Antiwork and the Economy
A sustainable future will depend on rethinking how we think about and treat workers
During the latest Black Friday, workers at Amazon across 20 different countries organized a strike to “Make Amazon Pay”. During the last two years of the pandemic economy, big tech like Amazon actually increased their profits while none of that wealth was passed on to the workers that support those industries. At the same time, a Reddit community called Antiwork with its over 1 million members also started to organize their own boycotts against Black Friday with a general walkout of retail workers. They’ve also rallied behind a $25 hour wage at McDonald’s, and posted endless stories of quitting against terrible bosses and inhuman working conditions. While all of this fizzled out without any noticeable impact on the pre-holiday shopping frenzy, it does signal a significant shift of the attitude of people towards work and consumer culture.
For the entire post-WWII economy, the world has been dominated by the idea of the capitalist free market. The American Dream was to pursue work, business, and profits above all else in order to make it big. This economic ideology would turn the US into the worlds leading superpower, demonstrating the power of growth through consumerism. It became infectious drawing in other nations across the Pacific…
