Against the Logic of Work

[harpo-my-“SON”Participant 2410]

I love what I do for a living, but I am getting older and fatigue sets upon me faster than years past. A redneck retirement involving travel and helping the homeless is appealing to me now. I have no savings for retirement, but I also have no debt obligation. I should be able to create a lifestyle that allows me satisfaction, plus do it on the cheap and on the fly. Challenging my creative prowess. A working when necessary vagabond existence.

 
A Revolutionary Manifesto Intended to Be Taken Lightly

1. Among the Undead

Today, very few people truly live.
Very few few people experience the vitality of their becoming in the present moment.
Very few people reach out to grasp the energy of their desire in order to create that becoming…

Instead, they work.

2. Sleepwalking

I may dream of a world through which unique beings gracefully wend their way, every move, every passage through the streets, the gardens, the wilds,
a dance, a game , a voyage in an endless adventure.
But this daydream itself is belied by reality as my wandering mind is shocked back into my lurching body just in time to avoid crashing into some other distracted sleepwalker.
Such a graceless, joyless world, this world of work.
Not the world of a dance or an elegant game or a voyage into the unknown,
but of bouncing atoms and grinding gears and lock-step marches toward death.
Not lives created joyfully in complicity and conflict, with spontaneous intent,
but survival acted out habitually, in roles already set, where somnambulists thoughtlessly fall into place,
gears in a machine whose purpose eludes them.
But all that really matters is that it works…
that you work…
that I work…

3. My Revolution

And so my revolution–
any anarchist revolution–
any revolution that intends to take back life here and now–
requires the destruction of work…
IMMEDIATELY!

4. Revolutionary Work?!?

No revolution to date has managed to eradicate work,
because even the revolutionaries most hostile to work have failed to imagine a revolution free from its logic…
Working against work, their efforts are doomed.
So it is necessary to know what work is and how its logic operates.

5. The Work Ethic

“Those who do not work shall not eat.”
This hellish christian motto sums up the work ethic perfectly.
Small-minded and small-hearted, pathetic and miserly,
it is the feeble morality of the shopkeeper frightened of the clever thief or daring robber.
It is the threat of the police–the slave driver’s whip of our times…
And it is easy to reject this self-serving ethic of grasping, narrow-minded bigots.
Far more difficult is seeing through to work’s logic,
beyond the bigots, to their masters…

6. Undercover Slavery

The logic of work remains hidden, veiled, operating undercover, because it functions through alienated activity.
When you and I act out of habit,
without thinking for ourselves,
repeating the same banal motions,
we are sleepwalkers,
somnambulists…
When you and I sell our activity for a cause we do not know,
we are slaves…
somnambulant slaves…
zombies…
This is alienation, where the aims, the goals, the products of our activities are strangers to us.
And this is why the logic of work remains well-hidden,
operating undercover
through the judgments of the work ethic.

7. A Limited Attack

And perhaps this is also why the enemies of work have mostly just attacked the work ethic.
In this limited attack, all that is opposed to work is leisure,
the time of idleness,
of inconsequential activity.
The battle is then merely quantitative–
a reduction of work-hours,
an increase in leisure time–
a withering away of work,
perhaps even to zerowork…
but still within the framework of the world of work and its logic.

8. The Logic of Work

The logic of work can be summed up in this way:
All activity of consequence must have a goal, an end.
And so every activity is to be judged and valued in terms of its end product.
This product takes precedence over the creative process,
causing the non-existent future to dominate the present.
Immediate satisfaction in the joy of creating has no value,
only success or failure count…
and counting is what value’s all about.
Winners or losers, but not a free creator in the lot.
It should come as no surprise that in the world of this logic, efficiency is valued for itself.
Regardless of the end, what works most efficiently to bring it about successfully is what counts…
penny by penny…
dollar by dollar…
And this is why you have to work…
This is why I have to work…
Or be counted among the worthless…
the zeroes in society’s accounting book.

