In this chapter, we are going to talk about work, a notion which is as familiar to most of us as it is alien(ating). This chapter will not try to absolve work from its negative aura, nor is it going to condemn it. It will focus on work as a concept, its place in anarchist tradition, and the ramifications of the analysis of its ideological status.
Before attempting any sensible discussion on the subject, it is worth trying to introduce a more or less acceptable definition of work. The easiest option would be to resort to a definition of such kind: “work is defined as the act by which an employee contracts out her or his labour power as property in the person to an employer for fair monetary compensation” (Brown 1995). This rather simple definition is, however, already problematic and is far from being considered rigorous.1 Intuitively and experientially we might know that the notion of “work” cannot be exhausted by a strictly economic definition. There are various meanings (sometimes conflicting) that people attach to work – a calling, a chore, a duty, a necessity, a curse, a salvation, and this list could go on almost indefinitely. Consequently, for various theorists as well as for practising anarchists, the subject of work is a matter of ongoing contestation. That is why we find it reasonable not to strive for the rigour of definitions, and thereby, avoid the fallacious quest of analytic philosophy for universal and ahistorical conceptual invariants (Franks 2012, 52).
Instead, we adopt Michael Freeden’s (1994; 1996; 2003) conceptual approach to the analysis of ideologies. Informed by this approach, the concept of work has been classified as peripheral in this present volume. In this chapter, we will focus on the discussion of work in anarchist thought and suggest the extent to which this categorisation may be considered accurate.
Freeden’s analysis centres around identification of the morphology of ideology, which exhibits interdependence between the concepts that vary in their significance for the semantic understanding of ideology. In this sense, the concept of work is “not essential to the comprehension of the core or the survival of the ideology” of anarchism (Freeden 1994, 158). Understood this way, work will be peripherally related to such core anarchist concepts as egalitarianism, non-hierarchy, and autonomy, and will encompass a set of views on how work should be perceived and executed when egalitarianism and autonomy are instituted as paramount in the society. At the same time, it seems clear that the concept of work is a more universal and integral concept for political philosophy, than, say, “pro-choice stance” or “gun control policies,” which could be legitimately considered as peripheral concepts of the different versions of contemporary liberalism. We believe that the ideas associated with work should not be considered on par with mere policy proposals, as they not only permeate a considerable amount of writing in anarchist philosophy, but also work is a concept in its own right that “may be found situated closer to the core of other ideological configurations” (Freeden 1994, 157). When analysed in the context of what anarchism is up against – namely the hegemony of capitalism and neoliberalism – it is vital to heed the traction that the concept of work has in increasingly economistically stipulated times.
In examining the concept of work in anarchist tradition, this chapter will unfold as follows. First, the landscape of critical theorising of work will be explored, to suggest that it could be misguiding to surmise that work lacks “the generalisation and sophistication associated with a concept” (Freeden 1994, 157). Second, we will make the case for the continued relevance of the anarchist critique of work. Third, we will discuss the possibility of an anarchist work ethic, limiting our search to a set of principles that can be directly derived from anarchist tradition. Finally, as anarchism could and should also be considered as a theory of organisation (Ward 1966; Bookchin 1969; Stoborod and Swann 2014), not least of productive practices, the last section will be devoted to the discussion of some practical aspects of organising work and how they relate to anarchist principles.
There is no shortage of the critical analysis of work in our society. Since the full-fledged advent of industrial revolution in Western Europe in the nineteenth century, the concept of work has received attention from various theoretical camps, including social theory, Marxism, and anarchism.2 With either Marx’s insights on alienation or Weber’s illuminating account of the Protestant work ethic, work within rapidly industrialised settings was problematised at the time. In classic anarchist thought, there would be an agreement that the majority of work done in industrial capitalist societies is degrading, dehumanising, and alienating, which reproduces and sediments hierarchy, authority, and injustice, thereby serving the interests of the more privileged while squeezing out all the vitality from the lives of most people.3 Industrial settings were also the focus of Harry Braverman’s (1998) classical analysis of work in the twentieth century, dominated by Taylorist and Fordist principles in production.
