9 ms·

The rise of the anti-work movement

59 points by perfunctory 5y ago

Atlas667 5y ago
The only reason mainstream media is talking about this is because the anti work "movement" is not radical and does not threaten capitalism in any way. Instead of a discussion on the nature of capitalism and how worker exploitation is central to it, the subreddit talks about why employers ideas need to change. Zero historical materialist analysis. If i was smarter I'd think this is another one of those 3 letter agency funded programs to control dissent.
- glial 5y ago
  If I had to guess, I'd say that grousing probably came before structural analysis historically too. But we don't have archived reddit comments from historical workers movements, only the published works that followed lots of discussion.
- mc32 5y ago
  No kind of economic system will tolerate a large percentage of people who do not desire to be productive. It threatens all working economic systems. No kibbutz, no socialist, no communist, no laissez faire, no capitalist, etc. They all need productive people to do things. How long would these people last as bushmen or pastoralists? Do they think others in the group will put up with unproductive people who otherwise are able bodied?
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    When a revolution happens the result is nothing more than change of the elites. Things need to get done, the management style can only affect the efficiency and sustainability. You can’t suddenly have a society where everyone is a theoretical physicist, for example. You can pretend to achieve it only if you can label the cooks outsiders. The Only true change is when technology changes something.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  > Zero historical materialist analysis. If i was smarter I'd think this is another one of those 3 letter agency funded programs to control dissent. I think it's a bit much to consider Marxism some inevitable conclusion that all who consider the problems with society eventually will arrive at. That's whig history at best. It, first of all, requires you to identify with and accept the notion of classes as an part of an ontological category with agency. It's perfectly reasonable to say no, classes only appear to have human-like properties in the same way a the sun or a thundercloud appeared to be a god with thoughts and wants to people of the past. That is to say, they only exist as idea, within the infinite realm of ideas, and it doesn't even make sense to say they aren't real.
  - Atlas667 5y ago
    Is it perfectly reasonable to say that? If you have evidence I'd be more than willing to go through it. Most people do not control production and even the small amount who do control production make their decisions according to their material interests (not evil or twisted morals). Those who do not control production must work for those who do in exchange of money. These two groups' economic interests as a whole contradict themselves even though they are locked into a social relationship. These relationships change based on the development of production. This is the basis of social classes in marxism. Its not just imagination. No other theory has explained the progression of society in such a complete way. Some just talk about ideas, others about the qualities of great men but none can profoundly explain progress on a material basis. I've seen both sides of the coin while it seems you've only imagined flipping it. "The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange."
- NeutralCrane 5y ago
  There was non-stop railing against capitalism and pro-socialism cheerleading in that sub, so your conspiracy theory is a poor one. The reason the sub is getting lots of coverage is because it has exploded over the last year, and because it manages to present its ideas in as poorly a light as possible.
  - Atlas667 5y ago
    Anti capitalism and pro "socialism" aren't actually hard indicators of marxism, believe it or not. There has been so much political distortion that circles who use those terms are, more often than not, filled with liberals rather than marxists. And often times that's what some of us call the synthetic left. Groups of so called leftists lead by think tanks, NGOs or even historically by intelligence agency agents whose sole purpose is to spread disinfo, deradicalize or confuse people all while using a radical aesthetic.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    Serious question is is pro-socialism for people to complain that billionaires keep getting property tax breaks while normal working people keep seeing their property taxes go up in part to fund them?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  Almost all media is owned and controlled by corporations. So obviously the media will always be on the side of the employers. No 3 letter agency required for that to happen.
emptybottle 5y ago
> Shortly after the publication of this story on 26 Jan 2022, the r/antiwork subbredit went private This is the weird part. A mod went on fox news, the interview went sideways, and now the sub is locked. Isn’t the point of going on the air to promote the sub? Why lock it down right when it has so much new attention?
- afloyd 5y ago
  Essentially what happened is the mod went into an interview without telling anyone, without preparing, and basically managed to destroy all momentum the sub had, and then started banning anyone who brought up the interview, leading to a max exodus because that goes againt the entire point of the movement.
- ndiddy 5y ago
