David Frayne

Paid work is absolutely central to the culture and politics of capitalist societies, yet today’s work-centred world is becoming increasingly hostile to the human need for autonomy, spontaneity and community. The grim reality of a society in which some are overworked, whilst others are condemned to intermittent work and unemployment, is progressively more difficult to tolerate. In this thought-provoking book, David Frayne questions the central place of work in mainstream political visions of the future, laying bare the ways in which economic demands colonise our lives and priorities. Drawing on his original research into the lives of people who are actively resisting nine-to-five employment, Frayne asks what motivates these people to disconnect from work, whether or not their resistance is futile, and whether they might have the capacity to inspire an alternative form of development, based on a reduction and social redistribution of work. A crucial dissection of the work-centred nature of modern society and emerging resistance to it, The Refusal of Work is a bold call for a more humane and sustainable vision of social progress.

The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work

The Refusal of Work

Lindy

the obligation to paid employment so often precludes the possibility of engaging in activities that are genuinely creative, collaborative and useful

Marx believed that work had ceased to be an activity that expressed the human need to shape the surrounding world, and was now instead performed joylessly, out of the necessity to make a living. It had, in other words, become an alienated activity.

The message of advertising's immense landscape is ubiquitous and uniform: it tells us that no matter how much we already have, the only real way to secure happiness is to buy more.

Maybe more concerning, from the perspective of those in society's most powerful positions, was the prospect that increased leisure time might lubricate the political consciousness of the poor, or leave people with more time for collective action.

The student's opportunities to follow her own interests, work according to her own schedule, and mix work and play are opportunities which are rarely enjoyed beyond university.

The false dichotomy essentially says that people face a choice between work and laziness. It does not register the social value of activities such as caring for children, parents, neighbours, partners and friends, and it is even more blind to the intrinsic value of non-work activities that are worthwhile ends in themselves: activities such as playing, talking, enjoying nature, or creating and appreciating cultural artefacts. 

Without warning, we are filled by the horrible feeling that our lives are predetermined, first by the managers, targets and procedures that shape our working lives, and then by the restrictions of our depleted time and energy when we arrive home.

I believe we need to get beyond telling people about the benefits of 'balance'. We need to be much bolder and start discussing different ways of organising and distributing work, so as to give everybody more free-time.

The Refusal of Work quotes

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