[D66] Wiki: 'Refusal of work'

[René Oudeweg]

$describe "Refusal of work" en --exact --all
en:
Refusal of work
Refusal of work is behavior in which a person refuses regular 
employment.As actual behavior, with or without a political or 
philosophical program, it has been practiced by various subcultures and 
individuals. It is frequently engaged in by those who critique the 
concept of work, and it has a long history. Radical political positions 
have openly advocated refusal of work. From within Marxism it has been 
advocated by Paul Lafargue and the Italian workerist/autonomists (e.g. 
Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti), the French ultra-left (e.g. Échanges et 
Mouvement); and within anarchism (especially Bob Black and the post-left 
anarchy tendency).


== Abolition of unfree labour ==
International human rights law does not recognize the refusal of work or 
right not to work by itself except the right to strike. However the 
Abolition of Forced Labour Convention adopted by International Labour 
Organization in 1957 prohibits all forms of forced labour.


== Concerns over wage slavery ==

Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends 
on wages, especially when the dependence is total and immediate. It is a 
negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and 
wage labor, and to highlight similarities between owning and employing a 
person. The term 'wage slavery' has been used to criticize economic 
exploitation and social stratification, with the former seen primarily 
as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital (particularly when 
workers are paid comparatively low wages, e.g. in sweatshops), and the 
latter as a lack of workers' self-management. The criticism of social 
stratification covers a wider range of employment choices bound by the 
pressures of a hierarchical social environment (i.e. working for a wage 
not only under threat of starvation or poverty, but also of social 
stigma or status diminution).Similarities between wage labor and slavery 
were noted at least as early as Cicero. Before the American Civil War, 
Southern defenders of African American slavery invoked the concept to 
favorably compare the condition of their slaves to workers in the North. 
With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon 
and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the 
context of a critique of property not intended for active personal use.
The introduction of wage labor in 18th century Britain was met with 
resistance—giving rise to the principles of syndicalism. Historically, 
some labor organizations and individual social activists, have espoused 
workers' self-management or worker cooperatives as possible alternatives 
to wage labor.


== Political views ==


=== Marxism ===


==== Paul Lafargue and The Right to be Lazy ====

The Right to be Lazy is an essay by Cuban-born French revolutionary 
Marxist Paul Lafargue. He manifests that "When, in our civilized Europe, 
we would find a trace of the native beauty of man, we must go seek it in 
the nations where economic prejudices have not yet uprooted the hatred 
of work ... The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for 
work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew only 
exercises for the body and mind ... The philosophers of antiquity taught 
contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of 
idleness, that gift from the Gods." And so he says "Proletarians, 
brutalized by the dogma of work, listen to the voice of these 
philosophers, which has been concealed from you with jealous care: A 
citizen who gives his labor for money degrades himself to the rank of 
slaves." (The last sentence paraphrasing Cicero.)


==== Situationist International ====
Raoul Vaneigem, important theorist of the post-surrealist Situationist 
International which was influential in the May 68 events in France, 
wrote The Book of Pleasures. In it he says that "You reverse the 
perspective of power by returning to pleasure the energies stolen by 
work and constraint ... As sure as work kills pleasure, pleasure kills 
work. If you are not resigned to dying of disgust, then you will be 
happy enough to rid your life of the odious need to work, to give orders 
(and obey them), to lose and to win, to keep up appearances, and to 
judge and be judged."