9. The Theft of Life

Always aimed toward ends,
final goals,
products,
life in the present disappears.
The aimless, end-less becoming of each unique individual
is sacrificed to the goal of production and social reproduction.
The flux of interweaving relationships is dammed up
and channeled into roles which are nothing more than gears in the social machine.
This is alienation,
the theft of my activity,
the theft of your activity,
the theft of my life
and of your life.
Not even the products we make are ours.
Not even the successes are ours.
Only the failures,
above all, the failure to live…

10. Revolution in the Logic of Work

Within work’s logic, revolution is a task with an aim…
a goal…
to produce the perfectly functioning society.
It has a beginning and an end.
It succeeds or fails, is won or lost.
But always…
it comes to an end.
Within this logic, there is only revolutionary work
or revolutionary idleness.
Anti-work revolutionaries can embrace the task of activists or militants,
defeating themselves from the beginning
by working for the end of work…
Or they can idly wait for an abstract History
or an equally abstract “objective” or “essential” revolutionary subject
to make the revolution in their place…
Once again defeating themselves…
choosing to let their lives slip through their hands
waiting for their savior to appear.
Failing to escape the logic of work,
every revolution to date has failed…
even the ones that were victorious…
especially the ones that were victorious.
They have failed from the beginning,
because within the logic of winners and losers,
of success and failure,
the revolution has already ceased,
because the past has fixed the future,
guaranteeing the defeat.
And so with their victory these revolutions ended
and the “liberated” people…
went back to work…

11. Breaking with the Logic of Work

So why not break completely with the logic of work?
Why not conceive of activity that is of consequence, not because of its end product,
but because of what it is here and now?
Why not embrace RESOLUTE PLAYFULNESS?
To conceive of revolution in this way is to conceive of it in a way that is fundamentally different,
absolutely other
than the ways that it has generally been conceived by revolutionaries…
Revolution not as a task,
but as a form of play,
as a game, but only in the broadest sense…
As an exploration,
an experiment…
with no beginning and no end…
Rather an endless opening out into new explorations, new experiments, new adventures.
A kind of alchemy or magic of continual transformation…
Putting our lives at stake in each moment for the sheer joy of living…
Here there can be no failure…
Here there can be no defeat…
because there is no aim, no goal, no end…
just the ongoing adventure of conflict and complicity,
destruction and creation,
that is life lived to the full.

I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.

[Ned TrentParticipant 4894]

Wow harpomason, what an insightful and sharp observation. Well done, sir and you know it reminds me of one quite philosophical thought I had quite recently:

There was a time when the economy and money perse was to serve humans (roughly 50 to 70 years ago). Now with that balance gradually having shifted into the very opposite direction until right now, what could the future possibly hold for us..? Unless we strive to some sort of ground breaking revolution in terms of work ethics in a way like you tried to describe it towards the end of your excellent post…

And yes:

harpo-my-“SON” wrote:

So why not break completely with the logic of work? Why not conceive of activity that is of consequence, not because of its end product, but because of what it is here and now? Why not embrace RESOLUTE PLAYFULNESS?

I’ve actually in part been there and done that, for instance I occasionally in my leisure came up with some very creative work of my own, more or less exactly to embrace my own resolute joyfulness completely disregarding it’s actual commonly presumed monetary “value” and thus it no longer counted as real work to me but more like fun. If you will I was succumbed to do a kind of creative masturbation, which again in the end was only temporary joy in nature, since it would blatantly be viewed by common standards as not (economicly) valuable unless if I was gonna desperately try to sell it but I didn’t, also because in this day and age the obstacles for being able to do so seem way too high.

Finally I want to give another thought provoking quote from a great movie in which one (evil and yet smart) character said: “They say time is money. But hey, they got it all wrong –> time is the absence of money…”

With that I leave you guys to it…

 

Ned T.

