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Antiwork

“Workerism” is stupid and counterproductive (and, in its more intellectually developed forms, based on a misunderstanding of socialism and Marxist theory)

By “workerism” I mean what others sometimes call “producerism” or “populism” – a rhetorical glorification of the worker, of the nature of being a worker, often coupled to hostility towards the lumpenproletariat (the long-term, often criminal unemployed). The “Actually Existing Socialist” States were all workerist (without at all being socialist). The point of socialism and of Marxism is indeed to abolishes labor. Lenin can talk about how 'he who does not work, neither shall he eat' all he likes: Marx felt differently: The modern state, the rule of the bourgeoisie, is based on freedom of labour …. Freedom of Labour is free competition of the workers among themselves…. Labor is free in all civilized countries; it is not a matter of freeing labor but of abolishing it. (The German Ideology) Gilles Dauvé took this logic to its inevitable conclusion: All theories (bourgeois, fascist, Stalinist, Labourite, left-wing, or far-leftist) which somehow…


By “workerism” I mean what others sometimes call “producerism” or “populism” – a rhetorical glorification of the worker, of the nature of being a worker, often coupled to hostility towards the lumpenproletariat (the long-term, often criminal unemployed). The “Actually Existing Socialist” States were all workerist (without at all being socialist).

The point of socialism and of Marxism is indeed to abolishes labor. Lenin can talk about how 'he who does not work, neither shall he eat' all he likes: Marx felt differently:

The modern state, the rule of the bourgeoisie, is based on freedom of labour …. Freedom of Labour is free competition of the workers among themselves…. Labor is free in all civilized countries; it is not a matter of freeing labor but of abolishing it.

(The German Ideology)

Gilles Dauvé took this logic to its inevitable conclusion:

All theories (bourgeois, fascist, Stalinist, Labourite, left-wing, or far-leftist) which somehow glorify and praise the proletariat as it is and claim for it the positive role of defending values and regenerating society, are anti-revolutionary.

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