Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

Predatory capitalism

There are currently 30 articles in this category    RSS

  • faviconAgile Workplace — The virtue most venerated in the Agile environment is autonomy – which, in practice, amounts to a cult of individual performance. Ceaseless self-education, self-training and self-improvement is required. Boundaries between work and non-work disintegrate [2021]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: New Left Review    

  • faviconThe Tyranny of Work or Why Are we Still Measured by Our Productivity? — The fixation on economic inactivity assumes that the wage relation is the only meaningful form of labour, that those who are not officially employed are doing nothing of value. But as Fortunati shows, capitalism has always relied on unpaid labour [2025]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Productivity, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: anti capitalist musings    

  • faviconThe most valuable work we give a value of zero — Economists and other writers like Marilyn Waring have written about how care is the most valuable work in any economy but is given a value of zero. The work of basic income is care as well [2025]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: How to be Human, UBI   
    Comments   
    Source: Independent Blogs    

  • faviconOnce You Try a Four-Day Workweek, It’s Hard to Go Back — The results confirmed what the participants had hoped. The shorter workweek improved employees’ physical health and mental well-being. Employers saw benefits, too [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: 4 Day Week   
    Comments   
    Country: DE   
    Source: Bloomberg    

  • faviconWe Are All Charlie Chaplin on the Assembly Line — The most lasting legacy of Taylorism is that it divested workers of their individual control over the production process and the perpetual feeling of being a minor human cog in a vast unknowable machine [2019]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Productivity   
    Comments   
    Source: ZNetwork    

  • faviconAnalysis Shows ‘Quiet Fleecing’ of US Workers—Not ‘Quiet Quitting’—Is the Real Problem. “Workers are more productive than ever, but their pay hasn’t kept pace while top 1% wages have skyrocketed,” says the Economic Policy Institute [2018]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Research, Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Common Dreams    

  • faviconThis ‘Return to the Office’ Rhetoric needs to end — The worst thing about those calling for a return to the office is that it is masking a bigger problem which crept into the working world in recent years: unpaid, unofficially forced overtime [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Remote Working, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Independent Blogs    

  • faviconDemanding employees turn on their webcams is a human rights violation, Dutch Court rules; in addition, it rules that the company needs to pay the employee’s wages, unused vacation days, and a number of other costs as well [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: NL   
    Source: Various    

  • faviconThe Problem With Work — There is no escaping economic precarity in a society like ours—unless one is born into wealth, that is, or exploits others for profit. And no amount of education or culturedness or any professional-class job will shield you from the rampant exploitation that is core to a society that subordinates everything to profit [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Worker Rights, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: Current Affairs    

  • faviconGen Z are over having their work ethic questioned: ‘Most boomers don’t know what it’s like to work 40+ hours a week and still not be able to afford a house’ [2025]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Protestant Work Ethic, Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Fortune    

  • faviconWorkplace surveillance may hurt us more than it helps — Workplace surveillance should be subject to regulatory oversight and ideally collective bargaining, since individuals will be better placed to negotiate the details en masse [2021]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Mental Health, Technofeudalism   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Financial Times    

  • faviconOlder Workers Deserve Rest—but the Country Isn’t Letting Them Have It — Millions of Americans are working well past the retirement age, not because they “simply don’t want to quit” but because they just can’t afford to do so [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Wage Slavery   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: The Nation    

  • faviconApple accused of silencing workers, spying on personal devices — new lawsuit says company was illegally monitoring its workers’ personal devices and iCloud accounts while also barring them from discussing their pay and working conditions [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Reuters    

  • faviconPay gap between bosses and employees must be reduced, UK workers say — The majority of the widening income gap was caused by a reduction in the disposable incomes of the UK’s poorest 20% of households, while the disposable incomes of the richest 20% of households grew [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Trickle-down Economics   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconThe Pinkertons Have a Long, Dark History of Targeting Workers — In recent times, they have tried to leave behind their thuggish image and pivoted toward more white-collar efforts, like “corporate investigations” and “comprehensive risk management,” though they’re called in sometimes to handle security during strikes [2020]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Teen Vogue    

  • faviconGet Capitalists’ Grubby Hands Off Our Hobbies — Christian moralists long promoted hobbies as a way to occupy idle hands, bringing the work ethic into our free time. Today hobbies risk turning into side hustles — yet they also point to what work might look like if it wasn’t about making money [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Leisure, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconRevolt of the Robots — We should keep fighting for better jobs and better working conditions. But the battle against workplace technology is an unequal one. The real economic struggle now is for the redistribution of wealth generated by labour and machines, through universal basic income, the revival of the commons and other such policies [2018]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: How to be Human, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Independent Blogs    

  • faviconTech Giants Are Building a Dystopia of Desperate Workers and Social Isolation — The on-demand economy was marketed as serving the common good, but it was designed to meet the needs of overworked (and disproportionately well-off) professionals, while taking advantage of the labor of precarious, poorly paid workers who had little control over their work & were denied rights [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Worker Rights   
    Comments   
    Source: Jacobin    

  • faviconIs a Four-Day Workweek the Secret to Saving the Planet? Perpetual economic growth is driving climate change and making us miserable. The degrowth movement offers a way out that we should at least consider [2020]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: 4 Day Week, Environment   
    Comments   
    Source: The Walrus    

  • faviconWealthy nations rely on a large net appropriation of labour and resources from the rest of the world through unequal exchange in international trade and global commodity chains. Southern wages are 87–95% lower than Northern wages for work of equal skill. While Southern workers contribute 90% of the labour that powers the world economy, they receive only 21% of global income [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Research   
    Comments   
    Country: DE,  UK,  US   
    Source: Scientific Journals    

  • faviconThe Class Struggle in Silicon Valley — A generation ago, tech workers viewed themselves as billionaires-in-waiting, working extremely long hours at the expense of sleep and social life in the hope of making “a dent in the universe.” But deteriorating working conditions have led to a shift in perspective, sparking an unprecedented wave of worker activism [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Technofeudalism, Workism   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: ZNetwork    

  • faviconJapan asks young people why they are not marrying amid population crisis — many young Japanese are reluctant to marry or have families because of concerns about the high cost of living in big cities, a lack of good jobs, and a work culture that makes it difficult for both partners to have jobs, or for women to return to full-time employment after having children [2024]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: How to be Human, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: JP   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconWork, Work, Work — So a Few Can Be Rich: Inside every workplace, management control mechanisms have been put in place, the result of which has been stress, injuries, depression, and a profound sense of alienation, the consequence of living under the control of others [2022]
    In: Democracy & Power,  Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Mental Health, Workplace Dictatorship   
    Comments   
    Source: CounterPunch    

  • faviconWork anxiety is built into capitalism: Max Weber’s 1905 book still perfectly captures the mindset that sustains our work ethic today. He shows how European Protestants created a mode of thinking about money, work and dignity that we, to this day, cannot escape: it is our “iron cage” [2022]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Protestant Work Ethic, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconYour boss is obsessed with productivity without knowing what it means – That’s poor ground to stand on when trying to revoke remote work [2023]
    In: Predatory capitalism    
    Topics: Productivity, Remote Working   
    Comments   
    Source: Vox