms of domination by having the control of the social process of production and reproduction, by the very agents who are engaged in that process.  And communal, collective, control, democratically and freely, by the mass of the population of their own means of existence and means of subsistence, that is what allows for, not only political, but economic, democratic system, in which the expansionary drive of capital is challenged and halted.  And the tendency of people to think that their lives are meaningful insofar as they accumulate so much material possessions is also halted because, precisely, because we are not in control of our collective social existence and we feel alienated from it that we try to compensate for our lack and our emptiness by pursuing the enrichment of material goods and commodities as an end in itself, which of course has everything to do with the ecological crisis. (c. 56:55)

“So, I think that it’s the specific understanding he has of breaking from abstract forms of domination in favour of a truly democratic form of social organisation based on the self-activity of the producer, that becomes more relevant for the future than ever before.  But we have to do so with the acknowledgement that there is a kind of productivism in some as—even in some of Marx’s work, in terms of emphasising the importance of the forces of production, that have to be reconfigured today, in terms of actually qualitatively as well as quantitatively transforming them.  That means that we’re gonna have to make do with a very different way of doing things and making things.  We’re gonna have to make do with a very different way of living in order for the environment to really be sustainable.

“And I think that’s the real challenge, that has to be worked out.  And it has to be worked out pretty soon.”  (c. 57:48)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Indeed. [Chuckles, perhaps, at the fireworks of the somewhat flustered closing remarks of Dr. Peter Hudis’ ambitious closing remarks to this heady discussion.  Or, perhaps, she chuchles because she will not give Dr. Hudis a chance to bid farewell.  Notably, Sasha Lilley has nothing to add to the incredibly deep Marxian analysis proferred by Dr. Hudis.  Where are the Marxian interviewers when you need them?]

“I’ve been speaking with the author of Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism.  That is published by Haymarket.  And you can find a link to it on our website, AgainstTheGrain.org.

“Peter Hudis teaches humanities and philosophy at Oakton Community College.

“[deep breath]  You’ve been listening to Against the Grain.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  Thanks so much for listening.  And, please, tune in againt next time.”

[Against the Grain theme music]  (c. 59:59)

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

[1]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Against the Grain, this one-hour broadcast hosted by co-host Sasha Lilley, for Tuesday, 29 NOV 2016, 12:00 PDT.

[Broadcast summary by Against the Grain, published on KPFA’s online archive page.]

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[29 NOV 2016] Capitalism appears to many to be a failed system, leading to extreme inequality and ecological devastation. We’re also told that the alternative posed by Karl Marx is similarly bankrupt, as proved by the failures of state socialism.  But what if Marx’s vision for a postcapitalist future has little in common with the experience of the Soviet Union and China? Peter Hudis argues that freedom — including from a repressive state apparatus — was central to Marx’s concept of life after capitalism.

Resources:

Peter Hudis, Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism Haymarket Books, 2013

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

Also see this related Lumpenproletariat article:

  • Frantz Fanon: Philosopher of the Barricades (2015); 28 MAR 2016.

About Against the Grain:

Against the Grain is a radio and web media project whose aim is to provide in-depth analysis and commentary on a variety of matters — political, economic, social, and cultural — important to progressive and radical thinking and activism.

ATG focuses on meaty theoretical and action-oriented issues that the mainstream media tends to ignore, matters like political economy, the global justice movement, philosophical and cultural ideas, and race and gender relations. We strive to bring these perspectives to the airwaves in a way that’s accessible, engaging, and, most of all, useful to people working for social change.

Please join us, listen in, and pass the word along. You may even want to ask your local community radio station to carry ATG.

Against the Grain is co-produced and co-hosted by Sasha Lilley and C.S. Soong. Occasional contributing producers include Ramsey Kanaan and H.N. Yuen.

About the hosts:

Radio maven and writer Sasha Lilley is the co-host and co-producer of Against the Grain, which she founded with C.S. Soong in 2003. During her stint as KPFA’s Program Director, she headed up initiatives like Pacifica Radio’s award-winning Winter Soldier broadcast. She’s the author of Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult and is the editor of the political economy imprint Spectre. Sasha is co-author of Catastrophism: The Apocalyptic Politics of Collapse and Rebirth.

C.S. Soong holds a B.A. in history from Brown University and a J.D. from Cornell Law School. He’s also done graduate work in philosophy at San Francisco State University. C.S. has worked with Laura Flanders on Working Assets Radio; with Loni Ding on the documentary film series Ancestors in the Americas; and with Bari Scott on the award-winning public radio series The DNA Files. He is also a freelance writer and editor; his written work has appeared in publications as diverse as ColorLines, Turning Wheel, and IndyKids.