  If you watch the interview I think it’s pretty self evident how it embarrassed the subreddit into locking down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yUMIFYBMnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yUMIFYBMnc
  - syncbehind 5y ago
    I couldn't finish watching that. Rough.
    - RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
      Watch it again. The interviewer wasn't even trying to be mean. The argument just crumbled in on itself in the atmospheric pressure of the real world.
      - perryizgr8 5y ago
        I've seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere too, something to the effect of "echo chamber collapses when exposed to the real world". I wonder how many internet forums that thrive today, only because of this isolation from the real world. Sometimes I feel this is true for HN, to a certain extent.
user249 5y ago
I'm trying to catch up on some reddit drama. Apparently the mod of r/antiwork did an interview on Fox News that didn't go so well. I can only imagine Fox is spinning it as "young people are lazy" https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/sddx07/the_antiwork_sub_literally_just_imploded/ https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/sddx07...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- esyir 5y ago
  Believe me, fox didn't have to spin anything. It's the softest interview I've seen, and that mod absolutely blew it.
- bart_spoon 5y ago
  Did you watch the interview? Fox doesn't have to spin anything, it was a disaster. In response to the question "Are they [the members of the sub] lazy?" The mod responded with "Laziness is a virtue in a society that demands we be productive". They also said that they work 20 hours a week as a dog-walker but think they should work less, and ideally would like to teach philosophy. The anchor asked some incredibly softball questions and the mod did their work for them.
  - user249 5y ago
    I've watched it now. What a disaster!
- Havoc 5y ago
  There was absolutely no need to spin that. It was a straight up train wreck of an interview
- _fat_santa 5y ago
  > I can only imagine Fox is spinning it as "young people are lazy" No need. Jessie Waters basically sat back and let the person dig their own grave.
FrozenVoid 5y ago
The main reason anti-work exists, is that work is wage slavery pretending to be a hobby-like 'profession' that isn't ordered top-down. People discover this and begin to hate it, but they are dependent on work to live: the pandemic exposed how useless most jobs are for the current generation and how the work is mostly bureaucratic schedules and regulations which treat humans like replaceable robots(which is the ideal worker in a modern world).
- Gravityloss 5y ago
  Well I think it's a case of expectation management then... Work has many sides. Drudgery, dread, friendship, fulfillment, passion, being bored out of your mind. And money of course too.
  - JaimeThompson 5y ago
    Treating people like people is done less and less these days which doesn't help matters nor does the idea that everything workers do has to be turned into a metric that has to meet ever increasing values while those at the top of the company are not put in near the same situation.
  - ramphastidae 5y ago
    Expecting minimum wage to track inflation is not mismanaged expectations, it’s a basic part of the social and societal contract. Don’t blame workers in the world’s richest country for being unhappy with a measly $7 rise in minimum wage in 84 years.
    - Gravityloss 5y ago
      Well that's a different statement from the original and I do agree it's a problem worth discussing.
    - didgeoridoo 5y ago
      The federal minimum wage has increased by approximately 2,400% since its inception, nearly double the rate of inflation.
omgmajk 5y ago
That sub went complete trainwreck in less than a day after that was aired.
dang 5y ago
Recent and related: Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30095366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30095366 - Jan 2022 (117 comments)
- Gigachad 5y ago
  I think this whole situation came about because the original user base of anti work wasn’t about workers rights or work reform. But it was quite literally against working at all. So you have all these regular people joining last year who have very different ideas than the mods who founded it. It’s like the split between “defund the police” vs “reform the police”. People will tell you it was never about totally removing the police entirely but there are certainly people who believe the statements to their most literal meanings.
mgh2 5y ago
More than anything, it is a breakdown of American values. As the "purpose" of work is redefined, leaving a chasm to be filled https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903457 https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a577eba4f3e https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a57...
wilhow 5y ago
The label "Antiwork" doesn't representation the movement doesn't it? It's really about fair labour, I don't think most people want to not work. I think most people want to work in exchange for a livable resource, be it wages, work/life balance, recognition, etc. There are plenty of people who are willing to work hard to have a mundane life. A simple car, a apartment/suburban home, an annual vacation, affordable healthcare, education for their kids, nothing extravagant. The issue is today's corp slave trade their employees and it's at a point where it's not sustainable anymore. Hence, IMHO, it's less about antiwork, but more about fair labour.

