actually, i do dream of labour
just not work in the late stage of capitalism, when everything is doomed.
Dear dear dear readers, I am so sorry for the scheduling of my writing I am still trying to figure out what I want to write and how to proceed. This is a half hearted apology because I enjoy taking my time to write and to think and sit with my ideas and walk with them and go for drinks, maybe even taking a shower with them... It’s all part of the process.
See, I am glad I procrastinated for, you see, I started this essay in January but something wasn’t clicking. Until I read the ’s essay It’s Not Burnout, It’s Grief in which she correctly (in my opinion) argues that we are not burnout but grieving a past version of work, to paraphrase: Work as we once knew it no longer exists.1
Ever since I was a young ambitious and dreamy girl, I’ve had the same picture of my ideal life at the back of my head. I would be wearing very high heels and wear three-piece suits, my job would pay me well enough that I can afford a nice apartment with huge windows, in a busy city. I would come home after a deliciously hard day of labour and pour myself a glass of Barbaresco, music would play in the background while I cook myself dinner, probably before heading out for an opening or some other fancy activity. The job changed over the years2, I wanted to be so many things but I finally settled on writer.
This is not very Marxist of me, I know. But, let me continue.
What I am trying to say is that I always dreamed of labour. A naïve part of me still hopes to find meaning through work and be a way to live a full life, to contribute to society and make the world a little better in the process. How fantastic would it be to have the time, resources and energy to be part of a community at the end of the day? To not be scared of the grocery bills or rent or the destruction of our environment? To explore the world and experience Arts? To wake up each day, thrilled to be alive?
Instead of this, I am stuck in dystopian late capitalism.
The lyrics of All Love is Lost finally struck me, almost ten years after the release of All of our Gods Have Abandoned Us, Architects’ masterpiece.3 We live in dark times, a lot of us have little hope for a bright future and expect the worst is yet to come. Our work offer little to no comfort, sometime it doesn’t even offer enough to buy food or rent.
Sat at my desk on my lunch break, I read the latest Drop Site News article on the genocide in Gaza.4 The tear I want to shed hasn’t even left my eye before I am taken by rage. My taxes are paying for this. My time, my life is translated into money and paying to murder thousands and thousands of people in a country they want to destroy. And I get even angrier because all I can think about is my own person and how alienated I feel from life. Work beats us down.
Work is part of a system designed to break us, it is constructed to make us feel isolated and powerless. Neoliberalism gave employers all mighty power by disintegrating the welfare State, ensuring that without work we are nothing and have nothing. The chorus of modern misery. Technology and industrial advances were supposed to free the worker (lol) and give us free time, to help us live a full and meaningful life freed from labour! Yet, our productivity level are continuously reaching new height while our salary stagnated, the work week hasn’t change in decades, and we are all exhausted. Well done, system.
Technology and other industrial innovations will get us, the workers, nowhere without a new social contract. Just like AI without proper social policy will not make our lives easier, it will only make humans redundant and unemployed. In The Social Contract, Rousseau argues in favour of a society regulated by the people instead of the divine right of a monarch. Indeed, in order to be legitimate, authority must be compatible with one’s freedom and will - something we no longer possess.
In Lost in Work, Amelia Horgan questions why our relation to work has become so miserable, and how can we change it. She notes that, a fundamental problem with work is capitalism. “The forces of capital become ravenous, eating up all that is human, sucking the lifeblood of society”, our jobs drain us and the system spit us out, “too tired for anything than the meeting of the most basic needs”. Horgan further argue that, in theory, we have the capacity to find pleasure in our work. After all, isn’t it essential that something we spent most of our days, and by extend our lives, doing, be a source of joy and satisfaction?
I dream of finding a job that would offer me personal development, a decent pay (you know, to live) and the feeling that I contribute to society. I would love to be a full-time writer, or even a part-time one who works as a barista or waitress the other half. I would love to use my degree just like I would love to use my waitressing skills, but neither pays well enough. It bothers me how much I rely on money, how high it is in the list of my priority but I value freedom, and safety, and money holds the key to both.
We need a small work revolution, or a big one - I’m not picky. But we desperately need a change. It bugs me that the Universal Basic Income is still debated despite the numerous successful stories. It irks me that we’re still discussing the 4-day work week when it showed clear benefits for both the employers and employees. I royally PISSES ME OFF that essential workers and ‘unskilled’ workers are not paid more when our society depends on them. How is it possible that full-time workers struggle to make ends meet? Why is our society relying so heavily on modern slavery?
So many questions, so much political will to do fuck all.
2025 was supposed to be the year of quitting, unfortunately it is not the year of hiring. I can’t quit until I find my next job, which could take years according to The Guardian. Reports on the UK job market are bleak, depressing. 1.5 million of Britons are sending their resumes, thousands of the them sometimes, and receive nothing. No replies, no interview, no job. It’s desperate island out here. So what are we going to do about this? Could we get a work reform instead of blaming immigrants and refugees?
In a recent essay,
writes: “The revolution is made out of desire or it is not a revolution at all.” Hope, at last.
/ in parallel /
Only 6 Percent of Gen Z Workers Want to Be the Boss
‘It’s nightmarish’: why 1.5m Britons are still hunting for a job, The Guardian
We have the tools and technology to work less and live better? Aeon
Read her essay, I promise it is worth it!!!!!
I actually misspelled years as tears TWICE, so, you know - revelatory lapsus.
Yes, Architects again. No, this will not be the last. There is an Architects song for every occasion.
Please read Sharif Abdel Kouddous’ words on the death of their colleague, journalist Hossam Shabbat, who was killed by Israel.
Capitalism is slavery not the freedom we were promised on the TV. We experience alienation which occurs because our labour has been appropriated by our employer so we can no longer produce the things we need to sustain life - we need land to do that. We are forced to work for a boss and ultimately the extraction of profit. We are very lucky if we find job satisfaction. Writing is creative and hugely satisfying. Keep on writing.
I think it was Chomsky who spoke about employment as being a tyranny. And you're right, it is becoming increasingly unbearable, and ever more difficult in getting a job. Not just a decent job, but any job. That tyranny of employment, and the inability to live comfortably of what we earn, makes the idea of us living in a free society sound like a sick joke. As you demonstrate in this brilliant article, it is not labour that is to be feared but employment. This is a very important distinction.