Today, a lot of work is still conducted in industrial settings, fuelling the so-called immaterial, digital and knowledge economies, as well as heating and polluting our planet (Roos, Kostakis, and Giotitsas 2016). Sweatshop labour is not uncommon, but even if health and safety regulations are in place, work itself is still standardised, monotonous, conducted at an enormous pace and over long hours. The largest portion of this work falls on the shoulders of people in the global South, but is not limited to it. Post-Fordist production gave rise to the amount of work conducted in offices and other non-industrial spaces, but oppressive conditions and Tayloristic work principles are also part and parcel of service, digital, and knowledge economies, as well as the almost invisible domestic sphere (Jiang and Korczynski 2016; Costas and Kärreman 2016).
Even those of us occupying more privileged positions suffer from the problems described above. Burnouts and mental stress are also very common facets of the often accelerated and noncreative work that capitalism keeps churning out, so that a “burnout society” seems to be a suitable label for modern, though predominantly western, life (Han 2015). Modern anarchist writings on work, too, provide severe critiques of work or even call for abolishing it the way we know it (Black 1995; Bonnano 1987–1995; Graeber 2013; Krisis-Group 1999; Shantz 2003). At the same time, in the face of rising precarity of work and employment, our societies can still be characterised as work-centric, where our relation to work, employment, and employability define our worth as human beings (Chertkovskaya et al. 2013; Standing 2011). Being expected to be “entrepreneurs of ourselves,” our very subjectivities are governed by the demands of work, with negative consequences for employability in case of failing to align our “selves” with what is required by the market (Chertkovskaya et al. 2013).
Notably, some aspects of work evolved tremendously throughout the twentieth century, and at the turn of the twenty-first century. Instead of exercising strict control over the work process, “soft” methods of organising work became common (Burawoy 1979; Sennett 1998). They may involve putting emphasis on teamwork and co-operation between employees, downplaying hierarchy and having flatter organisational structures, allowing workers to engage in self-management, encouraging them to “be themselves” or even to play at work (Butler et al. 2011; Lopdrup-Hjorth et al. 2011; Murtola and Fleming 2011). At the same time, new meanings of work – often connected to consumption, self-actualisation, or new forms of the Protestant work ethic – challenge the boundaries between work and other areas of life.4 These new aspects of work result in people becoming immersed in work and identifying themselves with it, sometimes losing sight of its problematic aspects. Having received substantial attention in critical management studies and the sociology of work, these themes are arguably missing from contemporary anarchist discussion. This may result in confusing practices that bring principles compatible with anarchism into work – such as non-hierarchy, play, and creativity – with fundamental changes in work or society (Barrington-Bush 2013).5
Anarchist critique of work, however, helps to lay bare the problems with work, which are often concealed by contemporary work ethic, as well as by the somewhat “sterile” and toned down way of writing in academia itself. For example, David Graeber (2013) unequivocally brands a lot of work done today as “bullshit jobs.” A broader argument put forward in anarchist discussion, but often avoided elsewhere, is that some kinds of work and professions, being there to reproduce capitalism or simply to create more work, would not be needed if our societies were organised along anarchist principles (Black 1995). Overall, anarchist writings on work draw our attention not only to the political critique of predominant forms of work and its organisation, but also help to bring ethical issues – such as necessity of (certain kinds of) work, as well as questions of human flourishing and ecological sustainability – into the picture.
From this, it follows that the tradition of anarchist political philosophy does not stand alone when it comes to identifying the drudgery of contemporary work. There are certain theoretical strands that can supplement it with a more nuanced conceptual framework for the analysis of work carried out within the neoliberal regime. Yet, we can appreciate how anarchism retains insightful sobriety when it comes to identifying foundational ailments of the dominant economic system. In the next section, we shall demonstrate that the bulk of classical anarchist writings remain as pertinent to the critique of relations of exploitation and inequality as ever.
At the heart of anarchist positions against work, we can identify three important avenues for critique – wage labour, division of labour (including specialisation), and dehumanising aspects of work.
