Speaker 1: Welcome to America. It's not great. Here's a podcast, all right,
Speaker 1: this is this is it could happen here the podcast
Speaker 1: Welcome it is if you're an international listener and you're
Speaker 1: not American. That was really get the fuck off of
Speaker 1: our podcast, just like left people all like, are you
Speaker 1: going to do one for every other country? I think
Speaker 1: they're being rude for barging in the internet is clearly
Speaker 1: American soil. I would pay good money for a wackos things.
Speaker 1: But with Robert saying all the all the countries of
Speaker 1: the world, well, you know what you need to do
Speaker 1: in order to be able to pay good money for
Speaker 1: something Garrison, you need to you need to. You need
Speaker 1: to get money by by working well to be born rich.
Speaker 1: But if you're not born rich, you have to work.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people are saying what if we did,
Speaker 1: what if we didn't? And now they have a subreddit
Speaker 1: And that's what we're talking about to day anti work.
Speaker 1: Uh not just the subreddit, but that's why we're talking
Speaker 1: about it today because the anti work subreddit has grown hugely,
Speaker 1: um and it's got like a milli it's or it's
Speaker 1: it's like doubled. It's been around for years. It's more
Speaker 1: than doubled. It's it's almost. It's almost. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's well, I'll have the numbers for later. Yeah yeah, okay, great.
Speaker 1: UM So, Garrison, why don't you kick us off? Now
Speaker 1: that I've let everyone know what to expect, will stop
Speaker 1: working UM in solidarity with the anti work movement. Thanks
Speaker 1: Robert UM, You're welcome. So yeah, the past few months,
Speaker 1: if you're anything like us, um and and if you're
Speaker 1: online in the same ways that we are, you've you've
Speaker 1: probably seen like a flurry of posts and screenshots depicting
Speaker 1: text conversations between like an employee and their boss. Typically,
Speaker 1: the boss like asks them to come in when they
Speaker 1: said they were going to have to be have to
Speaker 1: have having to have time off or something. The employee objects,
Speaker 1: the boston gets mad and makes threats and demands the
Speaker 1: employee be a better team player or some bullshit like that.
Speaker 1: Um and and then like the employee said something like
Speaker 1: well you know what, actually I quit, good luck filling
Speaker 1: the shift now buy and then the boss like pleads
Speaker 1: that the now former employee comes back and offers like
Speaker 1: concessions and end of screenshots. So pretty soon this type
Speaker 1: of like screenshotted text conversation became like a meme format
Speaker 1: with with people joking and obviously like staging fake ones
Speaker 1: as well. Uh, you know, similar to the scene I
Speaker 1: just described. But but but by all accounts, this trend
Speaker 1: started incredibly like sincerely with with genuine text conversations showcasing
Speaker 1: like worker abuse um and and uh you know, bosses
Speaker 1: being unreasonable and cruel um and some people putting their
Speaker 1: jobs just to stand up for themselves and um, all
Speaker 1: the stuff is kind of tied up in the worker
Speaker 1: shortage kind of miss the great resignation as a as
Speaker 1: a loud yes yeah people of people resigning. And then
Speaker 1: you know a lot of like big companies complaining about
Speaker 1: worker shortages um and and central to this like text
Speaker 1: conversation online kind of meme trend thing and and employee
Speaker 1: resignations is a subredit called anti work. So the antiwork
Speaker 1: subredit has has been a growing place specifically the past year. Um.
Speaker 1: Their motto is unemployment for all, not just for the rich. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a good good it is it is
Speaker 1: a solid it's a solid botto of their their their
Speaker 1: own like a description is uh a subredit for those
Speaker 1: who want to end work, are curious about ending work,
Speaker 1: want to get the most out of a work free life,
Speaker 1: want more information on anti work ideas, and want personal
Speaker 1: help with their own jobs slash work related struggles. So
Speaker 1: back in back in February, um it only the subord
Speaker 1: it's been around, But back in February it had like
Speaker 1: two hundred and thirty five thousand UM subs, and now
Speaker 1: it has over one point one million UM It's grown.
Speaker 1: Most of that growth has been in the past two months.
Speaker 1: Uh it's it has kind of kind of exploded in popularity.
Speaker 1: Um and actually it got it got so big, and
Speaker 1: there's so many posts on it that they have to
Speaker 1: they have they have now they have to like restrict
Speaker 1: text message conversation screenshots to only being allowed to be
Speaker 1: posted like on one day a week, just because of
Speaker 1: the intense influx of of these posts, you know, some
Speaker 1: of them genuine, others maybe not so much. Um And
Speaker 1: And even though the suburn it may not be the
Speaker 1: biggest in terms of like subscribers, um it's it has
Speaker 1: more like daily posts than something like the Wall Street
Speaker 1: bets suburb it has, so even though it doesn't have
Speaker 1: as many subscribers, the amount of actual like posting on
Speaker 1: it is is higher than a lot of other suburates
Speaker 1: as well, So it is it is growing in popularity,
Speaker 1: like in in in multiple ways. It feels a little
Speaker 1: bit right now like the social media equivalent of at
Speaker 1: of a sort of Dama lea. It's like Wall Street
Speaker 1: bets made a not insignificant uh splash earlier this year.
