The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Refusal of WorkThe Theory and Practice of Resistance to WorkBy David FrayneZed Books LtdCopyright © 2015 David FrayneAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-78360-118-9ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, INTRODUCTION The work dogma, ONE A provocation, TWO Working pains, THREE The colonising power of work, FOUR The stronghold of work, FIVE The breaking point, SIX Alternative pleasures, SEVEN Half a person, EIGHT From escapism to autonomy, NOTES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, INDEX, CHAPTER 1A provocationModern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.Bertrand Russell – 'In Praise of Idleness' (2004c: 15)In his 1972 book Working, Studs Terkel collected transcripts from over a hundred interviews with working Americans, providing an intricate snapshot of American life from an astonishing range of perspectives (Terkel, 2004). In this enormous book, we hear from welders, waiters, cab drivers, housewives, actors and telephone operators, as each discuss their hopes, fears and everyday experiences at work. Much of Terkel's book is about the little coping strategies that people use to get through the working day, from pranks and teasing to fantasising and other strategies of mental detachment. A gas-meter reader passes the time by ogling a housewife who sunbathes in her bikini. A waitress makes the day go quicker by gliding between tables, pretending to be a ballerina. A production line worker says 'fuck it', and takes a rest without permission. Standing back to reflect on the interviews in Working, Terkel wrote:This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, a book about violence – to the spirit as well as the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations. (Terkel, 2004: xi)Many of the accounts featured in Terkel's book give substance to his conclusion that work is violence, yet some of the book's accounts also offer glimpses of work's pleasures. In one memorable case, a piano tuner portrayed his work as an artistic exercise, describing how he would enter an almost hypnotic state of concentration and aesthetic delight as he brought harmony to the pianos. His account brings to mind the notion of the 'flow state': a psychological condition of complete and blissful absorption in the task at hand, entered when a work task synchronises with a person's skill level and interests (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). In the flow, one loses track of time and space, focusing only on the craft. It is the opposite experience to that of the bored worker who watches the ticking clock, unable to shake his physical surroundings from his mind.The delight of Terkel's piano tuner is a form of pleasure unfamiliar to many people. In modern capitalist societies, access to satisfying and engaging work is profoundly unequal. For those who work in jobs with dubious social utility, subjected to the latest innovations in workplace organisation and control, work often represents a struggle against boredom, meaninglessness and exhaustion. A range of personal tactics help us to survive the working day: we remind ourselves that we are more interesting than the jobs we do, we stage imaginary rebellions against bosses and clients, or we hide away in shells of cynicism. Sometimes we construct elaborate escapes and compensations out of hours in an effort to forget (or 'rebalance', as the life coaches call it). In later chapters I will introduce people who describe work as an external, coercive pressure in their lives. They talk about how they felt 'compressed', 'controlled' and 'forced' in their wo