We begin with wage labour for, as Pyotr Kropotkin (1906) argued, the wage system is one of the two key institutions of capitalism (the other being representative government). As such, the socioeconomic relationships reified in wage labour play a crucial role in perpetuating the dominant political system. They institutionalise servility, born out of the history of inequality and result in what Kant would have called heteronomy. Thus, in anarchist thought, wage labour is often referred to as “wage-slavery,” and is in most direct breach of the core anarchist principle of autonomy (Bakunin 1973; Goldman 1911a; Kropotkin 1906; Proudhon 1840). Caught up in this system, people are left only with pseudo-autonomy, whose sole purpose is to reproduce political order and ensuing inequality.6
Furthermore, compensation in the form of wages is always incomplete.7 According to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840, ch. III, §5), “[t]he laborer retains, even after he has received his wages, a natural right of property in the thing which he has produced.” He saw the solution to this problem of wages to be changing the structure of property ownership and compensating labour according to time spent in production.8 This solution, though in different forms, holds for collectivists and broader socialist thought of the time, and is often exercised in anti-capitalist organisations of today, where work is organised on the principle of wage labour (Kokkinidis 2015). However, Kropotkin saw wage labour and similar forms of compensation as problematic, whichever form of property they were exercised in.9 Most importantly, he finds the very idea of valuing the contribution to society in monetary terms impossible.10 All in all, Kropotkin uncompromisingly finds absurd all ways to execute the labour theory of value – whether based on time, complexity or unpleasantness of work – because they simply reproduce the capitalist order.
Fundamental inequalities inherent in a wage labour system, characteristic of capitalism, are formalised and further exacerbated through the division of labour. Division of labour is seen as problematic in anarchist thought, whether within a society, across societies, or within specific work/activity; so, too, is the positioning of existing divisions of labour as natural in science and in public common sense (Kropotkin 1906; Tolstoy 1942 [1886]). Notably, Kropotkin also brings attention to the division of labour in the domestic sphere, which is always treated as the specialisation of women and not accounted for in discussions of work. Division of labour creates hierarchies between different types of work and different roles within the working process. Hence, it contributes to the inequality of people.11
The critiques of the division of labour do not necessarily imply it should be rejected completely. For example, for Leo Tolstoy (1942 [1886], 125) a “division of labour always has existed and does exist, but it is only justified when man’s conscience and reason decide what it should be, and not when man merely observes that it does exist.” The key problem is that division of labour is framed by power relations within a concrete society with its injustices, and globally too. The distinctions between manual work and brain work, or between complex and simple work, are often artificial and political – justified, for example, by one’s privileged access to education in the first place (Kropotkin 1906; 1998 [1898]). As a result, when assessing our understanding of work and its future within a system based on the division of labour, we should be wary of the fact that a new society cannot be built whilst keeping old divisions of labour, for they inevitably reproduce old hierarchies (Kropotkin 1906).
Specialisation and instrumentalisation of the human potential, normalised through the division of labour, have gained unprecedented momentum under the auspices of progress, the development of technologies, and an orientation toward economic growth (Bookchin 1993). Seen as a necessary element in the progressivist project that was heralded in the nineteenth century, the division of labour instead had adverse effects on working men and women – cementing societal divisions and widening the chasm between the privileged few and the rest of the humanity.12 Technological breakthroughs that to this day hold a promise of liberation, enslaved people even further and aggravated inequality,13 as well as contributed to ecological degradation.
Corollary to both “wage-slavery” and the division of labour is the dehumanising effect that work casts on people. The division of labour within quantity-oriented work processes has become inextricable from severe dehumanising consequences. It positions the potential interest in work and human well-being secondary to productivity, which makes it normal that workers become easily replaceable “cogs” of production, uninterested in their work (Goldman 1911a; Kropotkin 1906; Tolstoy 1942). The emphasis on production results not only in standardisation of production processes, but also in an enormous pace with which dull and monotonous work has to be conducted, abusing the very bodies and minds of those who labour (Kropotkin 1998 [1898]).14 Notably, growth-centric capitalism and neoliberalism, with their constant strive for optimising costs and cutting public spending, have brought dehumanising elements way beyond the industrial work setting. The service and “knowledge” economies (including previously privileged spheres such as teaching, research, and medicine) suffer from increased fragmentation, administration, dissipation of autonomy, and the need to comply with “excellence” criteria externally foisted upon them by the state or by the bosses.