Speaker 1: It was it was quite a thing for the national
Speaker 1: economy for a little while there. Um and Anti Work
Speaker 1: hasn't had that moment, but I kind of feel like
Speaker 1: it might be getting close to critical mass, Like something,
Speaker 1: something might come out of this um which I think
Speaker 1: would be rad For for the record, I think would
Speaker 1: be rad absolutely, And you know, it may not be
Speaker 1: one big thing, but it could be a lot of
Speaker 1: smaller things, right. You know, sometimes it's harder to see
Speaker 1: bigger change when you're like having more anarchist adjacent ideas
Speaker 1: and and and the and the anti works that when
Speaker 1: it does does try to keep itself being a radical
Speaker 1: suborb and does trying to fight off neoliberal sentiments and stuff,
Speaker 1: And there have been there have been some complaints. I've
Speaker 1: seen a people being like, ah, the liberals have gotten
Speaker 1: in and and people are talking about like, well, I
Speaker 1: just really want a life that's like I'm not stressed
Speaker 1: all the time, and I have enough money for for
Speaker 1: bills and stuff. Like people have been talking about like, oh,
Speaker 1: this job, Like I I left my old job and
Speaker 1: I got into a better situation. That's good. And there's
Speaker 1: complaints about that. And I think it is important to
Speaker 1: like push against de radicalizing the sub credit. But I
Speaker 1: don't think it's bad that you're getting a lot of
Speaker 1: liberals in there who are not turned off by the
Speaker 1: name anti work um, and I think that's I think
Speaker 1: it's positive that that they're even if they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're not coming at it from kind of a revolutionary perspective.
Speaker 1: But hey, it's okay to quit my job if if
Speaker 1: the conditions are shipped and try to find a place
Speaker 1: where I'm treated better. If that's their in road to
Speaker 1: this kind of thought, I still think that's pretty pretty awesome. Yeah, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean it's not realistic for every single person.
Speaker 1: Well and actually it is realistic for every single person
Speaker 1: to quit their job, but it's it's not realistic for
Speaker 1: only a few people to write and sometimes if if
Speaker 1: not if if everyone's not going to do it, like
Speaker 1: literally everyone. Then he knows some people can't can't afford
Speaker 1: to quit their job um right now because they have
Speaker 1: like kids, defeat or whatever um for themselves or you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot there's a lot of reasons, which I'll
Speaker 1: kind of talk a little bit more about later. So
Speaker 1: and so the term anti work just does not does
Speaker 1: not come from the subredit um. And anti work has
Speaker 1: been like a post left term for a while now,
Speaker 1: and it kind of kind of applies to a broad
Speaker 1: spectrum of like anarchist adjacent kind of thought around, Hey,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna if we're gonna question like capitalism, uh
Speaker 1: and the state, we should probably also question just the
Speaker 1: idea of work itself and how it functions, and how
Speaker 1: the state kind of works only possible with the state,
Speaker 1: and and it's that specific line line of thinking. UM.
Speaker 1: A few examples of like of like you know, seminal
Speaker 1: anti work books UM is. One of them is Bob
Speaker 1: Black's The Abolition of Work. UM. Crime Think has a
Speaker 1: really good book just called work, which is another another
Speaker 1: one that gets referenced a lot even even in the
Speaker 1: subredit And also Bullshit Jobs by David Graber and uh
Speaker 1: Bullshit Jobs was also kind of partially inspired by Blacks
Speaker 1: the abolition of work. Um, all of those are are
Speaker 1: great resources and uh specifically like bullshit Jobs is great
Speaker 1: in like a like a for a modern outlook on this,
Speaker 1: like Bob Black's book was written, was written a while ago,
Speaker 1: and the Bullshit Jobs is definitely very timely and even
Speaker 1: even even crimes things. Work book also also addresses stuff
Speaker 1: or even though it wasn't not written within the past.
Speaker 1: I think it is maybe slightly older than than a decade,
Speaker 1: but I think that they are updating it with more
Speaker 1: information about like the gig economy and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's not as it's characterized as as anti
Speaker 1: work is often characterised by critics. It's not saying like
Speaker 1: nobody should have to do anything in a way, it's
Speaker 1: not Actually we'll talk about Diogenes later. Um, but it's
Speaker 1: not everyone should just like lay around and do nothing.
Speaker 1: It's people shouldn't have to do the thing that we
Speaker 1: call work, which is destroy your body or your mind
Speaker 1: or both. Uh, most of your waking hours, most of
Speaker 1: your life. The hope that you'll get ten years as
Speaker 1: an old person to not do that, and and and
Speaker 1: and a little bit that that that's bad. That's a
Speaker 1: bad way to be a person, like a bad way
Speaker 1: to have to be And it's not bad to do that,
Speaker 1: it's it's bad that you have to do that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean and and there is a there is
Speaker 1: a little bit of it that is about finding time
Speaker 1: to chill out, which which was just going to apply
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, a lot of the ways
Speaker 1: if you have to keep a job, you know, the
Speaker 1: different ways you can you can go about that job
Speaker 1: that does that makes it so doesn't like kill you.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite ways to think about anti work
Speaker 1: is just like anti capitalism put into actual practice. So
Speaker 1: it's sort of you know, just debating online about anti
Speaker 1: capitalism as some you know, future things like no, like
Speaker 1: what can you do to actually you know, make capitalism
Speaker 1: less important part of how you live your life every day,
Speaker 1: which means you know, not obsessing over careers and all
Speaker 1: these kind of other things. So I think I think,
Speaker 1: first of all, it might be useful to kind of
Speaker 1: think about, like what do we actually mean by work
Speaker 1: because works kind of a works like a it's it
Speaker 1: has a lot of definitions to be depending on what's
Speaker 1: like you depend depending on like what you mean by it, right,
Speaker 1: Is it just like wage labor? Is it just forced labor? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, is cooking for yourself or your family considered work?
Speaker 1: But not always? But you know, like at times when
Speaker 1: I when when I when I'm like relaxed, I quite
Speaker 1: enjoy cooking for friends and family. But but certainly, but
Speaker 1: certainly it can feel like work sometimes, especially if you
Speaker 1: especially if you just got home from like a work shift,
Speaker 1: so in a way, like work creates more work. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's it's not it's it's it kind of it's
Speaker 1: doesn't It isn't just it isn't just about like wage
Speaker 1: labor or something. It can kind of apply to a
Speaker 1: lot of ways about how you live your life. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of looking laying down wood chips or sod.
