I take issue with all the comments suggesting that the movement should be rebranding into “work reform”, because reforming is absolutely not the point. Speaking as someone who subscribes to the anti-work movement, my problem is not that much with current laboral laws and, in fact, I’d go as far as saying that all jobs I have had so far have been reasonably respectful with me except for maybe one.
My problem with that is that we consider normal that, in order to deserve leading a meaningful life, we must be working for someone richer or for the economy. Our life must be dedicated to constantly providing products and services so that we deserve to enjoy what little is left of it. In more concrete terms, I don’t like that we must get into wage labor in order to have access to fundamental goods such as food, water, housing, amenities or even free time. I believe all human beings living in a society capable of providing these are entitled to them, I also believe that our current society is perfectly capable of that, and that the only reason why the working class only gets conditional access or no access at all to fundamental goods are bullshit “number go up” reasons. I don’t buy for a second that homeless people deserve their status because “they didn’t work hard enough”. Wage labor being such a central axis of our current way of life is what I’m strongly opposed to.
Furthermore, I regard the power balance between employer and worker to be fundamentally broken, and no reform can do away with that. When you sign a contract and accept the terms of a job, are you really accepting them or just avoiding the alternative, the threat of homelessness? For a lot of people who can’t find jobs easily, not signing might mean starving or losing their home. How is that not coercion? Sure, if you don’t accept the terms of your current job, you can just look for another (even though this is not a reasonable posibility for a lot of people), but any job will offer as little pay with as many working hours as possible because, due to the lack of meaningful consent, all employers can get away with that. And we accept it as normal and reasonable.
I also don’t believe that abolishing wage labor will make people spend their whole lives not adding anything to society. If given enough free time, people will get bored of not doing anything and engage in work that they actually enjoy, of their own actual volition. I know I get involved into a lot of things given long enough vacations or subsidized unemployement. Now imagine if we just could get organized to find out what tasks need to be done, and each picked the tasks that they geniunely want to do, without being coerced. Without rich assholes and investors getting involved and often forcing us to work long hours on tasks that won’t add anything to the world, but they make money.
“Reforming” laboral laws is absolutely not enough for this. Sure, I’d appreciate a reduction in my working hours, an increase in my salary, more vacations, etc but even if those goals were met, I’d still be out there protesting for the reasons I’ve just stated. Work, as we understand it today, is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed without it being abolished first.
You may not agree with me, mind you, and have a more moderate position stating that work must not be abolished as it can be meaningfully reformed. But then you are subscribing to a different ideology altogether. Which is legitimate and can be argued for, but it does not match the ideology of the anti-work movement. Sure, under late capitalism, some short term goals may match, but the long term goals are entirely different. My point being, “work reform” would be a terrible rebranding for the movement because it stands for a different ideology entirely.
What? A left wing movement that uses the wrong name to make people understand what they truly mean? Really? Nah, that would never happen!
Adversaries to a movement will split hairs and redefine a movement anyways.
That’s all we are seeing here. Look at now they tried to frame Black Lived Matters, something quite clean cut.
No. We suck at naming things. And communication in general.
“Black Lives Matter Too” would have been more clear.
“Replace the Police” would have been better also.Even mainstream Democrats suck at it. They should be shouting every day, how they’re taking on big corp’s, going after antitrust abuses and unpaid taxes; While refusing to audit anyone making less than $250,000. But instead they just keep saying some variation of “The economy’s great, stupid.”
They would have willfully misinterpreted both of those alternatives and convinced you they were poorly named anyways.
They may have willfully misrepresented, but couldn’t really have an excuse to mistakenly misinterpret them. That was our bad.
Is your argument that a genuine, good faith interpretation of “Black Lives Matter” is “Only Black Lives Matter”?
This isn’t how English works. If I say “I like your mom” to an SO, they wouldn’t interpret it as I don’t like them and instead like their mom. I don’t have to say “I like your mom too”.
It should have been called of course black lives matter then move on from the stupid race baiting movement and get back to living.
Anyone coming back with “all lives matter” proves the ease of confusion over the slogan.
My own immediate response to it was “Yah, of course they do. All lives matter. Why single out Black lives? The police shouldn’t be killing anyone.”
I’m not going to try mind read anyone else.
Why single out Black lives?
Isn’t that kind of the point of BLM?
Leftists can name things appropriately. You just proved that. It’s the “moderate” “liberals” that run the DNC that have the issue. That’s just because they are desperately trying to to convince the right that “there won’t be any significant changes,” while still pandering to the center. They don’t care about the left except to make us shut up and sit down.
If people are trying to make you shut up and sit down then you’re probably the problem.
If that’s the case I’m proud to be a “problem,” and “inconvenience.”
Your time is up weirdo commie.
BLM was a scam, a grift… that’s an undeniable fact.
What was achieved? Because what we witnessed was violence, theft and property destruction. If you deny this, you are willfully ignorant or a bold faced liar.
Oh and Malcolm X was right. More Black people should study Malcolm X and his message.
I distinctly remember Malcolm X saying the white moderate fucking sucks
Malcolm X saying the white liberals
Fixed.
They are kind of the same thing, no?
Classical liberalism and all that jazz.
Classical Liberalism is an economic philosophy.
It’s unrelated to sociopolitical liberalism.
Yeah, but that interview on Fox News really killed the movement pretty hard lol
Why? An interview with any right wing idiot doesn’t dent their movement
So they lost an argument to Fox and fox are the idiots. Do you realize how stupid you sound?
Behave
It’s hard. I must reply to far left and far right views. Both are the problem.
Get to work bum. If your job hurts you, better yourself and get a better job. Either way, stop whining.
Enjoying that delicious boot leather?
You wouldn’t know what boots are bum
Is that right? To the average person, “Anti-Work” sounds like you’re straight up against working, and unless you want to explain this to every single person individually, Fox News is going to keep having a field day misrepresenting your movement.
Leftists really suck at marketing. Between that, antifa, and defunding the police, they really don’t seem to know how to put a name to an idea that can’t be misconstrued by an opponent with the maturity of a 5 year old (which, as luck would have it, is most opposition). I’d even argue BLM should be on that list.
Edit to add: global warming.
We’re really good at marketing exclusively to other leftists.
Yes, the problem is you create a bubble and look stupid when you talk about anything outside of your bubble.