==== Autonomism ====

Autonomist philosopher Bifo defines refusal of work as not "so much the 
obvious fact that workers do not like to be exploited, but something 
more. It means that the capitalist restructuring, the technological 
change, and the general transformation of social institutions are 
produced by the daily action of withdrawal from exploitation, of 
rejection of the obligation to produce surplus value, and to increase 
the value of capital, reducing the value of life." More simply he states 
"Refusal of work means ... I don't want to go to work because I prefer 
to sleep. But this laziness is the source of intelligence, of 
technology, of progress. Autonomy is the self-regulation of the social 
body in its independence and in its interaction with the disciplinary norm."
As a social development Bifo remembers,that one of the strong ideas of 
the movement of autonomy proletarians during the 70s was the idea 
"precariousness is good". Job precariousness is a form of autonomy from 
steady regular work, lasting an entire life. In the 1970s many people 
used to work for a few months, then to go away for a journey, then back 
to work for a while. This was possible in times of almost full 
employment and in times of egalitarian culture. This situation allowed 
people to work in their own interest and not in the interest of 
capitalists, but quite obviously this could not last forever, and the 
neoliberal offensive of the 1980s was aimed to reverse the rapport de 
force."As a response to these developments his view is that "the 
dissemination of self-organized knowledge can create a social framework 
containing infinite autonomous and self-reliant worlds."From this 
possibility of self-determination even the notion of workers' 
self-management is seen as problematic since "Far from the emergence of 
proletarian power, ... this self-management as a moment of the 
self-harnessing of the workers to capitalist production in the period of 
real subsumption ... Mistaking the individual capitalist (who, in real 
subsumption disappears into the collective body of share ownership on 
one side, and hired management on the other) rather than the enterprise 
as the problem, ... the workers themselves became a collective 
capitalist, taking on responsibility for the exploitation of their own 
labor. Thus, far from breaking with 'work', ... the workers maintained 
the practice of clocking-in, continued to organize themselves and the 
community around the needs of the factory, paid themselves from profits 
arising from the sale of watches, maintained determined relations 
between individual work done and wage, and continued to wear their work 
shirts throughout the process."


==== André Gorz ====
André Gorz was an Austrian and French social philosopher. Also a 
journalist, he co-founded Le Nouvel Observateur weekly in 1964. A 
supporter of Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist version of Marxism after 
World War Two, in the aftermath of the May '68 student riots, he became 
more concerned with political ecology. His central theme was wage labour 
issues such as liberation from work, the just distribution of work, 
social alienation, and a guaranteed basic income. Among his works 
critical of work and the work ethic include Critique de la division du 
travail (Seuil, 1973. Collective work), Farewell to the Working Class 
(Pluto, 1982 - first published 1980),  Critique of Economic Reason 
(Verso, 1989 - first published 1988) and Reclaiming Work: Beyond the 
Wage-Based Society (Polity, 1999 - first published 1997).


=== Anarchism ===


==== The Abolition of Work ====

The Abolition of Work, Bob Black's most widely read essay, draws upon 
the ideas of Charles Fourier, William Morris, Herbert Marcuse, Paul 
Goodman, and Marshall Sahlins. In it he argues for the abolition of the 
producer- and consumer-based society, where, Black contends, all of life 
is devoted to the production and consumption of commodities. Attacking 
Marxist state socialism as much as market capitalism, Black argues that 
the only way for humans to be free is to reclaim their time from jobs 
and employment, instead turning necessary subsistence tasks into free 
play done voluntarily—an approach referred to as "ludic". The essay 
argues that "no-one should ever work", because work—defined as 
compulsory productive activity enforced by economic or political 
means—is the source of most of the misery in the world.
Black denounces work for its compulsion, and for the forms it takes—as 
subordination to a boss, as a "job" which turns a potentially enjoyable 
task into a meaningless chore, for the degradation imposed by systems of 
work-discipline, and for the large number of work-related deaths and 
injuries—which Black typifies as "homicide". He views the subordination 
enacted in workplaces as "a mockery of freedom", and denounces as 
hypocrites the various theorists who support freedom while supporting 
work. Subordination in work, Black alleges, makes people stupid and 
creates fear of freedom. Because of work, people become accustomed to 
rigidity and regularity, and do not have the time for friendship or 
meaningful activity. Most workers, he states, are dissatisfied with work 
(as evidenced by petty deviance on the job), so that what he says should 
be uncontroversial; however, it is controversial only because people are 
too close to the work-system to see its flaws.
Play, in contrast, is not necessarily rule-governed, and is performed 
voluntarily, in complete freedom, as a gift economy. He points out that 
hunter-gatherer societies are typified by play, a view he backs up with 
the work of Marshall Sahlins; he recounts the rise of hierarchal 
societies, through which work is cumulatively imposed, so that the 
compulsive work of today would seem incomprehensibly oppressive even to 
ancients and medieval peasants. He responds to the view that "work", if 
not simply effort or energy, is necessary to get important but 
unpleasant tasks done, by claiming that first of all, most important 
tasks can be rendered ludic, or "salvaged" by being turned into 
game-like and craft-like activities, and secondly that the vast majority 
of work does not need doing at all. The latter tasks are unnecessary 
because they only serve functions of commerce and social control that 
exist only to maintain the work-system as a whole. As for what is left, 
he advocates Charles Fourier's approach of arranging activities so that 
people will want to do them. He is also skeptical but open-minded about 
the possibility of eliminating work through labor-saving technologies. 
He feels the left cannot go far enough in its critiques because of its 
attachment to building its power on the category of workers, which 
requires a valorization of work.


