Rethink Work

Changing how we think about work

#Protestant Work Ethic

There are currently 12 articles in this category    RSS

  • faviconWhy Work? The meaning and significance of work have already changed fundamentally. The possibilities of increasing and using leisure time have meanwhile increased exponentially. To ignore these facts is to remain trapped in the gravitational field of classical social theory—from Hegel to Freud via Marx—and to make work a fetish [2017]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Leisure, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: The Baffler    

  • faviconYour Worth Is Not Your Productivity — From the draconian Poor Laws of the nineteenth century to today’s workfare conditions, governments have consistently used benefits as a tool to discipline those deemed to be ‘idle’ [2025]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Productivity, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: UK   
    Source: Tribune    

  • 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    

  • 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    

  • faviconHannah Arendt on the Human Condition: Productivity Will Replace Meaning — Arendt thinks we must somehow cease glorifying labor and return it to its true place at the bottom of the vita activa hierarchy. We must unblur the lines between labor and work, and between work and action [2024]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: How to be Human, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: Philosophy Break    

  • faviconThe Shame of Work — Review of “The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work”, by David Frayne; If ever a book was designed to help you question the value of the work ethic and look anew at our modern obsession with productivity and promotion, this is it [2016]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Books, Protestant Work Ethic, Workism   
    Comments   
    Source: The New Rambler Review    

  • 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    

  • 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 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    

  • faviconWords indicating labour in most European languages originate in an imagery of compulsion, torment, affliction and persecution. It seems that despite the progress, work doesn’t bring relief from poverty, but it’s rather a confirmation that humanity is destined to suffer needlessly and endlessly [2013]
    In: Good life    
    Topics: Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: The Guardian    

  • faviconBeyond Bullshit Jobs — There’s plenty of meaningful work to be done in order to save humanity and the planet. […] Our aim, then, should be to replace oppressive and meaningless work with work that actually enhances peoples’ lives, other people as well as the people who are engaged in that work [2019]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: How to be Human, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Source: The Philosopher    

  • faviconThe Protestant work ethic is the notion that your worth is a function of your hard work: what you produce. This is the mental illness of our time. The idea of hard work put forth in American society is a burden that crushes the broken and disenfranchised and suffocates the souls of those who grit their teeth and bear it [2018]
    In: Democracy & Power    
    Topics: Mental Health, Protestant Work Ethic   
    Comments   
    Country: US   
    Source: Life After Dogma