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The Case for Work shows that our paltry situation is critical precisely because work matters and that it is a mistake to advocate a society beyond work on the basis of its current organisation.
List of contents
- Introduction
- PART I: THE CASE AGAINST WORK
- 1: A modern value
- 2: The work ethic
- 3: Abstract labour
- 4: Work as discipline
- 5: Aristotelian objections
- 6: Nihilistic work
- 7: The imminent obsolescence of work
- 8: The social and political irrelevance of work
- PART II: THE CASE FOR WORK
- 9: Feminism's ambivalent attitude to work
- 10: The work of social reproduction
- 11: The long history of work
- 12: The social centrality of work
- 13: Facing necessity
- 14: Organizing necessity
- Conclusion: Transcending necessity
About the author
Jean-Philippe Deranty is Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney. He has published extensively on Hegel and post-Hegelian philosophy and the philosophy of work.
Summary
The modern work ethic is in crisis. The numerous harms and injustices harboured by current labour markets and work organisations, combined with the threat of mass unemployment entailed in rampant automation, have inspired a strong “post-work” movement in the theoretical humanities and social sciences, echoed by many intellectuals, journalists, artists and progressives. Against this widespread temptation to declare work obsolete, The Case for Work shows that our paltry situation is critical precisely because work matters. It is a mistake to advocate a society beyond work on the basis of its current organisation.
In the first part of the book, the arguments feeding into the “case against work” are located in the long history of social and political thought. This comprehensive, genealogical inquiry highlights many conceptual and methodological issues that continue to plague contemporary accounts. The second part of the book makes the “case for work” in a positive way through a dialectical argument. The very feature of work that its critics emphasise, namely that it is a realm of necessity, is precisely what makes it the conduit for freedom and flourishing, provided each member of society is in a position to face this necessity in conditions that are equal and just.
