Reclaiming Work, Beyond the Wage-Based Society

by Gorz, André (1999)

Key Passage

Never has the ideology of work-as-value been proclaimed,flaunted, reiterated so unashamedly and never has capital's – business's– domination of the conditions and price of labour been soundisputed. Never has the 'irreplaceable', 'indispensable' function oflabour as the source of 'social ties', 'social cohesion', 'integration',`socialization', 'personalization', 'personal identity' and meaningbeen invoked so obsessively as it has since the day it became unableany longer to fulfil any of these functions – nor any of the five structuralfunctions Marie Yahoda identified for it in her famous study ofthe unemployed of Marienthal in the early 1930s. Having becomeinsecure, flexible, intermittent, variable as regards hours and wages,employment no longer integrates one into a community, no longerstructures the daily, weekly or annual round, or the stages of life, andis no longer the foundation on which everyone can base his/her lifeproject.  (p.56)

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Gorz Citations

Translator

Turner, C.

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