Tolstoy (1954, 173–201) takes the critique of the morally degrading effects of work even further, by countering orientation on productivity and panegyrics for the virtuousness of work with the ethics of “nonaction.”15 He refuses to see any virtue in labour for he, first of all, through the style of defamiliarisation characteristic to his social writings, wonders how we can celebrate working indiscriminately. Brokers, military men and industrialists are all working hard, but we should rather be abhorred by the fruits of their labour. Crucially, Tolstoy posits that labour is not just lacking any virtue, but is a stumbling block on the path of social progress because of its “morally stupefying” effects.16
In light of the discussion thus far, it can be resolutely concluded that work has been treated by the anarchist tradition with nothing but hostility, ranging from suggestions for radical improvements in working conditions to pleas for the abolition of work. Yet it is worth noting that anarchism is predominantly focused on the critique of the ways that work is organised, and not work per se. Even Tolstoy (1954), who vehemently attacked the Protestant work ethic, proposing instead a Taoist alternative of nonaction, stipulates a physiological need for work, which when unmet, often leads to suffering. Thus, we should ask: is it possible to engage in work – or whatever will come to substitute it – as world-making,17 creating a society which is not built on oppression and injustice, supported by consumerism, (neo)colonialism, and neoliberalism? The next section will try to answer this question, by looking at the possibility of an anarchist work ethic.
To begin with, we should recall that there are plenty of tasks we should perform daily just to survive and to socially reproduce. Even if we envisage a better organised society, plenty of dreary activity will persist. That is what is needed for basic survival.18 Kropotkin, who recognised that a lot of work needed for basic survival rests on the shoulders of women in a household, put his faith in technology to relieve women from “kitchen-slavery.” Alas, technology failed to deliver on this expectation. That is why we tend to agree with arguments that regard the abolition of work thesis as somewhat solipsistic and as undermining an ethic of care. Not all members of the society are fortunate enough to be able to care and provide for themselves for various reasons. As Neala Schleuning (1995) argues, “as human beings, we have the obligation to contribute, at minimum, to collective survival work. No one should have the luxury of refusing to work.” Insofar as we accept collective anarchist ethos, there is an a priori associative obligation to provide a minimal level of working input.
Meanwhile, the forebears of anarchism have never been against work in principle. Vis-à-vis the anarchist critiques of work organised on capitalist grounds, they set general ethical principles for organisation of work, as well as organisational forms it takes place in.19 Perhaps, the main defining feature of the anarchist work ethic is that it is comprehensive. It is impossible to proselytise virtuousness of work that co-exists with inequality and oppression. Therefore, work organised according to anarchist principles will provide a setting which makes work ethically acceptable.
The organisation of work in line with anarchism would, following Emma Goldman (1911b), aspire to “strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect, of its gloom and compulsion” and aim “to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony.” Run by voluntary collectives, associations or organised in commons, work will cater for the essential needs of the society, as well as recognise “the right of the individual, or numbers of individuals, to arrange at all times for other forms of work, in harmony with their tastes and desires” (Goldman 1911b). Recognising individual preferences for work as their right also suggests that not all work has to be done in collectives. We can see two ideal types of work emerging, by no means clear-cut – work that is necessary and work that is more playful, catering for individual preferences (Goldman 1911a; Albert 2000; Goodman and Goodman 1960). The former acknowledges that certain work will never be pleasant and certain things will need to be done, but sharing them in society and making them complement the kind of work people find meaningful should be possible. Furthermore, engaging even in this necessary work within a society organised in line with anarchist principles may bring additional meanings and subjectivities to it.
Division of labour and specialisation would still be possible, but happening by choice, individual and/or collective, and not rooted in injustice.20 It is the integrity and wholeness of work, however, that is likely to bring joy and harmony. Anarchism would allow for a plethora of ways in which this can be achieved – by combining “manual” and “brain” work, artisanal work, DIY ethos or simply producing enough for oneself to live on (Kropotkin 1998 [1898]; Bookchin 1986; Tolstoy 2012; Thoreau 1854). Non-hierarchical and self-managed organisation of work will be a guarantor of the perpetuation of the anarchist work ethic. This does not eliminate certain “leadership” or coordination positions within organisations, but they would be temporary and not attached to particular people or “leaders” (Sutherland, Land, and Böhm 2014).
