address critically contributions to the post-work literature as well as to the modern debate on automation and the future of work. I take an opposing position. In terms of post-work ideas, I argue for the transformation of work, as opposed to its negation. The idea of negating work betrays a lack of imagination about how work can be recreated in the future. On the topic of automation, I debate whether society would be better or worse off by using technology to replace human labour. Here I suggest that a progressive case for reform must embrace the goal of putting technology to use in reducing work hours while enhancing the quality of work. In this case, moves can and should be made to achieve both less and better work.
There are other notable aspects of the book. One aspect relates to the coverage of ideas. Given my background as an economist, there will be references to the economics literature. This reflects partly on how economics has influenced the wider understanding of work – in particular, economics has helped to promote an understanding of work as an instrumental activity that is performed mainly for money. Economics has also presented work as a cost and sought to elevate the benefits of higher consumption – in this respect, it has embedded an ideology in support of higher economic growth. I will take issue with this way of thinking about work and will point to the need to look beyond economics in understanding the meaning and role of work. Given my wider concern for interdisciplinary research, there will also be an integration of ideas from different disciplines and subject areas. Broadly, the book can be seen as a contribution to the development of a political economy approach to the study of work.
In a previous book, I developed ideas towards a political economy of work – in particular, I examined how ideas about work had evolved and changed in economics, both past and present.6 The present book pushes the debate a stage further, by examining how work might be studied differently and reimagined in the future.
This book is written at a time of crisis, not only of work, but of society in general. This crisis has been created by COVID-19. To be sure, work was not working for the majority before the onset of the pandemic. In the UK as well as the US, for example, problems of in-work poverty have coincided with issues of unequal pay and long work hours. But COVID-19 has magnified and deepened the problems of work, in part by adding to unemployment, but also by increasing workloads and creating new dangers for those in work. So-called ‘key workers’ (e.g. in health services) have felt particular pressure, being required to work excessive hours and under conditions that present direct harms to their health.
I recognize that COVID-19 has hit some groups more than others – minorities, for example, have faced a higher death toll, partly because of their exposure to jobs in which risks of harm have been higher. Women, too, have faced higher burdens of work (both unpaid and paid). The pandemic has revealed starkly the inequities in society and the unfitness of the present capitalist system as a means to meet our collective and individual needs.7
But I will suggest through the pages of this book that a different future can and must be created. Contemporary debates focus on ‘building back better’ – creating a better, more robust future.8 These debates can have a hollow ring, in the sense that they can cloak a call for the restoration of the same system that existed before COVID-19 struck – one that left society exposed to the pandemic once it hit. Rather, my argument is that the crisis must be a moment for critical reflection on the present and future of society – that is, it should lead us to question the current order of things and to build a different system where we can all live and work in ways that not only protect our health, but also enable us to carry out activities (including in work) that bring meaning and pleasure to our lives.
In promoting alternatives beyond the crisis, this book supports the idea and goal of lightening work. I argue that the crisis linked to COVID-19 has shown how work must be shared out in society and how lighter work for all is a laudable and potentially achievable goal. But I also argue that the crisis reminds us of how work should be improved upon in qualitative terms. We need to discuss what essential work is and how it is to be directed and organized in our workplaces. In essence, if a better future of work and life is to be achieved, then we must make strides to lighten work, in terms of both the hours it occupies in the day and the quality of experience it offers in our lives. This book, then, seeks to promote the lightening of work as a specific political demand.
The ideas in the book are outlined across several chapters. Chapter 2 examines different meanings of work. Here I highlight the error of seeing work as perpetually bad or good and instead argue for a more nuanced approach that links the costs and benefits of work activities to the actual system of work. In advancing this argument, I invoke the ideas of Marx and Morris, including those on the scope for reclaiming work as a creative and pleasurable activity. Their vision of transforming work into something positive in human life is one I endorse. Indeed, this vision inspires ideas in the rest of the book.
Chapter 3 asks why work hours have stayed long under capitalism and why the quantitative lightening of work has remained elusive. Focusing on J. M. Keynes’s famous 1930 essay, ‘Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’, I examine the barriers to, and benefits of, working less. I defend the argument that work hours should be reduced in society and promote the vision of a future where shorter work hours add to the quality of work and life.
Chapter 4 discusses some realities of modern work. I assess critically David Graeber’s ‘bullshit jobs’ thesis and evaluate other approaches that defend and criticize work in society. This discussion culminates in support for an objective definition of the quality of work. I focus on how the nature and system of work can limit workers’ ability to meet their needs, and I emphasize the importance of structural reform in delivering higher-quality work.
Chapter 5 asks whether high-quality work can be made available to all. I show how some economic and ethical arguments endorse the restriction of high-quality work to a minority in society – in effect, contending that society should accept the inevitability of a world where some people (perhaps even the majority) do low-quality work. I refute these arguments. Instead, I build a case for extending to all workers the opportunity for high-quality work.
Chapter 6 examines modern debate on the possibilities for automation and labour-saving technology. This debate is increasingly influential in shaping opinions about the future of work – indeed, it has led to predictions of the demise of work. I strike a sceptical note, pointing out limits to automation in the present. I also highlight how notions of automation have been linked to understandings of the meaning of work and how these notions have driven alternative agendas for change (some more radical than others). I argue that the modern debate on automation needs to tackle issues of ownership if it is to see the full potential for changing work in the future.
Chapter 7 examines issues of policy and politics. I raise questions in relation to current growth-based policies, the objective of full employment and the implementation of a UBI. Instead, I set out an alternative reform agenda. The latter encompasses support for a four-day work week, but also returns to ideas found in Marx and Morris on the requirement to change the nature of work. Change here includes shifts in the goals of work as well as in the ownership of workplaces. The vision of work transformation drives the reform agenda I propose.
Chapter 8 sets out the key conclusions and contributions of the book. In particular, it reiterates how less and better work can be realized jointly in a society beyond capitalism. I also reflect on how, given the occurrence of repeated crises, change has become a much more urgent and necessary task – one that we should seek to promote and help to bring into being. Visions of ‘building back better’,