[2]  KPFA News Headlines for Tuesday, November 29, 2016, 12:00 PST:

  • Fight for $15
  • [snip]
  • [snip]
  • Trump edict: flag-burners should be jailed
  • Trump to confirm racist Jeff Sessions to his cabinet
  • [snip]

***

[29 NOV 2016]

[Last modified at 23:26 PST on 5 DEC 2016]

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The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (2011) by Dr. Kathi Weeks

12 Tue Apr 2016

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Civic Engagement (Activism), collective bargaining, Feminism, Global Labour Movement, Marxian Theory (Marxism)

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Autonomous Marxism, basic income guarantee, Dr. Karl Marx, It's Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World), Max Weber (1864-1920), productivism, socialist humanism, socialist modernism, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The Ramones, wage labour

220px-8hoursday_banner_1856LUMPENPROLETARIAT—British songwriter Bernard Sumner has often written some of the more thoughtful lyrics found in popular music, embedded in a social consciousness informed by his upbringing in 1970s post-industrial Manchester.  In “Turn My Way” (2001) Bernard Sumner (joined by Billy Corgan) sings:

I don’t wanna be like other people are
Don’t wanna own a key; don’t wanna wash my car
Don’t wanna have to work, like other people do
I want it to be free, I want it to be true

There’s a sense of utopianism, which can be traced through such popular song lyrics rejecting work. [1]  Yes, we honour labour as a means to an end, but not as an end in itself.  We don’t celebrate work for its own sake.  Creativity and self-directed activity are quite distinct from capitalist modes of production predicated upon profit motive and capital accumulation.

Since we know that unemployment through automation is increasingly rendering more and more people redundant within capitalist modes of production, we’re confronted with a choice as a society:  Do we criminalise the redundant, or involuntarily unemployed?  Or do we liberate them?

For some time now, the eight-hour work day has been taken for granted.  But it was fought for and won under great sacrifice.  As Americans (and others) are increasingly facing longer work hours, Dr. Kathi Weeks argues that we need to imagine life beyond work in order to challenge the constraints to conventional thinking and imagining around what makes life meaningful.

In her book, The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries (2011), Dr. Kathi Weeks makes a case for shortening the working day to a six-hour day without a pay cut, as our forebears did when they fought and won the right to shorten the working day to an eight-hour workday in the 19th century.  She joined free speech radio’s Against the Grain to discuss her book, The Problem With Work, and to challenge conventional thinking around the romance of labour and the virtues of self-directed activity.  Listen (or download) here. [2]

Messina

***

[Working draft transcript of actual radio broadcast by Messina for Lumpenproletariat and Against the Grain]

AGAINST THE GRAIN—[12 APR 2016]  “Today on Against the Grain, more than a century ago, the Industrial Workers of the World, or the IWW, called for the four-hour workday.  Should we be considering something similar now?

“I’m Sasha Lilley.  We’ll air my conversation with Kathi Weeks about why radicals need to envision a world where work is not central to our existence.  She’ll also talk about cutting the workweek.  That’s after these news headlines.”

[KPFA News Headlines omitted by scribe]

SASHA LILLEY:  “This is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.

“Liberating work from its exploitative nature under capitalism has been a central tenet of the radical Left.  But what about liberating our lives from the centrality of work?  Work may be necessary.  But should it be at the heart of our vision for the future?  And what would be the political consequences of demanding shorter work hours in the here and now?

“The Autonomous Marxist tradition has championed the refusal of work.  And, today, I’m joined by Kathi Weeks, who brings together Marxism and feminism in arguing that we need to rethink the place of work in our imaginings of life after capitalism.  She also argues that, in the present, we should fight for a significantly shorter workweek without a cut in pay and for a guaranteed basic income for all.

“Kathi Weeks teaches Women’s Studies at Duke University and is the author of a number of books, including The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries.  That’s published by Duke University Press.

“Kathi, could you begin by describing for us the history of the work ethic under western capitalism?  How has it evolved?  Why has it been so central?”  (c. 7:54)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Well, I mean, I trace it back, in the book, to Max Weber‘s famous study in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.  And he identifies, kind of, the original formulation of the work ethic as the Protestant work ethic.  And he talks about how it creates some of the conditions conducive to early capitalist development.  So, it promoted really hard work and long hours from one class of people—workers—and frugal saving on the other side.  So, that made it possible to produce capital in that moment.

“But, over time, I think the work ethic has evolved and changed slightly.  I mean in some ways it remains the same.  In all its forms, the work ethic sort of preaches the value of work as an end in itself, not just a means to other ends.  it preaches the importance of hard work as not just an instrumental activity, but a kind of highest calling, an ethical duty as what we should organise our lives around, as what we should invest our identity in.