Speaker 1: If that's like your job, every day can be like
Speaker 1: a miserable, backbreaking process. If you actually have a huge
Speaker 1: yard or like own a little bit of land and
Speaker 1: you're making your own garden, that can be an intensely
Speaker 1: like the best part of your week. It can be
Speaker 1: a great Yeah, yeah, it's it's not. The problem is
Speaker 1: not the individual tasks necessary early, it's what work is
Speaker 1: as a as a a platonic kind of concept in
Speaker 1: our society. Yeah, not and and again one of the things,
Speaker 1: and I think this is one of the things speaking
Speaker 1: of you talked about David Graber earlier, who's a an
Speaker 1: anarchist anthropologist and widely seen to be like one of
Speaker 1: the most brilliant anthropologists of his generation. He did. He
Speaker 1: recently deceased, but a book that he wrote before he
Speaker 1: died with another uh and another fellow, came out recently
Speaker 1: called The Dawn of Everything that talks a lot about
Speaker 1: how Yeah, these ideas, that kind of capitalism has a
Speaker 1: vested interest in you believing that the world was always
Speaker 1: hard in the way that it's hard, by which I
Speaker 1: mean like, in order to get basic necessities you have
Speaker 1: to make somebody else rich um or find some grift
Speaker 1: of your own. And as opposed to like, yeah, life
Speaker 1: is always hard, but life wasn't didn't always involve labor
Speaker 1: the way we think about it. Labor has not been
Speaker 1: a constant in human civilization. In fact, most of humans
Speaker 1: realization people have not done a thing that we would
Speaker 1: recognize as labor. And I think also even if you
Speaker 1: go towards things that like look more like labor to us, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, like look look like if you
Speaker 1: look at like feudal levies, right, you're a peasant. You
Speaker 1: have to give some amount of grain to your lord.
Speaker 1: But like, okay, we work way longer than medieval peasants did.
Speaker 1: And not only do we work longer is something Greaper
Speaker 1: and David Beno talk about in that book, is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like not only do we work much longer, Like the
Speaker 1: amount that we work would have been considered absolutely, like
Speaker 1: even even a feudal lord would look at that much
Speaker 1: work and go no, like this is this is this
Speaker 1: is like and you know, and I think there's there's
Speaker 1: another great hasn't. As another point um he wrote a
Speaker 1: piece called Turning Modes of Production inside Out where he
Speaker 1: has this argument that like, okay, so if if you
Speaker 1: take you know, if you take like Plato, right, you're
Speaker 1: like you take any of the Greek philosophers, even the
Speaker 1: conservative ones, and you show them this the thing, the
Speaker 1: thing that we do every day. Right, you know, you
Speaker 1: have your you're completely under the command of another person
Speaker 1: for like at least a third probably more of your day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I monitor you and Garrison's bathroom breaks. I look at
Speaker 1: your texts with family and friends. Um, it's it's really situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an incredibly strict surveillance state. From Robert Evans. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like like you know, if you show a
Speaker 1: Greek person that this is like this is the apocalypse
Speaker 1: to them, this is this is the worst thing that
Speaker 1: could possibly happen. It's every single person in society has
Speaker 1: like essentially been reduced to a slave, and you know
Speaker 1: that's bad and it doesn't have to be like it's
Speaker 1: not that they've been because I want to push back
Speaker 1: on that terminology because it can go to some uncomfortable places.
Speaker 1: It's not that they are treated as a slave. It's
Speaker 1: that in the hours in which they are expected to labor,
Speaker 1: there's a societal expectation that they act as the property
Speaker 1: of whoever owns the business or manages them. Right. The
Speaker 1: idea of like if it if it like that, that
Speaker 1: attitude from like like working in a kitchen or or
Speaker 1: working at a fast food restaurant, like if you lean,
Speaker 1: if you're if you can lean, you can clean, Like
Speaker 1: that attitude is saying you do not have any autonomy
Speaker 1: when you are at work, you are the property of
Speaker 1: the of the employer while you are at work. Um,
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, and I think and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: but I think the specific thing with Greece is that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you the only way you could do that
Speaker 1: to someone in Greece is if you owned them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I'm like, the grease has wage labor, right,
Speaker 1: but the only people who like it has wage labor,
Speaker 1: but it has wage labor for slaves. And that's like
Speaker 1: it right, like this, you know, and this is this
Speaker 1: is not like obviously not to say that, like you know,
Speaker 1: we're like having a job is the same thing as slavery,
Speaker 1: But it's just to say that, like the kinds of
Speaker 1: things that we think of as normal, like are things
Speaker 1: that like the people who you know that the people
Speaker 1: who run the system and the people who you know
Speaker 1: get cited all the time justify stuff would have looked
Speaker 1: at as like the worst thing that could possibly have
Speaker 1: happened to a society. Yeah, like daily life for a
Speaker 1: very substantial chunk of of the American workforce is that
Speaker 1: would be a nightmare to large percentages of the human
Speaker 1: population prior to the modern period. Like it's it's and
Speaker 1: and if you think about it that way, like one
Speaker 1: of the things Graab does a good job of going
Speaker 1: into UM is like the way in which uh and
Speaker 1: this is also something that comes up in in in
Speaker 1: Tribe by younger, the way in which, like, during the
Speaker 1: early period of colonization of North America, UM, it was
Speaker 1: very common for you know, Europeans to leave the cities
Speaker 1: and in towns being established behind um and and join
Speaker 1: up with indigenals, with the tribes. The reverse never happened,
Speaker 1: like like not willingly, not without kidnapping being a part
Speaker 1: of it. UM. And it's because like their attitude was,
Speaker 1: they were looking at the lives these people were living
Speaker 1: in these cities and like, well, why would you agree
Speaker 1: to do that? And Um, this is turning anyway, Garrison,
Speaker 1: you should you should take us back on the rails.