59 points by perfunctory 5y ago

The only reason mainstream media is talking about this is because the anti work "movement" is not radical and does not threaten capitalism in any way. Instead of a discussion on the nature of capitalism and how worker exploitation is central to it, the subreddit talks about why employers ideas need to change. Zero historical materialist analysis. If i was smarter I'd think this is another one of those 3 letter agency funded programs to control dissent.

glial 5y ago
If I had to guess, I'd say that grousing probably came before structural analysis historically too. But we don't have archived reddit comments from historical workers movements, only the published works that followed lots of discussion.
mc32 5y ago
No kind of economic system will tolerate a large percentage of people who do not desire to be productive. It threatens all working economic systems. No kibbutz, no socialist, no communist, no laissez faire, no capitalist, etc. They all need productive people to do things. How long would these people last as bushmen or pastoralists? Do they think others in the group will put up with unproductive people who otherwise are able bodied?
- mrtksn 5y ago
  When a revolution happens the result is nothing more than change of the elites. Things need to get done, the management style can only affect the efficiency and sustainability. You can’t suddenly have a society where everyone is a theoretical physicist, for example. You can pretend to achieve it only if you can label the cooks outsiders. The Only true change is when technology changes something.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
> Zero historical materialist analysis. If i was smarter I'd think this is another one of those 3 letter agency funded programs to control dissent. I think it's a bit much to consider Marxism some inevitable conclusion that all who consider the problems with society eventually will arrive at. That's whig history at best. It, first of all, requires you to identify with and accept the notion of classes as an part of an ontological category with agency. It's perfectly reasonable to say no, classes only appear to have human-like properties in the same way a the sun or a thundercloud appeared to be a god with thoughts and wants to people of the past. That is to say, they only exist as idea, within the infinite realm of ideas, and it doesn't even make sense to say they aren't real.
- Atlas667 5y ago
  Is it perfectly reasonable to say that? If you have evidence I'd be more than willing to go through it. Most people do not control production and even the small amount who do control production make their decisions according to their material interests (not evil or twisted morals). Those who do not control production must work for those who do in exchange of money. These two groups' economic interests as a whole contradict themselves even though they are locked into a social relationship. These relationships change based on the development of production. This is the basis of social classes in marxism. Its not just imagination. No other theory has explained the progression of society in such a complete way. Some just talk about ideas, others about the qualities of great men but none can profoundly explain progress on a material basis. I've seen both sides of the coin while it seems you've only imagined flipping it. "The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange."
NeutralCrane 5y ago
There was non-stop railing against capitalism and pro-socialism cheerleading in that sub, so your conspiracy theory is a poor one. The reason the sub is getting lots of coverage is because it has exploded over the last year, and because it manages to present its ideas in as poorly a light as possible.
- Atlas667 5y ago
  Anti capitalism and pro "socialism" aren't actually hard indicators of marxism, believe it or not. There has been so much political distortion that circles who use those terms are, more often than not, filled with liberals rather than marxists. And often times that's what some of us call the synthetic left. Groups of so called leftists lead by think tanks, NGOs or even historically by intelligence agency agents whose sole purpose is to spread disinfo, deradicalize or confuse people all while using a radical aesthetic.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Serious question is is pro-socialism for people to complain that billionaires keep getting property tax breaks while normal working people keep seeing their property taxes go up in part to fund them?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mbrodersen 5y ago
Almost all media is owned and controlled by corporations. So obviously the media will always be on the side of the employers. No 3 letter agency required for that to happen.

emptybottle 5y ago

> Shortly after the publication of this story on 26 Jan 2022, the r/antiwork subbredit went private This is the weird part. A mod went on fox news, the interview went sideways, and now the sub is locked. Isn’t the point of going on the air to promote the sub? Why lock it down right when it has so much new attention?

