The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord
What is work? Why do we do it? Since time immemorial the answer to these questions, from both the left and the right, has been that work is both a natural necessity and, barring exploitation, a social good. One might criticise its management, its compensation and who benefits from it the most, but never work itself, never work as such. In this book, Alastair Hemmens seeks to challenge these received ideas. Drawing on the new ‘critique-of-value’ school of Marxian critical theory, Hemmens demonstrates that capitalism and its final crisis cannot be properly understood except in terms of the historically specific and socially destructive character of labour. It is from this radical perspective that Hemmens turns to an innovative critical analysis of the rich history of radical French thinkers who, over the past two centuries, have challenged the labour form head on: from the utopian-socialist Charles Fourier, who called for the abolition of the separation between work and play, and Marx’s wayward son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, who demanded The Right to Laziness (1880), to the father of Surrealism, André Breton, who inaugurated a ‘war on work’, and, of course, the French Situationist, Guy Debord, author of the famous graffito, ‘never work’. Ultimately, Hemmens considers normative changes in attitudes to work since the 1960s and the future of anti-capitalist social movements today. This book will be a crucial point of reference for contemporary debates about labour and the anti-work tradition in France.

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The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord
What is work? Why do we do it? Since time immemorial the answer to these questions, from both the left and the right, has been that work is both a natural necessity and, barring exploitation, a social good. One might criticise its management, its compensation and who benefits from it the most, but never work itself, never work as such. In this book, Alastair Hemmens seeks to challenge these received ideas. Drawing on the new ‘critique-of-value’ school of Marxian critical theory, Hemmens demonstrates that capitalism and its final crisis cannot be properly understood except in terms of the historically specific and socially destructive character of labour. It is from this radical perspective that Hemmens turns to an innovative critical analysis of the rich history of radical French thinkers who, over the past two centuries, have challenged the labour form head on: from the utopian-socialist Charles Fourier, who called for the abolition of the separation between work and play, and Marx’s wayward son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, who demanded The Right to Laziness (1880), to the father of Surrealism, André Breton, who inaugurated a ‘war on work’, and, of course, the French Situationist, Guy Debord, author of the famous graffito, ‘never work’. Ultimately, Hemmens considers normative changes in attitudes to work since the 1960s and the future of anti-capitalist social movements today. This book will be a crucial point of reference for contemporary debates about labour and the anti-work tradition in France.

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The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord

The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord

by Alastair Hemmens
The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord

The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought: From Charles Fourier to Guy Debord

by Alastair Hemmens

Overview

What is work? Why do we do it? Since time immemorial the answer to these questions, from both the left and the right, has been that work is both a natural necessity and, barring exploitation, a social good. One might criticise its management, its compensation and who benefits from it the most, but never work itself, never work as such. In this book, Alastair Hemmens seeks to challenge these received ideas. Drawing on the new ‘critique-of-value’ school of Marxian critical theory, Hemmens demonstrates that capitalism and its final crisis cannot be properly understood except in terms of the historically specific and socially destructive character of labour. It is from this radical perspective that Hemmens turns to an innovative critical analysis of the rich history of radical French thinkers who, over the past two centuries, have challenged the labour form head on: from the utopian-socialist Charles Fourier, who called for the abolition of the separation between work and play, and Marx’s wayward son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, who demanded The Right to Laziness (1880), to the father of Surrealism, André Breton, who inaugurated a ‘war on work’, and, of course, the French Situationist, Guy Debord, author of the famous graffito, ‘never work’. Ultimately, Hemmens considers normative changes in attitudes to work since the 1960s and the future of anti-capitalist social movements today. This book will be a crucial point of reference for contemporary debates about labour and the anti-work tradition in France.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9783030125851
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Publication date: 04/27/2019
Series: Studies in Revolution and Literature
Edition description: 1st ed. 2019
Pages: 226
Product dimensions: 5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alastair Hemmens is Honorary Research Fellow in French at Cardiff University School of Modern Languages, UK.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Marxian Theory and the Critique of Work.- Chapter 2: Charles Fourier, Utopian Socialism and Attractive Labour.- Chapter 3: Paul Lafargue, Early French Marxism and the Right to Laziness.- Chapter 4: André Breton, the Artistic Avant-Garde and Surrealism’s War on Work.- Chapter 5: Guy Debord, the Situationist International and the Abolition of Alienated Labour.- Chapter 6: The New Spirit of Capitalism and the Critique of Work in France since May ’68.- Chapter 7: News from Nowhere, or an Epoch of Rest.



What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Hemmens’ book constitutes a thoughtful and inventive engagement with a core object preoccupying much of the landscape in critical thought and theory around politics and ontology today: namely, how does one not only arrive at a critique, but, more crucially, imagine a way out, of the neoliberal impasse which reduces life itself to an economic logic of work and competition. [...] Thus, the bold, utopian question coursing through Hemmens’ study is not only “how do we work our way out of (the ontological and social dead end) of work,” but, more fundamentally and pointedly: “who needs work?” By its concluding pages, one cannot but find oneself nodding in assent: who needs it, indeed? An impressive, timely, and indeed necessary inquiry into the critique of work.” (Robert St. Clair, Assistant Professor of French, Dartmouth College, USA)

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