“And I think that element of the work ethic remains similar across time.  The supposed reward of all of that activity sort of shifts.  I mean it’s no longer sort of, as it was for Weber, a matter of the anxious Protestant being sort of assured of being among the elect, or the saved.

“It’s not even, any more, the industrial version that promised that one could pull oneself or one’s family up by their bootstraps and sort of climb the class ladder through this activity.  And I think that today it’s much more about being able to develop your capacities as an individual.

“So, I mean what’s promised by these activities shifts.  But I think that the basic insistence on work as an end in itself, rather than just an instrumental activity remains the same.”  (c. 10:16)

SASHA LILLEY:  “You’ve just been describing the centrality of the work ethic within capitalism, particularly in the West.  But work itself—the process of work itself—seems to be pretty uninterrogated, both, within academia in many ways, also for people at work, they feel frustration often.  But they see it as an individual problem.  Why do you think it is that we have such a hard time getting a handle on work in our lives, our relationship to work?”  (c. 10:49)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Yeah, I just find that such an interesting problem.  You know I have a couple of ways getting at it.  But I think it remains an open question.  And I think of it in terms of why work is not more politicised than it is now in some ways.  I mean it’s strangely depoliticised.  And, yet, work is where most of us experience direct relationships of domination, you know, between bosses and employees and among coworkers.  Work is an incredibly hierarchical structure in most sites.

“So, I mean I think it is an interesting question why we don’t want to interrogate more the actual, everyday experience of work.  And, again, I think it is in part because we treat work as—we don’t really think of it in terms of a system.  We think of it in terms of this job or that job.  And we measure one job in relation to another job.  But we don’t really think about the similarities among jobs or think about work as a system, let alone as a system of domination, that it gives employers power over employees.  And that’s crucial to how most of us experience work.  And, yet, we don’t think of it as a site of power relationships, that should be evaluated for their justice or lack of justice.  (c. 12:13)

“And, again, I find that an interesting puzzle.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “We’ll probably speak more about this in the course of the hour, but how do you define work?  Are you speaking of just paid labour?  Does unpaid labour fit into this?”

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Yeah.”

SASHA LILLEY:  “What is work in your definition?”

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Yeah, I mean, again, it’s a good question.  And, generally, when I talk about work, I tend to focus more on the privileged model of wage labour because I think that’s how we understand work popularly.  But I think what counts as work is constantly being debated.  It’s certainly something that feminists have long debated, you know, why forms of unwaged work are not counted as work.

“So, I don’t want to limit it to waged work.  But I do wanna highlight that when we talk about work, we usually mean wage labour and that wage labour becomes the standard for what we count as work.  So, I kind of slip between a focus on just wage labour and also a more expansive understanding of what work is.”  (c. 13:15)

SASHA LILLEY:  “So, your book, The Problem of Work, draws on a couple different traditions.  It draws on Marxism; it draws on feminism and traditions within them.  But the traditional Marxist critique of work has two basic, or central, elements.  There’s, on the one hand, the critique of exploitation—the extraction of surplus value.  And, then, on the other hand, there is a critique about alienation, that work is alienating, that it degrades our skills and makes us separate from our actual work process.

“So, the idea within Marxism is that in a society, that would be socialist or communist, the idea would be to free work from its oppressive aspects and make it joyous.  You have a different take on how work should be in a more utopian society.  What are your problems with the Marxist critique, as traditionally conceived?”  (c. 14:11)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Well, I mean I think the problem with both of those versions of the Marxist critique is that they leave that work ethic uninterrogated.  That is: Work could live up to what the ideology says, if only work were not a site of exploitation and alienation.

“So, I think its critique of work is incomplete, to put it mildly.  So, I draw on other traditions also within Marxism, that I think try to take aim, both, at a system of organisation of production, but also the ideology of productivism—so, not just work, but also the ethics and our ideas about work, that support and encourage us to invest in work.

“So, one tradition, that I’m very interested in is the tradition of Autonomous Marxism.  And there’s a kind of slogan, that’s central to most iterations of Autonomous Marxism, and that’s been the refusal of work.  And, at one level, it’s sort of self-evident.  You know, refusing work is—the strike is an example of refusing work.  But in another, like, more theoretical level, the refusal to work is really an attempt to try to think much more critically about, both, the present world of work and the ethical discourse, that helps to sustain it.

“So, the problem, from this point of view is not just that work is exploited or that  our work, our labour, is alienated.  It’s really that the critique has to go farther.  It has to extend to the ways that work dominates our existence, the way that work is over-valued.

