POL 4275 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Autonomism, Primitive Communism, Frankfurt School
Kathi Weeks Notes 4/25
The Problem With Work
Chapter One:
●Work Society
○What is work?
■Waged, unwaged
●Work Ethic
○What is the value of work?
■Instrumentally, non-instrumentally (intrinsically)
○Five Autonomies
Chapter Two:
●“Productivism”
○A critique of capitalism from the standpoint of labor
○1) Socialist Modernization
■Soviet Communism, Lenin, etc.
■Communism, as distinct from Marxism (philosophical), is an attempt to
put into practice a specific institutional and political arrangement trying
to rectify the problem
■Society for and by workers
■“Modern” vs “primitive” communism
■Goal: more work
○2) Socialist Humanism
■E Fromm, Frankfurt School
■Alienation through modernization
■“Fordism” - division of labor
●Associated with Henry Ford, assembly line, efficiency
●Alienation of workers from the product of their labor
●(91)
■Goal: better work
○3) Autonomist Marxism
■Self-valorization, antagonism, separation
■Creation of small-scale worlds/collective works to create new types of
work/alternative work and non-work
■Italy
■Goal: less work
○Kathi Weeks looks to #3 since Autonomists call into question the value of work
and don’t think it’s the most important thing in the world like #1 & 2
Chapter Three: (answers “what does less work mean?”)
●Wages for Housework
○1970s feminism
Document Summary
A critique of capitalism from the standpoint of labor. Communism, as distinct from marxism (philosophical), is an attempt to put into practice a specific institutional and political arrangement trying to rectify the problem. Associated with henry ford, assembly line, efficiency. Alienation of workers from the product of their labor. Creation of small-scale worlds/collective works to create new types of work/alternative work and non-work. Kathi weeks looks to #3 since autonomists call into question the value of work and don"t think it"s the most important thing in the world like #1 & 2. Chapter three: (answers what does less work mean? ) Waged work is only a small part of us labor; unpaid work is the basis for this to be possible. Weeks thinks this was an important provocation since it tried to challenged work on a broad scale, even though it was unsuccessful.