More broadly, an anarchist organisation of work by all means implies an anarchist organisation of our entangled societies and their economies. The right to live, human flourishing, and ecological sustainability would be at the heart of such societies, instead of relentless productivism, consumerism, and the growth imperative (Bookchin 1986; Goldman 1911a; Kropotkin 1906).21 Collective forms of organising would be most common in such a society, whilst leaving space for individual freedoms. Crucially, while work does not have to be abolished and societal needs are to be accommodated, the very ability to live in such a society would not be tied to work. Organising the society along these lines is likely to change dramatically what is produced and consumed, eliminating many of the “bullshit” or even harmful jobs and professions, and hence change the purposes and outcomes of work.
Conclusively, it seems evident that the concept of work, despite some misapprehensions, has been rather central to a lot of debate within anarchist political philosophy. One possible explanation for that is the fact that the anarchist stance on work is part of a wider set of practices and ethical considerations about the fairer organisation of society. In any case, it seems feasible to conclude that an anarchist work ethic is possible, with a proviso that work settings follow the principles outlined above. Classical anarchist writers did not eschew work, perhaps because they had a strong conviction that a different world was possible. We should work for this as well. Additionally, the task of basic survival does not permit any form of escapism. In order to go beyond theoretical considerations, we explore in the last section of the chapter the potential of particular initiatives (policy suggestions) on work to move us closer to engendering the anarchist work ethic in practice.
Though we are far from realizing an anarchist vision of work, discussion of the problems with work has been on the rise, with several initiatives around work being actively discussed. We are aware that these initiatives may have only a limited potential for changing the way we work and live, and might also be not in complete alignment with some core anarchist values. However, not engaging with them, or calling for abolition of work, would be signs of naivety, withdrawal, and defeatism (Schleuning 1995). Instead, serious discussion and scrutiny of the proposals around work can inform the direction of action and struggle in ways that might help move work and society closer to an anarchist ideal (Franks 2012, 62–63). In what follows, we will open this discussion by reviewing the following common propositions in relation to work: job guarantee, work-sharing, shorter working week, and basic income (see D’Alisa, Demaria, and Kallis 2015).
Job guarantee is a policy proposal that would make the state guarantee a paid job to any qualifying person in search of one and support it financially, thus ensuring full employment. Decentralised ways of managing it are often suggested, involving, for example, local governments, not-for-profit, and other organisations. Work-sharing is a proposal where work is shared and more time is released for other activities or other work. The same holds for a shorter working week, which would reduce the number of hours one spends in paid work. Finally, basic income is a proposal for a minimum level of income that a person would receive independently of their work status.
The immediate problem with a job guarantee is that it still confines us to work-centric societies and risks imposing employment as compulsory, being too focused on the economic goal of fighting unemployment, with the assumption that having a job always has positive social effects. Both job guarantees and work-sharing are initiatives that are tied to work that is already there, i.e., which the guarantor gives or which one is doing already. Thus, they may offer some ways out in concrete situations within unemployment-stricken contexts or precarious labour markets. However, even if generously compensated, they do not change the organisation of work itself or the organisational settings where work takes place, keeping intact the same divisions of labour and inherent inequalities. They do not prevent people from having to do “bullshit” jobs or having to engage in dehumanising work.
The very possibility of work-sharing is less likely to apply to work that brings joy, harmony, and integrity, but more so to standardised and easily replaceable kinds of work. At the same time, work-sharing, if not undermining one’s right to live (e.g. coming with no loss of social security), may have a side effect of releasing one’s time and energy for other kinds of work and activities. Some form of work-sharing – more likely for work that has to be done – might be present in an anarchist society and has been integrated into anarchist visions of work. However, work-sharing does not offer much potential as a way forward if implemented to work and societies the way they are now.