==== Total Liberation ====
In 2022, Green Theory & Praxis Journal published a Total Liberation 
Pathway which involved "an abolition of compulsory work for all beings." 
Described as a source code to be adapted based on local and changing 
conditions, the proposal involved reducing humans' workweek to 10 hours 
and transforming it into voluntary and self-managed hobbies, while 
freeing animals, ecosystems, plants, minerals, and the planet Earth from 
exploitation. Referring to climate models, the proposal suggested that 
it would be possible to provide a comfortable life for all human beings 
while rewilding at least 75% of the Earth and achieving the ambitious 
300 parts per million and 1 degree Celsius climate targets of 2010's 
People’s Agreement of Cochabamba.


== Stigmatization of people who don't work ==
Those who engage in refusal of work break one of the most powerful 
social norms of contemporary society. Hence they frequently receive 
harassment from people, sometimes irrespective of whether they made the 
choice to leave work behind or not. In Nazi Germany the so-called, 
"work-shy" individuals were rounded up and imprisoned in Nazi 
concentration camps as black triangle prisoners in the so-called "Aktion 
Arbeitsscheu Reich".


=== Other derogatory terms and their history ===


==== Cynic philosophical school ====
Cynicism (Greek: κυνισμός), in its original form, refers to the beliefs 
of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics (Greek: 
Κυνικοί, Latin: Cynici). Their philosophy was that the purpose of life 
was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant 
rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and fame, 
and by living a simple life free from all possessions. They believed 
that the world belonged equally to everyone, and that suffering was 
caused by false judgments of what was valuable and by the worthless 
customs and conventions which surrounded society.

The first philosopher to outline these themes was Antisthenes, who had 
been a pupil of Socrates in the late 5th century BCE. He was followed by 
Diogenes of Sinope, who lived in a tub on the streets of Athens. 
Diogenes took Cynicism to its logical extremes, and came to be seen as 
the archetypal Cynic philosopher. He was followed by Crates of Thebes 
who gave away a large fortune so he could live a life of Cynic poverty 
in Athens. Cynicism spread with the rise of Imperial Rome in the 1st 
century, and Cynics could be found begging and preaching throughout the 
cities of the Empire. It finally disappeared in the late 5th century, 
although many of its ascetic and rhetorical ideas were adopted by early 
Christianity. The name Cynic derives from the Greek word κυνικός, 
kynikos, "dog-like" and that from κύων, kyôn, "dog" (genitive: kynos).It 
seems certain that the word dog was also thrown at the first Cynics as 
an insult for their shameless rejection of conventional manners, and 
their decision to live on the streets. Diogenes, in particular, was 
referred to as the Dog.


==== "Slackers" ====
The term slacker is commonly used to refer to a person who avoids work 
(especially British English), or (primarily in North American English) 
an educated person who is viewed as an underachiever.While use of the 
term slacker dates back to about 1790 or 1898 depending on the source, 
it gained some recognition during the British Gezira Scheme, when 
Sudanese labourers protested their relative powerlessness by working 
lethargically, a form of protest known as 'slacking'. The term achieved 
a boost in popularity after its use in the films Back to the Future and 
Slacker.


==== NEET ====
NEET is an acronym for the government classification for people 
currently "Not in Employment, Education or Training". It was first used 
in the United Kingdom but its use has spread to other countries, 
including the United States, Japan, China, and South Korea.
In the United Kingdom, the classification comprises people aged between 
16 and 24 (some 16-year-olds are still of compulsory education age). In 
Japan, the classification comprises people aged between 15 and 34 who 
are unemployed, unmarried, not enrolled in school or engaged in 
housework, and not seeking work or the technical training needed for 
work. The "NEET group" is not a uniform set of individuals but consists 
of those who will be NEET for a short time while essentially testing out 
a variety of opportunities and those who have major and often multiple 
issues and are at long term risk of remaining disengaged.
In Brazil, "nem-nem" (short of nem estudam nem trabalham (neither study 
nor work) is a term with similar meaning.In Spanish-speaking countries, 
"ni-ni" (short of ni estudia ni trabaja) is also applied.


