“Wildcat slowdowns” would be an organized action by a collective of workers. This is just bourgeois idealism and getting the workers to quit voluntarily and create a reserve army of labor because unemployment was too low (or to act in such a way they can easily be fired). Quitting without any organized mass action is the opposite of a working class action, it’s voluntarily assisting the bourgeois class interests instead of your own and replacing working class mass organizing with individual purity seeking.
Just doing less work at your job is fine, but don’t pretend it’s revolutionary activity unless it’s organized and coordinated as a tactic. If you get fired for “time theft”, they don’t have to pay you severance or unemployment. If you quit, they don’t have to pay you severance or unemployment.
This is why union organizers always tell those unionizers to keep working and do a good job at their work while they are organizing, because the corporation is looking for any excuse to fire you and you need to be unimpeachable.
So instead of being lazy and then getting fired, which is an ideal situation for bourgeoise that want to cool down the labor market without having to do lay-offs - instead do your job competently and organize your coworkers to fight for better wages
its just my impression of what it is by its use in a few articles i skimmed. the columnist class makes it out like its some kid of 'movement', but a) it probably isn't and b) they're not encouraging it, they're condemning it.
well, and worse than that they're inserting it into every possible subject to fan engagement & 'discourse'. starting to get quite :stop-posting-amogus: even though i only bothered to investigate the term today lol
It isn’t a real “movement” but they are trying to make it one, a fad anyway.
They are “condemning it” like they “condemned” anti-work, because the columnist class knows they are reviled by working class people and they know that some can be tricked with reverse psychology if they create a narrative that “oh no don’t get fired on purpose, the bourgeois would really hate that if you did that”. It’s currently just an intriguing peculiarity to columnists right now because it isn’t a legitimately threatening mass labor movement.
Once a legitimately threatening mass labor movement happens you will see what it really looks like when the media hates something, and it won’t be trying to will it into existence - it will be ignoring it, slandering it & spinning it into an evil Russian/Chinese fifth column
this is a very minor disagreement i shouldn't have used 'wildcat' so you didn't get the impression i thought quiet quitting was a form of activism. i was trying to inflect the less organized nature of wildcat than unadjectived slowdown, which also implies a level of organization . maybe 'disorganized' or 'individual' would've been better. point was that we have existing labor vocabulary for things being trotted out as new, pathologized and propagandized
Eh, I think it’s an active effort to muddy the water for what the population considers labor activism, in an attempt to pre-empt labor activism they know might be coming and steer it down a harmless route. I don’t think this type of individualist “activism” should be encouraged at all, and any workers participating in this type of strategy should change tactics to the tried and true proven methods of militant labor organization.
I know, and that’s based and good. That’s militant labor organization right there, and what I am saying is the actual path forward.
I’m criticizing anyone who thinks “anti-work” or “quiet quitting” movements have any value whatsoever. These are oppositional to militant organizing. You can’t organize and strike if you just quit alone.
Communists are not opposed to “work”. We instead support the interests of workers, which includes continued employment.
Oh of course. I sorta have some nostalgia for the /r/antiwork subreddit because when I saw it like in 2016 because it was more ideologically leftist and a super niche subreddit which sorta helped me in my radicalization but back when that mod went and did that interview I remember going to the subreddit once again to find people upset that their "movement" had been destroyed when it was a place a bunch of people went to complain about their shitty work conditions and other people would try to get them to buy into crypto to "stop working."
I wanted to become a nurse because I wanted to put good into the world, in reality I"m just lining the pockets of the executive suites while they exploit my desire to try to help people and overwork me. In a just society I would have a safe patient load and be able to provide the highest quality care possible because it's not about profits but instead about just improving health and helping people.
The issue with the anti-work subreddit was two-fold. First, it claimed to be a movement and a solution. If it just claimed to be a place to shitpost and gripe about work, that sort of thing than it wouldn’t really be an issue just another lefty online space. The problem was the advice they were given was things like “quit your job” which is terrible advice for most working people, and they convinced the more naive among their ranks that they were participating in a political mass movement or labor organizing (while they were doing no such thing, you can’t organize if you quit alone).
Second, even though it was ideologically leftist it was very utopian and idealist and individualist in its outlook, which allowed the cryptobros and petty bourgeois an in (don’t like being a wagie in your cagie? Have you heard about passive income or owning a business and being your own boss?). Its branding is terrible, makes it seem infantile. “Anti-work” is only a viable position in a post-scarcity world with relative equality. We live in a capitalist imperialist world with sharp inequality, and work still needs to get done to keep society functioning. When 1st world workers shirk their work, either things will start to break down for society as a whole or 3rd word workers will have to pick up the slack. It starts to seem like their ultimate aim is merely the redistribution of wealth and labor within the imperialist core, social imperialism. Otherwise their position is incoherent and impossibly utopian given our current world.
Radlibs just want a shortcut to the hard work of labor organizing. There are no short cuts. There are no tricks to create utopia the capitalists don’t want you to know. We should not be “anti-work” we should be pro-worker, and that distinction is important. Full employment is a worker demand.
“Wildcat slowdowns” would be an organized action by a collective of workers. This is just bourgeois idealism and getting the workers to quit voluntarily and create a reserve army of labor because unemployment was too low (or to act in such a way they can easily be fired). Quitting without any organized mass action is the opposite of a working class action, it’s voluntarily assisting the bourgeois class interests instead of your own and replacing working class mass organizing with individual purity seeking.