Speaker 1: This is getting more but first time for products. You
Speaker 1: know what has nothing to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: human beings are forced to labor for basic necessities in
Speaker 1: order to keep up a system that steals the freedom
Speaker 1: of the many in order to provide impossible liberty to
Speaker 1: the few. You know what isn't related to that. Sure,
Speaker 1: the advertise industrial complex not has nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: totally unrelated. Why would you say that? Garrison? By the way,
Speaker 1: did you know that McDonald's seg muffin is turning fifty
Speaker 1: years old and it's giving the breakfast they're they're they're
Speaker 1: they're selling it for its original price of sixty three
Speaker 1: cents during breakfast hour six am to ten thirty am,
Speaker 1: exclusively on the McDonald's app. I can't, I can't do
Speaker 1: you guys? Do you guys want mcmuffins for sixty three cents?
Speaker 1: That's the original price. I wonder what else the McDonald's
Speaker 1: app is looking at on my phone? Any way, here's
Speaker 1: some mats. Oh, we're back and we're talking about anti work.
Speaker 1: We're talking about how works kind of bullshit for our jobs.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, yeah, we sure are, We sure are. So
Speaker 1: you know, like there is there there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people who like enjoy stuff like gardening, fishing, carpentry, cooking,
Speaker 1: and even like you know, just fighting this fighting computer
Speaker 1: programming just for their own sake. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff that we like, quote unquote needs to need
Speaker 1: for society to function. A lot a lot of those
Speaker 1: things people like doing as hobbies in their spirits. For
Speaker 1: for example, if you're a police officer, gunning down a
Speaker 1: man in cold blood might be kind of like your
Speaker 1: day job and like frustrating, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ship you have to deal with. If you're a mass shooter, though,
Speaker 1: you just love it. You know, you're just doing it.
Speaker 1: It's not work, it's not I mean for a mash
Speaker 1: that is that is exactly what the cow writtenhouse thing
Speaker 1: is though like like like like like actually like literally
Speaker 1: that that that is what that is. This is we
Speaker 1: I mean, we're not going to get the verdict today.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look like not today, which isn't but by
Speaker 1: the time this airs, it may already be done. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, like a lot of a lot of people
Speaker 1: like doing those things without getting paid, and sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: often like costing themselves money. Right, A lot of these
Speaker 1: hobbies are you know, are costly in their own in
Speaker 1: their own right, um. And I think it's interesting to
Speaker 1: you know, think, think of a society where you're well,
Speaker 1: you're free to do those things when you feel like it,
Speaker 1: and you don't need to drag yourself out of bed
Speaker 1: at you know, early in the morning to work to
Speaker 1: work a ten hour shift as like a cash register.
Speaker 1: And it's not just even when you feel like it,
Speaker 1: because there will be things that you have to do,
Speaker 1: even if I will discuss this letter get yeah, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: in any like yeah, but there is it's not work
Speaker 1: if you're if you're going out and harvesting food that
Speaker 1: feeds you in your community. That's not like work in
Speaker 1: the sense that we talk about modern work. The amount
Speaker 1: of extra energy we have by not having ten hour
Speaker 1: horrible shifts that drain ourselves mentally and physically and more
Speaker 1: in with you know, the amount of most of the
Speaker 1: work that we people do, as shown in David Graper's
Speaker 1: bull bullshit Jobs, is like not necessary. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of like a lot of the work that we do
Speaker 1: as a whole is not There's there's some squibbling about
Speaker 1: because the book was based off of a study, like
Speaker 1: a survey that kind of showed a lot of very
Speaker 1: significant chunk of the workforce thinks their job is like
Speaker 1: pointless and doesn't do anything, And there's been some criticisms
Speaker 1: of that, but it is undoubted that a very significant
Speaker 1: amount of total labor time spent is stuff that isn't
Speaker 1: necessary for really like reason of like making people's lives better.
Speaker 1: And another part of like anti work theories is looking
Speaker 1: is looking at our society as it's built, you know,
Speaker 1: because it is it is HyG to anarchism, and be
Speaker 1: like how much of this is actually necessary? Like how
Speaker 1: do we do we really need a mac rib? Like
Speaker 1: do we do? We? We do? What do you? What
Speaker 1: do you Garrison? Do we do not need to macrib?
Speaker 1: We do not? Did the company training? And they the
Speaker 1: company training says you can't attack someone for their religion,
Speaker 1: and Garrison just attacked the McRib, So that actually is
Speaker 1: you know, it is a religion for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Did you see that there there? They they did sell
Speaker 1: a macribb n FT a few weeks ago. Um and
Speaker 1: tell me that ship that is so upsetting, thank god
Speaker 1: damn it. Yeah yeah, just saying society with no money
Speaker 1: would not have so gosh. You know, I think thinking
Speaker 1: of like anti work as as the theory. You know,
Speaker 1: it's about cutting down those those unnecessary things that fill
Speaker 1: people's time. Um. And you know and for a more
Speaker 1: you know, forward forward looking sense. It's it's a general
Speaker 1: kind of like a like abolition of the producer and
Speaker 1: consumer based society. Um. So you know, life is not
Speaker 1: dedicated to the production and consumption of of goods and commodities.