==== "Freeters" and parasite singles ====
Freeter (フリーター, furītā) (other spellings below) is a Japanese expression 
for people between the age of 15 and 34 who lack full-time employment or 
are unemployed, excluding homemakers and students. They may also be 
described as underemployed or freelance workers. These people do not 
start a career after high school or university but instead usually live 
as so-called parasite singles with their parents and earn some money 
with low skilled and low paid jobs.
The word freeter or freeta was first used around 1987 or 1988 and is 
thought to be an amalgamation of the English word free (or perhaps 
freelance) and the German word Arbeiter ("worker").Parasite single 
(パラサイトシングル, parasaito shinguru) is a Japanese term for a single person 
who lives with their parents until their late twenties or early thirties 
in order to enjoy a carefree and comfortable life. In English, the 
expression "sponge" or "basement dweller" may sometimes be used.
The expression is mainly used in reference to Japanese society, but 
similar phenomena can also be found in other countries worldwide. In 
Italy, 30-something singles still relying on their mothers are joked 
about, being called Bamboccioni (literally: grown-up babies) and in 
Germany they are known as Nesthocker (German for an altricial bird), who 
are still living at Hotel Mama.
Such behaviour is considered normal in Greece, both because of the 
traditional strong family ties and because of the low wages.


==== Welfare queens ====
A Welfare queen is a derogatory term for a person, almost exclusively 
female and usually a single mother, who lives primarily from welfare and 
other public assistance funds. The term implies that the person collects 
welfare, charity, or other handouts either fraudulently or excessively 
and that the person intentionally chooses to live "on the dole" as 
opposed to seeking gainful employment, ostensibly due to laziness.


==== Vagrancy ====
A vagrant is derogatory term for a person in a situation of poverty, who 
wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or 
income. Many towns in the developed world have shelters for vagrants. 
Common terminology is a tramp or a 'gentleman of the road'.
Laws against vagrancy in the United States have partly been invalidated 
as violative of the due process clauses of the U.S. Constitution. 
However, the FBI report on crime in the United States for 2005 lists 
24,359 vagrancy violations.


==== "Hobos", "tramps", and "bums" ====

A hobo is a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The 
term originated in the western—probably northwestern—United States 
during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike tramps, who worked 
only when they were forced to, and bums, who did not work at all, hobos 
were workers who wandered.In British English and traditional American 
English usage, a tramp is a long term homeless person who travels from 
place to place as an itinerant vagrant, traditionally walking or hiking 
all year round.
While some tramps may do odd jobs from time to time, unlike other 
temporarily homeless people they do not seek out regular work and 
support themselves by other means such as begging or scavenging. This is 
in contrast to:

bum, a stationary homeless person who does not work, and who begs or 
steals for a living in one place.
hobo, a homeless person who travels from place to place looking for 
work, often by "freighthopping", illegally catching rides on freight trains
Schnorrer, a Yiddish term for a person who travels from city to city 
begging.Both terms, "tramp" and "hobo" (and the distinction between 
them), were in common use between the 1880s and the 1940s. Their 
populations and the usage of the terms increased during the Great 
Depression.
Like "hobo" and "bum", the word "tramp" is considered vulgar in American 
English usage, having been subsumed in more polite contexts by words 
such as "homeless person." In colloquial American English, the word 
"tramp" can also mean a sexually promiscuous female or even prostitute. 
Tramps used to be known euphemistically in England and Wales as 
"gentlemen of the road".
Tramp is derived from the Middle English as a verb meaning to "walk with 
heavy footsteps", and to go hiking. Bart Kennedy, a self-described tramp 
of 1900 US, once said "I listen to the tramp, tramp of my feet, and 
wonder where I was going, and why I was going."


==== "Gutter punks" ====
A gutter punk is a homeless or transient individual, often through means 
of freighthopping or hitchhiking. Gutter punks are often juveniles who 
are in some way associated with the anarcho-punk subculture. In certain 
regions, gutter punks are notorious for panhandling and often display 
cardboard signs that make statements about their lifestyles. Gutter 
punks are generally characterized as being voluntarily unemployed.


== See also ==


== Literature ==
George M. Alliger: Anti-Work: Psychological Investigations Into Its 
Truths, Problems, and Solutions, ISBN 978-0367758592, 2022.


== References ==


== External links ==