Similarly, a shorter working week does not change the work we do or the way we do it. Nevertheless, it has a different logic from job guarantees and work-sharing as it releases the time and is not confined to a particular job. Historically, reduction of working time went hand in hand with improvements in work and living conditions. Today, such reduction can be liberating, especially when one has a chance to do less of work they do not like. Hence if all other conditions stay the same and this time does not come with a decrease in one’s living standards, a shorter working week releases time for one to engage in other activities – whether this is care, leisure, other work, pure contemplation, collective feasts or something else – and for them to be organised in a different way. It may thus help to prepare the soil for a non-work-centric society.
Out of these four initiatives engaging with the question of work, basic income has probably gained most attention lately, having been supported by social movements, research, and real-life experiments, as well as having received some discussion in policy-making. If set at a level that allows one to live well and have access to a generous social security system, basic income is as close as it gets to a non-work-centric idea of a society. With such an income, one would be freer to decide which work to engage in and potentially have more influence on organising it. However, the discourses that surround a system reliant on basic income can head in numerous directions, from reproducing unsustainable capitalist productivism and entrepreneurialism to radical re-organisation of society on grounds that would go in hand with anarchist visions. Hence when supporting it, it is important to promote articulations of basic income in terms of the latter. Furthermore, we still live in a world of nation states and all sorts of borders (re-)erected by them. It is at this level that the question of incorporating basic income into policies has been discussed so far, for example, in Finland and Switzerland. If a particular country establishes basic income of the kind we mentioned above, who will be able to get it and how will this reflect this country’s migration policy? These are the crucial questions to address, particularly in light of present and future migrations of people. This brings us back to the concept of the state that is so central to anarchist thought.
To conclude, we believe that work deserves more attention in anarchist thought precisely because it is at the core of reproducing the capitalist order. Even if not promoted to the status of a core concept, it needs to be thoroughly engaged with by anarchists. A society organised on anarchist principles would challenge productivism and economic growth as ends in themselves and be centred around human flourishing and ecological sustainability. Work-centrism would go, but work would stay and be(come) part of an anarchist world-making. The initiatives on work that we discussed also need to be engaged with and the contexts within which they are implemented need to be analysed. Though all these initiatives are subject to critique, and we are not ready to universally promote any of them, a basic income and a shorter working week are more likely to be stepping stones towards the kind of society and organisation of work that anarchism might find worth supporting. Not being connected to work itself, and/or releasing our time, they might help us transcend a productivist obsession and overworking as well as the human and ecological degradation that come with these, and hence prefigure a better world.
1 Even if we were to assume that there is a significant number of people who buy into the idea of “fairness” involved, further complications await: “This way of describing work, of understanding it as a fair exchange between two equals, hides the real relationship between employer and employee: that of domination and subordination. For if the truth behind the employment contract were widely known, workers in our society would refuse to work, because they would see that it is impossible for human individuals to truly separate out labour power from themselves” (Brown 1995).
2 Indeed, even Bertrand Russell (1932), the founder of the analytic tradition in philosophy, claims that “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”
3 For example, Emma Goldman (1940) writes: “The average worker has no inner point of contact with the industry he is employed in, and he is a stranger to the process of production of which he is a mechanical part. Like any other cog of the machine, he is replaceable at any time by other similar depersonalized human beings.” See also work by Peter Kropotkin (1906; 1998 [1898]) and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840).
4 A variety of work ethics has been discussed in the sociology of work and in critical management studies: see work by Richard Sennett (1998), Paul Heelas (2002), and Emma Bell and Scott Taylor (2003). Although these meanings are often constructed in line with certain ideologies of work (Anthony 1977), work as craft, work as a way to contribute to or even change the society, or work as a pleasurable activity in itself, are also among meanings that can be associated with work.
5 In our view, Barrington-Bush buys into the fancy practices introduced in modern workplaces, not sufficiently addressing the hierarchies and power relations that are still inherent to them.
6 Goldman (1940): “The masses plod on, partly because their senses have been dulled by the deadly routine of work and because they must eke out an existence. This applies with even greater force to the political fabric of today. There is no place in its texture for free choice of independent thought and activity. There is a place only for voting and tax-paying puppets.”
