49 Quotes by Bob Black

The alternative to work isn't just idleness. To be ludic is not to be quaaludic. As much as I treasure the pleasure of torpor, it's never more rewarding than when it punctuates other pleasures and pastimes. Nor am I promoting the managed time-disciplined safety-valve called "leisure"; far from it. Leisure is nonwork for the sake of work. Leisure is the time spent recovering from work and in the frenzied but hopeless attempt to forget about work.

Bad news for liberals: regulatory tinkering is useless in this life-and-death context. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration was designed to police the core part of the problem, workplace safety... Serious enforcement of even the rather vague standards enforceable in theory by OSHA would probably bring the economy to a standstill. The enforcers apparently appreciate this, since they don't even try to crack down on most malefactors.

You are what you do. If you do boring, stupid monotonous work, chances are you'll end up boring, stupid and monotonous. Work is a much better explanation for the creeping cretinization all around us than even such significant moronizing mechanisms as television and education.

The only thing "free" about so-called free time is that it doesn't cost the boss anything. Free time is mostly devoted to getting ready for work, going to work, returning from work, and recovering from work. Free time is an euphemism for the peculiar way labor as a factor of production not only transports itself at its own expense to and from the workplace but assumes primary responsibility for its own maintenance and repair.

But anarchism has become fashionable, especially among refugees from the left who don’t understand that anarchism isn’t a sexier version of leftism, it is what it is, it is something else entirely, it is just anarchism and it is post-leftist.

Ces experts, qui se proposent de penser à notre place, font rarement état publiquement de leurs conclusions sur le travail, malgré son écrasante importance dans nos vies. Entre eux, ils pinaillent sur des détails. Les syndicats et les managers sont d’accord pour dire que nous devrions vendre notre temps, nos vies en échange de la survie, même s’ils en marchandent le prix.

Tous les travailleurs de l'industrie et des bureaux sont des employés et subissent donc une forme de surveillance qui garantit leur servilité.

Le jeu et le don sont étroitement liés. Ils participent, mentalement et socialement, de la même impulsion individuelle et générique : l'instinct ludique. Le jeu et le don partagent le même hautain dédain pour le résultat.

Nous sommes si liés au monde du travail que nous ne voyons guère le mal qu'il nous fait. Il nous faut compter sur des observateurs venus d'autres âges ou d'autres cultures pour apprécier l’extrême gravité pathologique de notre situation présente.