Speaker 1: So you know this this applies not not just a
Speaker 1: capitalism but also to you know, like state socialism um,
Speaker 1: where you know, work is still you know, a big
Speaker 1: part of state socialism UM. And I think you know
Speaker 1: it's humans. It's it's it posits the future that humans
Speaker 1: can be way, way, way more free when they you know,
Speaker 1: can reclaim their time from jobs and employment, um, instead
Speaker 1: of you know, spending a lot of their time doing
Speaker 1: that and spending spending a lot of like not just time,
Speaker 1: but also just like their energy. Right, because even if
Speaker 1: you work, you know, eight hours a day, you still
Speaker 1: have a majority of the day to yourself. But you're exhausted,
Speaker 1: you can't do it, you can't do much, right, It's
Speaker 1: it drains you of everything. So you know, the main
Speaker 1: point one of the main points of like of the
Speaker 1: Abolition of work essay by Bob Black is but like
Speaker 1: there's no one should work because because work is as
Speaker 1: defined as like as like as like a forced labor
Speaker 1: practice um. Is. You can kind of track this to
Speaker 1: being the source of most of the misery in the
Speaker 1: world from you know, in in individual people, um, who
Speaker 1: are forced to do this. So like this is where
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of their pain comes from.
Speaker 1: Um is this is this is this forced labor concept. UM.
Speaker 1: I think I think a good a good way. You know,
Speaker 1: there is you know the point that Robert brought up
Speaker 1: earlier is like you know, what about the tasks that
Speaker 1: aren't fun? You know what about what about the stuff
Speaker 1: that isn't isn't maybe as as enjoyable. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there's this there's there's a list of list of things
Speaker 1: that the standard responses. Who's going to clean up the poop? Right?
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing. So you know I I kind
Speaker 1: of I I kind of I kind of look at
Speaker 1: this as like the I kind of kind of look
Speaker 1: at this as like whenever I have to turn the compost,
Speaker 1: which is not my favorite thing to do. I I
Speaker 1: don't look forward to having to turn over our massive, shitty,
Speaker 1: rotting compost pile. Not not my favorite thing. Um. But no,
Speaker 1: but now like if there's if if there's like friends
Speaker 1: around and we're playing music and we're all we have
Speaker 1: like some like have I have have like an iced
Speaker 1: tea or Dr Pepper, and we're like talking as we're
Speaker 1: turning the compost. It's a lot more doable. You know.
Speaker 1: It's there's there's it's it's it's one task that's going
Speaker 1: to help all of us in the future. Um and
Speaker 1: I'm not getting watched over by a boss to fill
Speaker 1: a certain quote so I can pay my rent. Right,
Speaker 1: It's it's this, it's this. It's this thing that helps
Speaker 1: everybody and I and I do it because I want,
Speaker 1: I want the goal of it to succeed. So there's
Speaker 1: there's there's gonna there's always gonna be tasks that are
Speaker 1: less pleasant than others. You know, what we can do is,
Speaker 1: you know, imagine a world where the amount of work
Speaker 1: actually needed to be done is greatly reduced so that
Speaker 1: the tasks that are necessary and some of them unpleasant,
Speaker 1: can be spread out, um and among more people, because
Speaker 1: less people will be wasting upwards of eight hours a day,
Speaker 1: five days a week doing mostly pointless time filling work.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, there's there's gonna be things that sucked, and
Speaker 1: we'll be able to do those a lot better if
Speaker 1: there's more people and we don't have to waste our
Speaker 1: times doing stuff that is is honestly a lot more
Speaker 1: bullshit than actually scooping bullshit. Wow, what a good joke.
Speaker 1: Speaking it's time. It's time to scoop up some more ads. Wait,
Speaker 1: really haven't we done too? No, we only only one.
Speaker 1: All right, we went a while without doing one. Guys,
Speaker 1: listen to the products because everyone loves a service. It's
Speaker 1: not like the thing we're talking about is bad. It's
Speaker 1: different than that. So it's fine. Yep, we're back and
Speaker 1: we're still still talking about into work. Um, I I do.
Speaker 1: This is something that the crime think work h points
Speaker 1: out and you know it's a pretty it's pretty obvious
Speaker 1: thing I've I've certainly thought of this before is that,
Speaker 1: you know, we've been told that the like technological progress
Speaker 1: will soon liberate humanity from the need to do work
Speaker 1: or from you know, having to do work as much um.
Speaker 1: And today we have the capabilities that you know, our
Speaker 1: ancestors couldn't have even imagined for free, the amount of
Speaker 1: work that we could get done. Um. But these predictions
Speaker 1: still like aren't true. We're still working more than ever,
Speaker 1: even though we have developed so much um technologically, we're
Speaker 1: still working more than ever. And if I think it's
Speaker 1: silly to think that we'll we'll, we'll reach like a
Speaker 1: magic threshold where somehow now we have less work to
Speaker 1: do because we'll have like I don't know, like robots
Speaker 1: being a server at Adam Adam McDonald's or whatever. Right
Speaker 1: where there's still there, there's still is forcing people into
Speaker 1: this thing because this is the only way that we
Speaker 1: can live, right. This is we've we've built our whole
Speaker 1: society around getting work for money. So this is the
Speaker 1: only the only thing that we can do. Yeah, David Creeper.
Speaker 1: One of the things he's arguing in Bullshit Jobs is basically,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, so so if if you have like
Speaker 1: you have the Soviet economy, right, okay, so the Soviet
Speaker 1: economy has has the policy of of full employment. And
Speaker 1: for a little bit they were like, okay, what if
Speaker 1: we make everyone work less? And then they stopped and
Speaker 1: then like everything went to ship, so you know, okay,
Speaker 1: but if if if you can't make people work less
Speaker 1: hours and everyone has to work, what do you do?
