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Problem with Work, The: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries


Problem with Work, The: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries

Paperback by Weeks, Kathi

Problem with Work, The: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries

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ISBN:
9780822351122
Publication Date:
9 Sep 2011
Language:
English
Publisher:
Duke University Press
Pages:
304 pages
Format:
Paperback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 18 - 19 Apr 2024
Problem with Work, The: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries

Description

In The Problem with Work, Kathi Weeks boldly challenges the presupposition that work, or waged labor, is inherently a social and political good. While progressive political movements, including the Marxist and feminist movements, have fought for equal pay, better work conditions, and the recognition of unpaid work as a valued form of labor, even they have tended to accept work as a naturalized or inevitable activity. Weeks argues that in taking work as a given, we have "depoliticized" it, or removed it from the realm of political critique. Employment is now largely privatized, and work-based activism in the United States has atrophied. We have accepted waged work as the primary mechanism for income distribution, as an ethical obligation, and as a means of defining ourselves and others as social and political subjects. Taking up Marxist and feminist critiques, Weeks proposes a postwork society that would allow people to be productive and creative rather than relentlessly bound to the employment relation. Work, she contends, is a legitimate, even crucial, subject for political theory.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction. The Problem with Work 1 1. Mapping the Work Ethic 37 2. Marxism, Productivism, and the Refusal of Work 79 3. Working Demands: From Wages for Housework to Basic Income 113 4. "Hours for What We Will": Work, Family, and the Demand for Shorter Hours 151 5. The Future Is Now: Utopian Demands and the Temporalities of Hope 175 Epilogue. A Life beyond Work 227 Notes 235 References 255 Index 275

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