“And I think that this one tradition of Marxism really wants to take the critique much further—beyond just the critique of exploitation and alienation.”  (c. 16:07)

SASHA LILLEY:  “And I will ask you more about some of these different contending perspectives.  But I just wanna ask you:  What does the refusal of work mean?  I would imagine most listeners would say: But wait a minute.  So many people are out of work.  Why would we wanna refuse work?  What does it really mean?  Are you talking about a society where no one actually works?”  (c. 16:29)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP] ”  (c. 18:50)

SASHA LILLEY:  “And I’ll ask you more about the whole feminist dimension of this argument a bit later on.  The programme is Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  And I’m speaking with Kathi Weeks about her book, The Problem With Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries.  That’s published by Duke University Press.

“So, I want to just stay a little longer with the Marxist tradition.  And you were saying that you’re drawing from the Autonomous Marxist tradition, particularly, which a lot of these ideas swirled around in Italy in the 1970s, intersected with feminism.  But, sticking with the traditional Marxist critique, you mentioned a moment ago the notion of productivism, which I wonder if you could explain.  It’s something, that you locate within Marxism, but also within other ideologies and radically different political outlooks.  What is productivism?”  (c. 19:52)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP]  ”  (c. 20:35)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Within Marxism, you locate two traditions where the lack of interrogation of work, as you see it, leads to what you deem insufficient solutions or visions for a new utopian society.  One of them is socialist modernism.  And the other is socialist humanism.  I wonder if you could explain both of those and what they are, and then why you have problems with the solutions, that are on offer within those two traditions.”  (c. 21:05)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ” [SNIP] ”  (c. 24:11)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Well, within Marxism, work isn’t just, I think, simply about the productivist aspect, that you mentioned.  But you could also argue that work has been seen to be the kind of center of people’s social and collective power, that having work is important because it gives you a collective strength in being brought together in work, which you don’t have under capitalism, as an individual.  Also, within work, there may be even sort of creative or utopian potentialities.  How do you respond to that argument in favour of the centrality of work?”  (c. 24:49)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “I would respond by saying I haven’t seen much evidence of people’s being empowered through work as workers in their opposition to the present organisation of work.  I support it entirely.  But I think that we need to try to think about additional ways to politicise work and to fight for change.

“And, so, one of the reasons that I’m interested in this kind of politics of work, that’s really a critique of the over-valuation of work and also the way that work dominates our lives and also our imaginations and sociality is I think we can construct a more powerful coalition of activists.

“I mean in some ways, instead of, rather than focusing on only the employed, or employed in only certain kinds of industries, or employed who have access to unions, there’s a way to think about some of our common problems with work.

“I mean I think the people who are employed, underemployed, and also overworked all have an investment in this critique of work.  And I really wanna think about constructing a politics of, and against, work, that can draw in more people, that can speak to a range of people’s problems with work.

“I don’t think it’s the province of a specific class formation, as it’s been understood at this point.  I think that there’s a possibility to provoke other kinds of activism across some of these traditional divides of union/non-union, employed/unemployed, waged workers/unwaged workers.”  (c. 26:40)

SASHA LILLEY:   “Kathi Weeks is my guest.  We’ll return with her after this music break.”  (c. 26:45)

“It’s Not My Place (In the 9 to 5 World)” by The Ramones

SASHA LILLEY:   “You’re listening to Against the Grain on Pacifica Radio.  I’m Sasha Lilley.  And I’m joined by the author of The Problem with Work.  Her name is Kathi Weeks.  And she teaches Women’s Studies at Duke University.  She’s also the author of Constituting Feminist Subjects.

“And we are talking today about the issues around a politics, that puts work at its center.  She’s arguing for more utopian possibilities.

“So, earlier in the programme, you spoke about the Italian feminist autonomist Marxist traditions, which were connected up in the 1970s efforts for wages for housework.  And I wanna ask you more about your critique of feminism, as it relates to work.  But I wonder if you could tell us more about what the wages for housework campaign actually was—wages from whom, for example—as a way of looking at this dimension of your argument.”  (c. 29:55)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP]  ”  (c. 34:04)

SASHA LILLEY: “Does feminism have its own—and, of course, I’m generalising when I say feminism; it’s obviously a broad category—but outside of the Marxist-feminist tradition, that you’ve been talking about around wages for housework.  Does the feminist tradition have its own politics related to an embrace of the work ethic?”  (c. 34:24)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  ”  [SNIP]  ”  (c. 36:32)

SASHA LILLEY:  “Is there also the danger within feminism that, when work is subject to critique, it often gets contrasted to work time and family time, that, you know, we need to allow people to have time with their families.  And, so, the whole notion of the time when one isn’t at paid labour that it is seen through that familial lens?”  (c. 36:55)

DR. KATHI WEEKS:   “Yes and, again, that’s another reason why I find wages for housework so refreshing because they insisted that a family was within—not against or outside—the system of work, that it is part of the general economy.  It’s where work is organised and work takes place.  It’s just happens to be mostly unwaged work.