Speaker 1: It was like, okay, well you pay a bunch of
Speaker 1: people to like stand at a doorway, right now, we
Speaker 1: also do this And then one of the graps, like
Speaker 1: the funniest points that he brings up is that the
Speaker 1: total number of bureaucrats in the x USSR like increased
Speaker 1: dramatically after the sr fell, which is incredible, and you
Speaker 1: know what what it points to is that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Grebar called this total bureaucratization, which is that
Speaker 1: you know what, what we did, instead of like giving
Speaker 1: ourselves more free time is created this just like endless, enormous,
Speaker 1: incredibly violent bureaucracy that all of us have to spend
Speaker 1: all of our time, like dealing with bullshit from our
Speaker 1: insurance companies and like fighting with like the Comcast service
Speaker 1: person and all of this just like you know, incredibly
Speaker 1: violent to humanizing stuff that you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a make work program, right, it's but it's a make
Speaker 1: work program that just the work that it makes everyone
Speaker 1: is making everyone's lives miserable. And we could just not
Speaker 1: do this. Mh yeah, I mean we could. It's always
Speaker 1: more complicated than that, right, because the thing that is
Speaker 1: when we talk about anti work, I think that's on
Speaker 1: the other side of this is like Okay, well, what
Speaker 1: if you get a kid, how are you going to
Speaker 1: feed that kid? Like what like yeah, how are you
Speaker 1: going to keep him in a house? Like how not
Speaker 1: even just if you have a kid. But like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you people die in our society when they do not
Speaker 1: have access to adequate resources. And the only way to
Speaker 1: have access to adequate resources is to be born rich
Speaker 1: or to work. Those are your options. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: why without without robust mutual aid and a commitment by
Speaker 1: a lot of people to try to make sure that
Speaker 1: a lifestyle is sustained ball outside of you know, this system,
Speaker 1: Like it's not impossible, but it's somewhere along the line
Speaker 1: there has to be input. I mean, yeah, like we've
Speaker 1: we've been talking about Yeah, we've been talking about antiwork
Speaker 1: as like as kind of like a broad hopeful like
Speaker 1: future goal in some other you know, post scarcity, well
Speaker 1: not not post scarcity, but like it's post like a
Speaker 1: post crumbling, post kind of collapse future. But I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for us now, as you know, the Antiworks
Speaker 1: is about people now, right, the Antiworks episode, It is
Speaker 1: not about a future world. I think the anti work
Speaker 1: now is like an alternative to the obsession with living
Speaker 1: your life with the goal of a career. Yes, it's
Speaker 1: about trend you know, it's it's like a project to
Speaker 1: radically reframe the how we think of work. And leisure. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like like like like a cognitive antidote to like
Speaker 1: the that's like this culture of like hustle and hard
Speaker 1: work which is like taken over our minds and and
Speaker 1: and our time. So it's like for for those who
Speaker 1: can't just resign from their jaw for whatever reason, whatever moment.
Speaker 1: The anti work is about like thinking of this movement
Speaker 1: as like the antithesis to the mainstream capitalist hustle culture.
Speaker 1: You know that that includes like slacking off more, finding
Speaker 1: ways to waste time, possibly even finding ways to steal
Speaker 1: or scam your boss. I I've I've read certain certain
Speaker 1: alleged ways of doing this inside the Anti Work for days,
Speaker 1: but where they got it from? But yeah, no, but
Speaker 1: like you no, like there is you know, like ways
Speaker 1: to like scam scam whatever corporation you work for. Right
Speaker 1: that that there's been examples shared in the anti right
Speaker 1: in the Anti Works, I brut it. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's about actually like finding, you know, making sure that
Speaker 1: you hate your work because you should, and then figuring
Speaker 1: out how to live your life with that in mind.
Speaker 1: And I think what one of the really hard parts
Speaker 1: about this is for people who like kind of like
Speaker 1: their job people who are like you, who like either
Speaker 1: like their job or think it's like kind of important
Speaker 1: or like they're special to have it, right, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm lucky to have such a good job,
Speaker 1: because like, when you're stuck in that mindset, you can
Speaker 1: often put in like a lot of extra unpaid labor
Speaker 1: because you think it's important because you're like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this is worth doing because it's gonna have some like
Speaker 1: benefits to the world. So you end up like putting
Speaker 1: in actually more work that you you don't actually get
Speaker 1: paid for, and like it's about trying to like kill
Speaker 1: that instinct as well. So that's a whole, a whole
Speaker 1: way to think about like working, because like we're gonna
Speaker 1: be stuck. A lot of people are gonna started doing
Speaker 1: it for for for a while. So how can you
Speaker 1: kind of reframe what we do on the job and
Speaker 1: how kind of jobs live in our minds when we
Speaker 1: are at home. And I think the best thing about
Speaker 1: what you've said, in my opinion, is the idea that
Speaker 1: like this is not the importance is not on whether
Speaker 1: or not this this causes everyone to stop having to
Speaker 1: work immediately, Like whether or not it leads to you know,
Speaker 1: directly to Like, the measure of success of this movement
Speaker 1: isn't that nobody ever has to work again. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a long term goal. The measure of the success
Speaker 1: of this movement is that people accept in mass that no,
Speaker 1: the American dream as it's sold to people is not
Speaker 1: a good thing too. It's not a thing. To aspire
Speaker 1: to work is bullshit, and we should aspire to a
Speaker 1: society that doesn't do it. It's getting back, honestly, like
Speaker 1: it's getting back to some of the ship that people
Speaker 1: were talking about in like when The Jetsons was on TV,
Speaker 1: the idea that like, well, with labor saving devices, the
Speaker 1: like a hard work week will be four hours and
Speaker 1: like that's the way life will be for everybody, and
Speaker 1: like um, and the it's the acceptance that like, no,
Speaker 1: a better future involves me not having it. No one
Speaker 1: having to spend forty hours a week of their limited
Speaker 1: human life working at a fucking sonic or like listening