7 Proudhon (1840, ch. III, §5): “The money with which you pay the wages of the laborers remunerates them for only a few years of the perpetual possession which they have abandoned to you. Wages is the cost of the daily maintenance and refreshment of the laborer. You are wrong in calling it the price of a sale. The workingman has sold nothing; he knows neither his right, nor the extent of the concession which he has made to you, nor the meaning of the contract which you pretend to have made with him. On his side, utter ignorance; on yours, error and surprise, not to say deceit and fraud.”
8 Kropotkin (1906, ch. XIII, §1): “It is also easily understood why Proudhon took up the idea later on. In his Mutualist system he tried to make Capital less offensive, notwithstanding the retaining of private property, which he detested from the bottom of his heart, but which he believed to be necessary to guarantee individuals against the State.”
9 Kropotkin (1906, ch. XIII, §4): “… after having proclaimed the abolition of private property, and the possession in common of all means of production, how can they [collectivists] uphold the wages system in any form? It is, nevertheless, what collectivists are doing when they recommend labour-cheques.”
10 Kropotkin (1906, ch. XIII, §4): “No distinction can be drawn between the work of each man. Measuring the work by its results leads us to absurdity; dividing and measuring them by hours spent on the work also leads us to absurdity. One thing remains: put the needs above the works, and first of all recognize the right to live, and later on, to the comforts of life, for all those who take their share in production.”
11 Proudhon (1847, ch. III, §1): “I insist upon this precious datum of psychology, the necessary consequence of which is that the hierarchy of capacities henceforth cannot be allowed as a principle and law of organization: equality alone is our rule, as it is also our ideal.”
12 Proudhon (1847, ch. III, §1): “But, at this solemn hour of the division of labor, tempestuous winds begin to blow upon humanity. Progress does not improve the condition of all equally and uniformly, although in the end it must include and transfigure every intelligent and industrious being. It commences by taking possession of a small number of privileged persons, who thus compose the elite of nations, while the mass continues, or even buries itself deeper, in barbarism.”
13 Proudhon (1847, ch. III, §1): “Division, in the absence of which there is no progress, no wealth, no equality, subordinates the workingman, and renders intelligence useless, wealth harmful, and equality impossible.”
14 Cf. J.B. Say: “A man who during his whole life performs but one operation, certainly acquires the power to execute it better and more readily than another; but at the same time he becomes less capable of any other occupation, whether physical or moral; his other faculties become extinct, and there results a degeneracy in the individual man” (quoted in Proudhon 1847, ch. III, §1).
15 Quotes from this essay are translated into English by us.
16 Tolstoy (1954): “Labour is not just lacking virtue, but in our falsely organised society it is mostly a moral anaesthetic akin to smoking or liquor, which conceals wrongness and wickedness of one’s own life.”
17 See the distinction between animal laborans (the subject of labour) and homo faber (the subject of work) in Hannah Arendt (1998 [1958]). Homo faber is the subject involved in world-making (i.e. transforming and creating the world), but, according to Arendt, we are all animal laborans.
18 Neala Schleuning (1995): “Basic survival is, of course, a given when we think about the necessity for work … ‘Someone’ must do all this work – co-operatively, individually, by lot, by coercion – the work must be done.”
19 Kropotkin (1898, §VI): “We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others’ labor?” See also Bakunin (1947 [1867]): “The true, human liberty of a single individual implies the emancipation of all: because, thanks to the law of solidarity, which is the natural basis of all human society, I cannot be, feel, and know myself really, completely free, if I am not surrounded by men as free as myself. The slavery of each is my slavery.”
20 Even Tolstoy (1942 [1886], ch. XIII), a severe critic of the division of labour, would have such a stance towards it: “A division of labour always has existed and does exist, but it is only justified when man’s conscience and reason decide what it should be, and not when man merely observes that it does exist. And the conscience and reason of all men decide this question very simply, indubitably, and unanimously.”
21 See also Jeppesen in this volume. Notably, these goals are very similar to those articulated by other strands of academia and social movements of today, such as degrowth, feminist economics, and ecological Marxism. Hence, this is where anarchism can build alliances.
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