I'd rather die a natual death with a clear MGTOW conscience somewhere off the grid than one within "modern" civilisation with a big stress mark on my forehead and a couple of dozen tubes plugged into my body. Back to the plantation..? Me..? Hey, literally: I won't ever fucking kid myself...YZERLMNTSIC

[SnakeSpectator 2080]

You can eat a candy bar, but you will need to walk for three hours to expend the calories you put on. It is better to just not eat the candy bar. You can work and buy a whore, but might as well just rub one out and pocket the cash. It is no different for most other things in life. Some things that can drastically eat into your finances:

1) Chasing women: A no-brainer; this is probably the #1 killer to your freedom and well being. As a man you must always be vigilant to reduce the drive for women. Women have ended up costing men more than any of the other things combined. You can get money, but if you do not have this under control, well, you know the saying: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

2) Caring about what people think: peer pressure is a mother f~~~er and society is too. Razors to shave with, cologne, contact lens solution, etc. All this little s~~~ adds up. Use less of this.

3) Addictions: Beer, coffee, cigarettes, weed, etc. Huge.

4) Expensive diet: It takes a man a while to learn what foods he likes and can eat every day. Eating healthy and cheap takes a while for a person, but by age 30+ hopefully you have figured out a good diet. This one can be particularly difficult because eating is something that must be done.

5) Lack of resourcefulness: Why pay for meat when you can hunt. Why buy new jeans, just sew up the ones with the hole in it. Only use gas and go shopping when absolutely necessary.

Just a quick brainstorm to lay out a few pointers.

[RedHeadedStrangerParticipant 204]

I’ve often wondered why we don’t just open our mouths to the sky and let French pastries, London broil, and Swedish meatb~~~~ fall onto our tongues.

What?  Food doesn’t just fall from the sky?  What?  It has to be cultivated, harvested, and prepared?  What?  Someone has to WORK so that I may eat?  What?  If I choose to gather my food by my own hand, then it is I who work?  What?  The f~~~ing injustice!  I wish I were a goddamned plant.  Then I wouldn’t have to work.  Since I am an animal, I guess it’s time to get to work.  I’m getting a little hungry.

To be taken lightly.~

[RoyDalParticipant]

Ha ha! You can’t fool me. Everybody knows food appears by magic at the supermarket wrapped in plastic ready to cook and eat.

Society asks MGTOWs: Why are you not making more tax-slaves?

[SnakeSpectator 2080]

With food stamps, it basically does.

[harpo-my-“SON”Participant 2410]

A five month vacation from July to November ten state camping trip…

I have $150 mo expenditures being that it is may, June, July, Aug, sep, Oct, Nov…Seven months I would want to be back here by thanksgiving..   7x $150=$1050  pays my bills through November..Hey! I am free to move about the country…I refuse to let the worry over having enough food get in the way of my bid for freedom….I could stand to lose 10 or 15 lbs anyhow…If I am home at thanksgiving I can replenish…He  who dares to plan a 5 month vacation….Oh the shame I feel…My next $1500 will pay that obligation and leave me with $450 to go towards my bike build…I want a 6 month vacation next year…

I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.

[harpo-my-“SON”Participant 2410]

Batcave  I am impressed with your attitude about work matters. I am aligned with most of your thoughts. owning your own enterprise is the way I wish to go. I have issues myself giving too much importance to earning money, and not enough importance to enjoying life..

I have taken a delivery position.. Delivering office supplies.  I did not know there was such jobs that pay cash, no withholding..I am an independent contractor..I presumed all delivery drivers to be working for the company..I have my own route that pays predetermined amount.. It is about 60/40 split with the owner of the delivery van…I get the 60%…Was told with my own van I get 40% increase…I would also get maintenance, fuel and insurance cost.. I will give it a few months and see how it works out first then decide…

I still intend on doing a good amount of travel the next few years..Even if I have to shoestring budget my way across the country..

I was bound to be misunderstood, and I laugh at those who misunderstand me. Kind mockery at the well intentioned, but unfettered cruelty towards those would be prison guards of my creative possibilities. This so as to learn as much from misunderstanding as from understanding. Taking pleasure in worthy opponents and making language fluid and flowing like a river yet pointed and precise as a dagger. Contradicts the socialistic purpose of language and makes for a wonderful linguistic dance, A verbal martial art with constant parries that hone the weapon that is the two edged sword of my mouth.

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