Description
Product ID: | 9780822351122 |
Product Form: | Paperback / softback |
Country of Manufacture: | US |
Series: | A John Hope Franklin Center Book |
Title: | The Problem with Work |
Subtitle: | Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries |
Authors: | Author: Kathi Weeks |
Page Count: | 304 |
Subjects: | Feminism and feminist theory, Feminism & feminist theory, Sociology: work and labour, Far-left political ideologies and movements, Sociology: work & labour, Marxism & Communism |
Description: | Select Guide Rating The Problem with Work develops a Marxist feminist critique of the structures and ethics of work, as well as a perspective for imagining a life no longer subordinated to them. In The Problem with Work, Kathi Weeks boldly challenges the presupposition that work, or waged labor, is inherently a social and political good. While progressive political movements, including the Marxist and feminist movements, have fought for equal pay, better work conditions, and the recognition of unpaid work as a valued form of labor, even they have tended to accept work as a naturalized or inevitable activity. Weeks argues that in taking work as a given, we have “depoliticized” it, or removed it from the realm of political critique. Employment is now largely privatized, and work-based activism in the United States has atrophied. We have accepted waged work as the primary mechanism for income distribution, as an ethical obligation, and as a means of defining ourselves and others as social and political subjects. Taking up Marxist and feminist critiques, Weeks proposes a postwork society that would allow people to be productive and creative rather than relentlessly bound to the employment relation. Work, she contends, is a legitimate, even crucial, subject for political theory. |
Imprint Name: | Duke University Press |
Publisher Name: | Duke University Press |
Country of Publication: | GB |
Publishing Date: | 2011-09-09 |