“So, the idea that family would be refuge from work and that family is something we should be balancing with work is something that I think that they critique quite well because family is another side of work.

“So, I think they wanna sort of include the critique of family in a larger critique of work and try to think in different ways about what we want outside of work and that we might want time for families and other kinds of relationships of care and sociality.  But family, you know, it’s not limited to this institution of the family.”  (c. 37:55)

SASHA LILLEY:   “Well, let’s talk about what we want outside of work.  You just said that, although you have found the Wages for Housework campaign of the ’70s to be very stimulating in your thinking.  But, ultimately, Wages for Housework is not enough.

“So, in terms of what you’re proposing as an alternative to our work-centered lives, you mention two things, two reforms of sorts.  One is a basic income guarantee.  And the other is a 30-hour workweek without a cut in pay.

“Let me ask you, first, about the basic income guarantee.  How would that work?  Why do you support it?”  (c. 38:32) [3]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  “Well, a basic—I mean there are many, sort of, proposals out there for how we imagine a basic income.  As I imagine it, it would be an income, that would be paid unconditionally to individuals.  And it’s designed to sort of establish a kind of minimal floor, below which income would not fall.  Um, if it—you know, again, there’s different versions of this.

“If this income is so small that people would be forced into work, all it does is sort of subsidise low wage labour in some ways.

“But, if it’s an income, that someone could possibly live on, independent of work, it would enable people to—maybe not completely independent from the wage system, but less dependent on its sort of present terms and conditions.

“So, I think it might give workers some bargaining power to demand better work in some ways.  It provides support for all of the different kinds of unwaged work and for workers, that are precarious at this point.

“And I think it also, then, provides some relief for those who are forced into family relationships in order to be part of another income-pooling unit.

“So, I think a basic income would provide—again, it probably wouldn’t enable most people to be free of the wages system.  But I think that it would allow people some measure of relief to be not tethered to it so tightly.”  (c. 40:12)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  [SNIP]  (c. 42:00)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  [SNIP]  (c. 45:00)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

DR. KATHI WEEKS:  [SNIP]  (c. 49:00)

SASHA LILLEY:  [SNIP]

[SNIP] (c. 59:59)

Learn more at AGAINST THE GRAIN.

[This transcript will be expanded as time constraints, and/or demand or resources, allow.]

***

“Turn My Way” by New Order

***

[1]  Of course, various songs come to mind, which reject work:

  • “I was looking for a job and then I found a job / And heaven knows I’m miserable now…”  —”Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” (1984) by The Smiths
  • “I wanna rock and roll all night and party every day…” —“Rock and Roll All Nite” (1975) by Kiss
  • “You can take this job and shove it/I ain’t working here no more…” —“Take This Job and Shove It” (1977) by Johnny Paycheck
  • “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more…”  —“Maggie’s Farm” (1965) by Bob Dylan
  • “I don’t work / I just speed / That’s all I need / I’m a lazy sod…”  —“I’m a Lazy Sod” by The Sex Pistols
  • “You and me, all we want to be is lazy…”  —“Lazy” by Suede
  • “You thought you’d come and amaze me, honey / You thought you’d come on and amaze me with your money…”  —”Money” by Suede
  • “How many insults must you take in this one life? / I’m in prison most of the day…”  —”Don’t Talk To Me About Work” by Lou Reed
  • “Everybody’s working for the weekend…”  —“Working for the Weekend” (1981) by Loverboy

[2]  Terrestrial radio transmission, 94.1 FM (KPFA, Berkeley, CA) with online simulcast and digital archiving:  Against the Grain, this episode hosted by Sasha Lilley, for Tuesday, 12 APR 2016, 12:00 PDT.

[3]  Also see a previous article on the concept of a basic income guarantee for all, which includes notes on the more concrete Job Guarantee Programme, which is promoted by proponents of Modern Money Theory (or Modern Monetary Theory):

  • “Sociologist Dr. Erik Olin Wright On A Guaranteed Income for All“, 5 APR 2016

***

[Image entitled “8hoursdaybanner 1856” by not known via Wikipedia; it is believed to be public domain.]

[14 APR 2016]

[Last modified  00:15 PDT  15 APR 2016]

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