Speaker 1: to some middle manager brate them for not answering phones
Speaker 1: fast enough. Um, that doesn't exist for any human being
Speaker 1: in a world that is achievable and better than the
Speaker 1: one that we live in. Like convincing people of that
Speaker 1: and getting that to be widely accepted. Is I think
Speaker 1: what I think what is what I would consider the
Speaker 1: terms of victory in in this particular struggle kind of
Speaker 1: moving on from this side of things into like the
Speaker 1: Great designation and the other kind of things that people
Speaker 1: are doing. So um, in August alone, four point three
Speaker 1: million Americans voluntarily left their jobs um and the rate
Speaker 1: of people quitting increased to a a decent a decent
Speaker 1: record high of like a two point nine percent, according
Speaker 1: to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. So and this this, this,
Speaker 1: this has been a growing trend. You can look at
Speaker 1: like I think June was like a like a little
Speaker 1: under four million. August was four point three. It's like
Speaker 1: it was, you know, it's it's ramping. I I don't
Speaker 1: know what if. I don't know if we have data
Speaker 1: for September or October. Yet this was the most recent
Speaker 1: one I could find. UM. So yeah, like it's stuff,
Speaker 1: stuff is, stuff is going up. People are because because
Speaker 1: people are like a big part of the antibo. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if your job sucks, you can quit it and probably
Speaker 1: find another one that pays better. In decent time, especially
Speaker 1: especially especially right now, Like right now, if your job
Speaker 1: is really terrible, you have a decent chance of finding
Speaker 1: a better one. Um. This wasn't the case like two
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, it is the case that at this moment,
Speaker 1: so a lot of the anti works SPB and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: quit your job, like say funck you to your boss
Speaker 1: and leave because if they're being shitty then they don't
Speaker 1: deserve to have you. Um. So resigning has been been
Speaker 1: a big part of this, and there has there has
Speaker 1: been attempts at other kind of organized stuff and this
Speaker 1: kind of falls into in my opinion, this kind of
Speaker 1: falls into the same kind of traps as sole internet
Speaker 1: organizing kind of always does. So the big thing that
Speaker 1: they're organizing for is called Black Friday Blackout, which is
Speaker 1: about kind of trying to get everyone to as many
Speaker 1: people as possible to not work Black Friday, um and
Speaker 1: not buy anything on Black Friday. Um So, like a
Speaker 1: post from the subburnt here is like spread the word
Speaker 1: call in sick if you're forced to work black on
Speaker 1: Black Friday, spend time with your family instead, remain at
Speaker 1: home and participate in your favorite activity on Friday November.
Speaker 1: Talk to your family and friends about about your work
Speaker 1: life struggles, pass up flyers, join our slash anti work. Um,
Speaker 1: so this is you know, I think this kind of
Speaker 1: falls into the same like you know, general strike organized
Speaker 1: online stuff that we talked about before. How kind of
Speaker 1: like a lack of like real like in person solidarity
Speaker 1: and like non internet you know, networking and organizing results
Speaker 1: and stuff like this just you know, like proposed like
Speaker 1: one day strikes or actions that are ultimately kind of
Speaker 1: non effectual, right, Like they can be like a good
Speaker 1: symbol sometimes, but like you know, they're not. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not really gonna matter that much, even
Speaker 1: even if it works. Well, what I think it'd be
Speaker 1: cool if literally no store was open on Black Frida
Speaker 1: because everyone quit. Yeah, that would be rad. But that's
Speaker 1: that's not I don't that's not gonna really happen. Um,
Speaker 1: it would be fun if it did, but like realistically,
Speaker 1: it's it's not, it's not gonna happen. And there is
Speaker 1: people on the sub who also point this out. There
Speaker 1: there there there was there was a reply to this
Speaker 1: post that was like, oh, look, another online call for
Speaker 1: a general strike with no union support whatsoever. Don't worry y'all,
Speaker 1: this one's this one is definitely gonna work. Um, So
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, like there's a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the sub also recognize that like without like actual like
Speaker 1: organizing support um and in person stuff and you know,
Speaker 1: networks to support people will on like you know, lengthy strikes.
Speaker 1: These types of things are kind of are mostly symbolic
Speaker 1: actions that will have you know, in the end, little
Speaker 1: little impact. Um. They may make you feel powerful as
Speaker 1: you're doing them, which is you know, which is good.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of activism is actually just just
Speaker 1: about you feeling powerful in that moment um. But you know,
Speaker 1: as as an end goals, remember it's important to be
Speaker 1: remember to think like it's not it's that this isn't
Speaker 1: you know, this isn't gonna reach whatever anti work utopia,
Speaker 1: which I I know people people organizing it aren't thinking that,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's it's important to keep this
Speaker 1: within context of like the limits of even of of
Speaker 1: online organizing. You know, so a lot a lot of
Speaker 1: people like recommend you know, focusing on organizing your own
Speaker 1: workplace and community, um, discussing you know, discussing having discussions
Speaker 1: with with unions kind of in in your area. Um,
Speaker 1: and yeah, a part of part of, part of kind
Speaker 1: of the part of the reply to to this original
Speaker 1: like a black Friday blackout post that that someone that
Speaker 1: someone wrote was was seriously though, I would love for
Speaker 1: an actual gent general strike to kick off. But these
Speaker 1: online calls for general strikes, it's no union involvement, no demands,
Speaker 1: no supports for strikers of any kind, no nothing whatsoever
Speaker 1: beyond social media hashtags, don't do anything. Focus on organizing
Speaker 1: or workplace any community discussed with unions which might be
Speaker 1: sympathetic to what criteria, uh, what criteria they might need
Speaker 1: from such a drastic action. There's a lot of unions
Speaker 1: on strike right now, so if there ever was the
Speaker 1: time to kick one off, it's now. Most general strikes
Speaker 1: in the past started off with specific strikes that started
Speaker 1: pulling in other union unions and solidarity than anything else.
