- 09 Nov 2011 00:36
#13828030
Necessarily having to work in order to survive is fairly central to class antagonisms and people will probably always agitate over the fact until work becomes something that is entirely voluntary or no longer necessary or arranged entirely around personal interests and interchangeable hobbies.
Wealthy, service sector economies with extensive welfare institutions make it possible for the work-shy to live at the poverty line without ever working, however there are countless contradictions within this arrangement that are unraveling the system itself, which we are witnessing today (particularly the demise of social democratic welfare capitalism). This also does not resolve class antagonisms, as those living on welfare are generally confronted with urban decay, crime and exclusion from regular consumerist patterns, etc. (which itself fuels criminal behavior). I've encountered many people who use social services to cover their basic expenses (rent, food, etc.) while engaging in profitable criminal activities or unaccounted day labor ("welfare fraud") in order to participate in regular consumption patterns.
I don't think a zero-hour work week is possible under a capitalist mode of production, though. However, it is something that is obviously desired, otherwise class struggle would not exist nor would anyone have agitated for the 8-hour work week to begin with. Whether the bourgeois armchair-philosophers desire it or not is probably irrelevant.
Wealthy, service sector economies with extensive welfare institutions make it possible for the work-shy to live at the poverty line without ever working, however there are countless contradictions within this arrangement that are unraveling the system itself, which we are witnessing today (particularly the demise of social democratic welfare capitalism). This also does not resolve class antagonisms, as those living on welfare are generally confronted with urban decay, crime and exclusion from regular consumerist patterns, etc. (which itself fuels criminal behavior). I've encountered many people who use social services to cover their basic expenses (rent, food, etc.) while engaging in profitable criminal activities or unaccounted day labor ("welfare fraud") in order to participate in regular consumption patterns.
I don't think a zero-hour work week is possible under a capitalist mode of production, though. However, it is something that is obviously desired, otherwise class struggle would not exist nor would anyone have agitated for the 8-hour work week to begin with. Whether the bourgeois armchair-philosophers desire it or not is probably irrelevant.
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