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.
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.