Speaker 1: Focus on that and we might get somewhere. I think.
Speaker 1: Is it's a decent Is a decent advice for the
Speaker 1: people who are really dedicated onto this kind of like
Speaker 1: general strike thing is Yeah? That is? That is? That
Speaker 1: is um, pretty pretty good advice in in my opinion,
Speaker 1: I want to see something kind of briefly just in
Speaker 1: general about general strikes, because I think we've talked about
Speaker 1: it a lot on here, but they're really really hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, there there, there's there's an example, like and
Speaker 1: like just to just to get a picture of like
Speaker 1: how how actually hard it is to pull off. There
Speaker 1: was there was one in Sudan in in summer nineteen
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean this is this is in
Speaker 1: the middle of the revolution, right, the the Sudan is
Speaker 1: incredibly highly organized, as incredibly miility, and people have been
Speaker 1: like you know, I mean, people like the like the
Speaker 1: chance in the street is like you cannot kill us,
Speaker 1: were already dead, like you know they and you know,
Speaker 1: and and it's the whole revolution is being led by
Speaker 1: the Student Professional Association, which is an association of like
Speaker 1: seventeen trade unions. Right, so this this is a population
Speaker 1: that is enormously better organized than like anything really that
Speaker 1: exists in the US. And you know, in in the
Speaker 1: middle of the summer of the army opens fire and
Speaker 1: starts killing protesters, and so they call general strike and
Speaker 1: you know, the turnout is massive, right, they have millions,
Speaker 1: millions upon millions of people show up to the strike
Speaker 1: and on day one, it's success, and then on day
Speaker 1: two of the strike, people start having to pull out,
Speaker 1: especially people in the in formal sector, because even with
Speaker 1: the level of organization they have, they can't support everyone.
Speaker 1: And by about day three, most of the strike is
Speaker 1: collapsed because even even with levels of organization they had,
Speaker 1: even with you know, the coordination, even with the fact
Speaker 1: that they're in the middle of revolution, they just they
Speaker 1: couldn't support particularly people in the informal sector. So this
Speaker 1: stuff is really really really hard, and yeah, it is
Speaker 1: even it is definitely hard. Yeah, like even even highly organized,
Speaker 1: highly motivated people who are you know, like literally willing
Speaker 1: to fight to the death will lose. And that's that's
Speaker 1: something that you have to sort of keep in mind
Speaker 1: when you're talking about this, because a lot of people
Speaker 1: are more focused on kind of their individual resignations, finding
Speaker 1: other ways of making money, and just slacking off at
Speaker 1: work in general, because those are a lot a lot
Speaker 1: easier than trying to organize a general, a mass general
Speaker 1: strike right now. And I think one of the really
Speaker 1: optimistic things about this whole anti work thing, including including
Speaker 1: the sub run, is that it has made some big
Speaker 1: executives kind of nervous um there was a fantastic article
Speaker 1: by Yahoo Finance. Now by fantastic, I mean funny for me.
Speaker 1: You know, they did not think it was as funny.
Speaker 1: Um about they talked with like the Golden Sacks CEO
Speaker 1: of and uh and they pointed to the anti work
Speaker 1: subredit of being what was the what was the phrase, um,
Speaker 1: a long run risk to to labor force participation? Good?
Speaker 1: This is see that that When I first read that
Speaker 1: in the article, I just like flashed to my head
Speaker 1: in my head to that scene from Starship Troopers where
Speaker 1: Neil Patrick Harris puts his hand on the brain bug
Speaker 1: it goes it's afraid. Yeah. Yeah, he said, uh, we
Speaker 1: see some risk that workers were elected will elect to
Speaker 1: maintain out of the workforce for longer, provided they can
Speaker 1: afford to do so. U of pretty pretty good stuff
Speaker 1: and I think stuff and everything it's worth mentioning that
Speaker 1: hasn't been talked about very much? Is that? So this
Speaker 1: is actually kind of working in some sense, Like the
Speaker 1: last few months general, last few months particular have seen
Speaker 1: basically like the highest levels of wage increases that we've
Speaker 1: seen in decades. So you know, like, yeah, we haven't
Speaker 1: overthrown capitalism yet, but like if you can keep quitting
Speaker 1: your job, keep quitting your job at at your regular job,
Speaker 1: work less, keep doing it, it's working. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: stuff I wish we need to in the future. I
Speaker 1: would like us to be focusing more on stuff like that,
Speaker 1: like this that is legitimately, as you point out, Chris,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons to be very optimistic about
Speaker 1: about some of the numbers that we're getting from what
Speaker 1: is happening to labor right now. Um, and it is
Speaker 1: important as we all like right now we're all miserable
Speaker 1: because we're sweating through the written house case, it is
Speaker 1: important to talk about stuff like that that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: some ship people is doing is is hitting the home.
Speaker 1: Some motherfucker's have found the glowy vulnerable spot on the
Speaker 1: Boss Monster and it's it's yeah, it's just not working. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like again, as we started the series with, like yeah,
Speaker 1: general Strike is is kind of the best available solution,
Speaker 1: um or a path to a solution that I can find.
Speaker 1: Um But anyway, uh what what what what what? What?
Speaker 1: I think I think that that does it for us today?
Speaker 1: I know, Chris special special like sequel stuff happening. Uh
Speaker 1: so tune in tomorrow. For our and like like all
Speaker 1: of the best sequels, this one will be directed by
Speaker 1: James Cameron Um. So we're all very excited to bring
Speaker 1: our pal James onto the pod, to bring our pal
Speaker 1: James and the reanimated corpse of Stan Winston Um. It's
Speaker 1: going to be amazing, So check it out by everybody.
Speaker 1: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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