Today I read a news story about the anti-work movement. I found it really interesting for a number of reasons. First off, I support this unnamed labor strike, because things have gotten totally out of hand with the division between labor and management in terms of pay and labor. I understand wanting to fundamentally change the way employees interact with the company structure. I also support what a lot of young people are doing today: Becoming makers and having their own small, local companies.
What I have a hard time swallowing are the young people like Larry, the first anti-worker of the article, who lives rent free... on his mom's property. He isn't working, so who is paying for food, electric, his health care? You know his mom is at least paying for the taxes on the property they are both living on. And probably his mom has paid for his trailer.
Larry is the kind of guy, IMHO, who, at first blush, gives the anti-work movement a bad name. Larry, if I thought he were a young man, would be judged as "lazy". Larry, however, is 52. The odds of him being hired at that age is horrifically small, and will get smaller as he ages. The article mentions his mother (who is likely in her 70s) but not father, and the article does not discuss whether or not Larry is, in fact, caring for his mother as she ages in place, if the property she owns is paid off, or any other more relevant details.
Several years ago I was in a public speaking and debate class in graduate school where a young woman contended that young people should "hold out for their dream job". As the discussion evolved, it was pretty clear that most of the class bought into that. I was, at that point, some 20 years older than anyone in the class, and pointed out that while they were staying home waiting for the dream job to open up, they were being supported by their (still working) parents. That their having "no expenses" was a fallacy, and that in fact their parents were paying with their labor for the labor they refused to do.
I stand by that.
But labor, as young people are discovering more today, does not have to mean grinding away at a 9 to 5 in some soulless cubicle. More and more young people, like those in the article, have become makers, and have what amounts to their own small businesses.
I'm hearing more and more about "side hustles", the idea originating in the fact that in no state in the nation can you work a 40 hour week at minimum wage and still afford your own apartment (much less own a home!) so people work multiple jobs and/or become creators, advisors, or care givers independently on the remaining time they have.
I've always found this a little confusing, because the people I know who are the most anti-work often seem to be working harder and for more hours than people who are "company men". As it turns out, anti-work is not anti-labor, it's anti-exploitation.
What's going on in the economy right now is difficult for me, an impoverished senior who has held down jobs since the age of 11, but being a worker after the Reagan years meant contract work with no retirement benefits. At the same time I see a movement that may bode well for the future, and not just socially and economically, but environmentally as well.
What I'm seeing coming about is more communal living, local small companies and communities of makers with goods produced locally. And this isn't just "artists" in the sense of those who create "decorative" items, but artist in woodworking, cooking, and clothing and textile production.
And whole communities are being built by the increasing numbers of homeless people, communities of mutual support and lower ecological impact than the "encampments" that homeless were corralled into in the past. Places like Cob on Wood. It's important to point out that the homeless of today are not necessarily anti-work. Many are working individuals. San Francisco, for example, has a large number of teachers who live in their cars or RVs because they cannot afford rent in San Francisco. But these communities may provide models for cooperative communities of the future.
Locally we already have "co-living communities"... communities of small homes, sometimes with shared kitchens, community gardens, and some sort of creative space. They are, perhaps, the capitalist version of a commune: two ideas that we've been taught are radically opposed working together to the benefit of both individual and community.
I believe we can, and probably should, live in smaller, tight knit communities. I think we could do entirely without factory farms, cities, and Amazon. The idea that there are once again corporate cities being built by Amazon and Google harkens back to the days of the rail and the "company store" where everything you "owned" or had access to was provided by the company... and the money they paid you went directly back into their corporate pockets as they not only owned the stores and the land, but even printed the money you used to buy the things you need, money that was useless elsewhere. Amazon and other companies have been playing with company scrip for a while now, and I see the growth of "incentives" and "rewards programs" for employees as an ever growing extension of that.
The world is changing. Those young people (and older people) who are anti-work are no longer likely to be lazy parasites on society (or their parents!) but are looking for symbiotic relationships both with family and community. It's a different kind of living, and it flies in the face of the American concept of "Rugged Individualism" and offers a profoundly different American Dream. I hope it's a dream that will come to pass.
Several years ago I was in a public speaking and debate class in graduate school where a young woman contended that young people should "hold out for their dream job". As the discussion evolved, it was pretty clear that most of the class bought into that. I was, at that point, some 20 years older than anyone in the class, and pointed out that while they were staying home waiting for the dream job to open up, they were being supported by their (still working) parents. That their having "no expenses" was a fallacy, and that in fact their parents were paying with their labor for the labor they refused to do.
I stand by that.
But labor, as young people are discovering more today, does not have to mean grinding away at a 9 to 5 in some soulless cubicle. More and more young people, like those in the article, have become makers, and have what amounts to their own small businesses.
I'm hearing more and more about "side hustles", the idea originating in the fact that in no state in the nation can you work a 40 hour week at minimum wage and still afford your own apartment (much less own a home!) so people work multiple jobs and/or become creators, advisors, or care givers independently on the remaining time they have.
I've always found this a little confusing, because the people I know who are the most anti-work often seem to be working harder and for more hours than people who are "company men". As it turns out, anti-work is not anti-labor, it's anti-exploitation.
What's going on in the economy right now is difficult for me, an impoverished senior who has held down jobs since the age of 11, but being a worker after the Reagan years meant contract work with no retirement benefits. At the same time I see a movement that may bode well for the future, and not just socially and economically, but environmentally as well.
What I'm seeing coming about is more communal living, local small companies and communities of makers with goods produced locally. And this isn't just "artists" in the sense of those who create "decorative" items, but artist in woodworking, cooking, and clothing and textile production.
And whole communities are being built by the increasing numbers of homeless people, communities of mutual support and lower ecological impact than the "encampments" that homeless were corralled into in the past. Places like Cob on Wood. It's important to point out that the homeless of today are not necessarily anti-work. Many are working individuals. San Francisco, for example, has a large number of teachers who live in their cars or RVs because they cannot afford rent in San Francisco. But these communities may provide models for cooperative communities of the future.
Locally we already have "co-living communities"... communities of small homes, sometimes with shared kitchens, community gardens, and some sort of creative space. They are, perhaps, the capitalist version of a commune: two ideas that we've been taught are radically opposed working together to the benefit of both individual and community.
I believe we can, and probably should, live in smaller, tight knit communities. I think we could do entirely without factory farms, cities, and Amazon. The idea that there are once again corporate cities being built by Amazon and Google harkens back to the days of the rail and the "company store" where everything you "owned" or had access to was provided by the company... and the money they paid you went directly back into their corporate pockets as they not only owned the stores and the land, but even printed the money you used to buy the things you need, money that was useless elsewhere. Amazon and other companies have been playing with company scrip for a while now, and I see the growth of "incentives" and "rewards programs" for employees as an ever growing extension of that.
The world is changing. Those young people (and older people) who are anti-work are no longer likely to be lazy parasites on society (or their parents!) but are looking for symbiotic relationships both with family and community. It's a different kind of living, and it flies in the face of the American concept of "Rugged Individualism" and offers a profoundly different American Dream. I hope it's a dream that will come to pass.
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