The Critique of Work in Modern French Thought

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Marxian Theory and the Critique of Work

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 1-44

3. Charles Fourier, Utopian Socialism and Attractive Labour

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 45-77

4. Paul Lafargue, Early French Marxism and the Right to Laziness

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 79-103

5. André Breton, the Artistic Avant-Garde and Surrealism’s War on Work

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 105-136

6. Guy Debord, the Situationist International and the Abolition of Alienated Labour

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 137-166

7. The New Spirit of Capitalism and the Critique of Work in France Since May ’68

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 167-192

8. News from Nowhere, or an Epoch of Rest

   • Alastair Hemmens

   Pages 193-203

9. Back Matter

   Pages 205-226

   PDF

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.

• work society
• labor culture
• labour culture
• Marxian
• Robert Kurz
• capitalism

“This book serves as a useful introduction to a tradition that remains relatively obscure to English readers.” (Ross Sparkes, Marx and Philosophy, marxandphilosophy.org.uk, January 6, 2021) “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)

• Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

  Alastair Hemmens

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

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