afloyd 5y ago
Essentially what happened is the mod went into an interview without telling anyone, without preparing, and basically managed to destroy all momentum the sub had, and then started banning anyone who brought up the interview, leading to a max exodus because that goes againt the entire point of the movement.
ndiddy 5y ago
If you watch the interview I think it’s pretty self evident how it embarrassed the subreddit into locking down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yUMIFYBMnc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yUMIFYBMnc
- syncbehind 5y ago
  I couldn't finish watching that. Rough.
  - RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
    Watch it again. The interviewer wasn't even trying to be mean. The argument just crumbled in on itself in the atmospheric pressure of the real world.
    - perryizgr8 5y ago
      I've seen this sentiment expressed elsewhere too, something to the effect of "echo chamber collapses when exposed to the real world". I wonder how many internet forums that thrive today, only because of this isolation from the real world. Sometimes I feel this is true for HN, to a certain extent.

user249 5y ago

I'm trying to catch up on some reddit drama. Apparently the mod of r/antiwork did an interview on Fox News that didn't go so well. I can only imagine Fox is spinning it as "young people are lazy" https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/sddx07/the_antiwork_sub_literally_just_imploded/ https://old.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/sddx07...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
esyir 5y ago
Believe me, fox didn't have to spin anything. It's the softest interview I've seen, and that mod absolutely blew it.
bart_spoon 5y ago
Did you watch the interview? Fox doesn't have to spin anything, it was a disaster. In response to the question "Are they [the members of the sub] lazy?" The mod responded with "Laziness is a virtue in a society that demands we be productive". They also said that they work 20 hours a week as a dog-walker but think they should work less, and ideally would like to teach philosophy. The anchor asked some incredibly softball questions and the mod did their work for them.
- user249 5y ago
  I've watched it now. What a disaster!
Havoc 5y ago
There was absolutely no need to spin that. It was a straight up train wreck of an interview
_fat_santa 5y ago
> I can only imagine Fox is spinning it as "young people are lazy" No need. Jessie Waters basically sat back and let the person dig their own grave.

FrozenVoid 5y ago

The main reason anti-work exists, is that work is wage slavery pretending to be a hobby-like 'profession' that isn't ordered top-down. People discover this and begin to hate it, but they are dependent on work to live: the pandemic exposed how useless most jobs are for the current generation and how the work is mostly bureaucratic schedules and regulations which treat humans like replaceable robots(which is the ideal worker in a modern world).

Gravityloss 5y ago
Well I think it's a case of expectation management then... Work has many sides. Drudgery, dread, friendship, fulfillment, passion, being bored out of your mind. And money of course too.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  Treating people like people is done less and less these days which doesn't help matters nor does the idea that everything workers do has to be turned into a metric that has to meet ever increasing values while those at the top of the company are not put in near the same situation.
- ramphastidae 5y ago
  Expecting minimum wage to track inflation is not mismanaged expectations, it’s a basic part of the social and societal contract. Don’t blame workers in the world’s richest country for being unhappy with a measly $7 rise in minimum wage in 84 years.
  - Gravityloss 5y ago
    Well that's a different statement from the original and I do agree it's a problem worth discussing.
  - didgeoridoo 5y ago
    The federal minimum wage has increased by approximately 2,400% since its inception, nearly double the rate of inflation.

omgmajk 5y ago

That sub went complete trainwreck in less than a day after that was aired.

dang 5y ago

Recent and related: Anti-work subreddit goes private after rough Fox News interview - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30095366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30095366 - Jan 2022 (117 comments)

Gigachad 5y ago
I think this whole situation came about because the original user base of anti work wasn’t about workers rights or work reform. But it was quite literally against working at all. So you have all these regular people joining last year who have very different ideas than the mods who founded it. It’s like the split between “defund the police” vs “reform the police”. People will tell you it was never about totally removing the police entirely but there are certainly people who believe the statements to their most literal meanings.

mgh2 5y ago

More than anything, it is a breakdown of American values. As the "purpose" of work is redefined, leaving a chasm to be filled https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903457 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903457 https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a577eba4f3e https://trendguardian.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a57...

wilhow 5y ago

The label "Antiwork" doesn't representation the movement doesn't it? It's really about fair labour, I don't think most people want to not work. I think most people want to work in exchange for a livable resource, be it wages, work/life balance, recognition, etc. There are plenty of people who are willing to work hard to have a mundane life. A simple car, a apartment/suburban home, an annual vacation, affordable healthcare, education for their kids, nothing extravagant. The issue is today's corp slave trade their employees and it's at a point where it's not sustainable anymore. Hence, IMHO, it's less about antiwork, but more about fair labour.