Just doing less work at your job is fine, but don’t pretend it’s revolutionary activity unless it’s organized and coordinated as a tactic. If you get fired for “time theft”, they don’t have to pay you severance or unemployment. If you quit, they don’t have to pay you severance or unemployment.
This is why union organizers always tell those unionizers to keep working and do a good job at their work while they are organizing, because the corporation is looking for any excuse to fire you and you need to be unimpeachable.
So instead of being lazy and then getting fired, which is an ideal situation for bourgeoise that want to cool down the labor market without having to do lay-offs - instead do your job competently and organize your coworkers to fight for better wages
its just my impression of what it is by its use in a few articles i skimmed. the columnist class makes it out like its some kid of 'movement', but a) it probably isn't and b) they're not encouraging it, they're condemning it.
well, and worse than that they're inserting it into every possible subject to fan engagement & 'discourse'. starting to get quite :stop-posting-amogus: even though i only bothered to investigate the term today lol
It isn’t a real “movement” but they are trying to make it one, a fad anyway.
They are “condemning it” like they “condemned” anti-work, because the columnist class knows they are reviled by working class people and they know that some can be tricked with reverse psychology if they create a narrative that “oh no don’t get fired on purpose, the bourgeois would really hate that if you did that”. It’s currently just an intriguing peculiarity to columnists right now because it isn’t a legitimately threatening mass labor movement.
Once a legitimately threatening mass labor movement happens you will see what it really looks like when the media hates something, and it won’t be trying to will it into existence - it will be ignoring it, slandering it & spinning it into an evil Russian/Chinese fifth column
this is a very minor disagreement i shouldn't have used 'wildcat' so you didn't get the impression i thought quiet quitting was a form of activism. i was trying to inflect the less organized nature of wildcat than unadjectived slowdown, which also implies a level of organization . maybe 'disorganized' or 'individual' would've been better. point was that we have existing labor vocabulary for things being trotted out as new, pathologized and propagandized
Eh, I think it’s an active effort to muddy the water for what the population considers labor activism, in an attempt to pre-empt labor activism they know might be coming and steer it down a harmless route. I don’t think this type of individualist “activism” should be encouraged at all, and any workers participating in this type of strategy should change tactics to the tried and true proven methods of militant labor organization.
"Such a lot of devils, that's what the papers say. They go on strike for shorter hours, and a raise in pay. They left the camps, the lazy tramps, they all walked out as one. They say they'll win the strike or put the bosses on the bum."
Looking back to around 50 years ago and you can see an example in some labor folk music about how the papers will sell anything as bad.
Individualist “anti-work” attitudes and disorganized quitting actually is bad. It’s idealist and leads nowhere.
...It's a song about 50000 lumberjacks going on strike?
I know, and that’s based and good. That’s militant labor organization right there, and what I am saying is the actual path forward.
I’m criticizing anyone who thinks “anti-work” or “quiet quitting” movements have any value whatsoever. These are oppositional to militant organizing. You can’t organize and strike if you just quit alone.
Communists are not opposed to “work”. We instead support the interests of workers, which includes continued employment.
Oh of course. I sorta have some nostalgia for the /r/antiwork subreddit because when I saw it like in 2016 because it was more ideologically leftist and a super niche subreddit which sorta helped me in my radicalization but back when that mod went and did that interview I remember going to the subreddit once again to find people upset that their "movement" had been destroyed when it was a place a bunch of people went to complain about their shitty work conditions and other people would try to get them to buy into crypto to "stop working."
I wanted to become a nurse because I wanted to put good into the world, in reality I"m just lining the pockets of the executive suites while they exploit my desire to try to help people and overwork me. In a just society I would have a safe patient load and be able to provide the highest quality care possible because it's not about profits but instead about just improving health and helping people.
The issue with the anti-work subreddit was two-fold. First, it claimed to be a movement and a solution. If it just claimed to be a place to shitpost and gripe about work, that sort of thing than it wouldn’t really be an issue just another lefty online space. The problem was the advice they were given was things like “quit your job” which is terrible advice for most working people, and they convinced the more naive among their ranks that they were participating in a political mass movement or labor organizing (while they were doing no such thing, you can’t organize if you quit alone).
Second, even though it was ideologically leftist it was very utopian and idealist and individualist in its outlook, which allowed the cryptobros and petty bourgeois an in (don’t like being a wagie in your cagie? Have you heard about passive income or owning a business and being your own boss?). Its branding is terrible, makes it seem infantile. “Anti-work” is only a viable position in a post-scarcity world with relative equality. We live in a capitalist imperialist world with sharp inequality, and work still needs to get done to keep society functioning. When 1st world workers shirk their work, either things will start to break down for society as a whole or 3rd word workers will have to pick up the slack. It starts to seem like their ultimate aim is merely the redistribution of wealth and labor within the imperialist core, social imperialism. Otherwise their position is incoherent and impossibly utopian given our current world.
Radlibs just want a shortcut to the hard work of labor organizing. There are no short cuts. There are no tricks to create utopia the capitalists don’t want you to know. We should not be “anti-work” we should be pro-worker, and that distinction is important. Full employment is a worker demand.